Thank you so much for doing this video. Lots of information out there about gemstone cutting that is great. Not much out there on how to properly charge laps. Doing my second stone and I really needed the information you provided. I missed your contest. Darn!
I don't use a Water Drip at all with my Darkside. I use a Spray Bottle set to Mist and I use Very Little Oxide. You can barely call it a "slurry" ! In fact, the amount shown in this video is about exactly right. I sometimes use a Battstik and sometimes I use a tiny bit of High Purity Cerium Powder on my finger tip. But First, I prepare the "clean" Lap with Snake FLUID (not snake oil) and then apply a mist of water and a tiny bit of Cerium Oxide or Zirconium Oxide. It works like a charm. PS> I barely run the lap speed between 2 and 3 and sometimes it's barely moving at all. The slower the revolutions, the less oxide is getting tossed off the lap.
Best wishes on your move to a new home! I hope that it has a good space for your gem cutting, and that you will be both comfortable and happy there. This is a great informational video, thank you for making it. Question: Is it OK to just use water from the faucet, or should the spray bottle contain something special like de-ionized water?
Thank you so much, I will build a much more comfortable place for gem cutting, video recordings, photos and home office🙂 Yeah the spray bottle only contains pure tap water. We have fairly clean water here, hardly calcareous etc👍
Once you use 1 type of polishing compound on a lap then is that the only compound you can use for that lap in the future? Amzing amethist too! Really enjoying your channel it's helping me to figure out how to get started.
Thank you for watching, i am happy if my Videos help👍🏻 In the case of the Darkside Lap, the oxides just float on it and you can easily use different oxides after cleaning your lap. It is different, for example, with a BATT Lap when using e.g. polycristaline Diamond they're embedded in your Lap and i recommend to use only one grit size each.
How many time do u take to mirror polish a facet ? I don't know if its my lap or my technique but it can take me 15 minutes more to polish a litle facet and i don't know if its normal ( i have a copper lap and path through 320 - 600 - 3000 - diamond paste polish ) on a aqua marine (i 'm waiting for my darkside with serium oxide hope this will go a lot faster )
Have you tried the new diamax i had the honor of talking to the inventor and he said it is much better than the darkside uses less oxide or diamond and faster smoother and less heat friction. It came out this year haven't found any videos but found several competition cutters that were placing or winning using it have not heard a single negative but only word of mouth not video's I am not a professional I am a novice at best and when I have it arrive next week will make a video talked to him about it he suggested for stones I'm planning to use the battstiks or diastiks and a spray bottle with a light myst rather then the drip he said use very very little oxide and water and 300 rpm good speed
Upgraded version of Gearloose Diamatrix. No, unfortunately not tried yet but i am interested in. I've heard similar positive things and I look forward to your video. Thanks for the info👍
@@GermanGemcutter it arrives Monday along with one of his 99.9% cerium oxide polishing sticks is there a gemstone rought or a couple types you can suggest that I test on the video I have lots of natural Untreated rough of different types there are two that I just don't trust myself to cut I know I'm not at that skill level one is a 2.83ct winza Tanzania sapphire it is spotted equally throughout of a nice little darker than sky blue and a vivid pink and stunning the pattern of colors and contrast between them, the other is a hyalite opal from Zateces Mexico that is fully daylight florescent and a very good size. So I will most likely pay someone to cut both for me I know my level of skill and would break my heart If i made a mistake and just ruined what they could be. But I do have a very large selection of rough and would like your opinion on what ones to show on the video for the polishing capabilities of this lap I plan on using one side for diamond going 14,000, 50,000, 100,000 and then a 200,000 grit polishing with the cerium oxide I will pre polish to at least 14,000 grit but do you think I should do a 50'000 grit as well I know alot of people use 50,000 as final polish so I think I will prepolish one each the diamond at 14,000 then then 100,000 polishing stick and then one doing the same with a 14,000 then straight to cerium oxide polish on the new wheel and Polish a second stone with my OCD polishing steps but this will be first video I post and would like your input and appreciate any guidance and critique that you offer
Thank you for watching. For finishing i use oxides. For Quartz Zirconium (faster and more aggressiv) or Cerium Oxide works best. The Sticks are BATTSTICKS by Gearloose Lapidary and the Lap is the Darkside.
Hi there... How do u change the kind of oxide? I mean if u use the xerium oxide abd than u are going to use the alumium oxide.. how do u clean the darkside disk? Do u use just a water, soap, alcohol or aceton?
I merely faced with the trouble there.. I got scratches one time... it have happened immediately and I cannot eliminate this trouble((( I change tye stones, washed the diak, changed tge battsticks, kinds of oxides.. but anyway scratches are going on(((( I am in frustratiin((( So I have gone to my BA5T with 60K diamonds((( I used to polish with darkside before(((( Maybe u have any ideas? Gearloose doesn't answer((
Keeping everything very clean is extremely important, it may sound silly but it helps 90% of the time to avoid scratches. What material did you try to polish on the Darkside? Polishing works best with very small amounts of water and oxides. I use a spray bottle to apply the water. At which speed do you polish? How did you prepolish your stone?
@@evgenyk.4681 hard to tell what happend if it worked before 🤔 please let us know if you find a solution. Btw In general i prefer the Greenway to polish emeralds. No experience with Darkside for Emeralds.
It is made by Gearloose Lapidary gearloose.co/shop/darkside/ Here is a list of Dealers www.darksidelap.com/dealers.php PS: I bought and imported my Darkside lap directly from UltraTec along with my machine.
Thank you so much for doing this video. Lots of information out there about gemstone cutting that is great. Not much out there on how to properly charge laps. Doing my second stone and I really needed the information you provided. I missed your contest. Darn!
Thank you very much for watching and your kind words. I am always happy if my Videos help
I don't use a Water Drip at all with my Darkside. I use a Spray Bottle set to Mist and I use Very Little Oxide. You can barely call it a "slurry" ! In fact, the amount shown in this video is about exactly right. I sometimes use a Battstik and sometimes I use a tiny bit of High Purity Cerium Powder on my finger tip.
But First, I prepare the "clean" Lap with Snake FLUID (not snake oil) and then apply a mist of water and a tiny bit of Cerium Oxide or Zirconium Oxide. It works like a charm.
PS> I barely run the lap speed between 2 and 3 and sometimes it's barely moving at all. The slower the revolutions, the less oxide is getting tossed off the lap.
Great video 👍
Thanks
So glad you produced this video, because I got a very nice used Darkside Lap todap.
Great info, Moving can be challenging, I wish you well.
Thank you very much
I will try that out. Thank You.
Best wishes on your move to a new home! I hope that it has a good space for your gem cutting, and that you will be both comfortable and happy there.
This is a great informational video, thank you for making it. Question: Is it OK to just use water from the faucet, or should the spray bottle contain something special like de-ionized water?
Thank you so much, I will build a much more comfortable place for gem cutting, video recordings, photos and home office🙂
Yeah the spray bottle only contains pure tap water. We have fairly clean water here, hardly calcareous etc👍
Thank You for sharing!
With pleasure👍 Thanks for watching
Amazing information. I've always experienced the same with the Matrix/Darkside. I"ll try this spray bottle trick asap!
Thank you very much👍
Do you have a preference between the Matrix lap and Darkside lap?
I much prefer Matrix.
Which is the cutting sequence you use for quartz? are you cutting up to 1200 and then straight to polish?
Once you use 1 type of polishing compound on a lap then is that the only compound you can use for that lap in the future? Amzing amethist too! Really enjoying your channel it's helping me to figure out how to get started.
Thank you for watching, i am happy if my Videos help👍🏻 In the case of the Darkside Lap, the oxides just float on it and you can easily use different oxides after cleaning your lap. It is different, for example, with a BATT Lap when using e.g. polycristaline Diamond they're embedded in your Lap and i recommend to use only one grit size each.
@@GermanGemcutter Aewsome thanks for the info!
would you charge a diamatrix lap with diamond the same way?
How many time do u take to mirror polish a facet ?
I don't know if its my lap or my technique but it can take me 15 minutes more to polish a litle facet and i don't know if its normal ( i have a copper lap and path through 320 - 600 - 3000 - diamond paste polish ) on a aqua marine
(i 'm waiting for my darkside with serium oxide hope this will go a lot faster )
Have you tried the new diamax i had the honor of talking to the inventor and he said it is much better than the darkside uses less oxide or diamond and faster smoother and less heat friction. It came out this year haven't found any videos but found several competition cutters that were placing or winning using it have not heard a single negative but only word of mouth not video's I am not a professional I am a novice at best and when I have it arrive next week will make a video talked to him about it he suggested for stones I'm planning to use the battstiks or diastiks and a spray bottle with a light myst rather then the drip he said use very very little oxide and water and 300 rpm good speed
Upgraded version of Gearloose Diamatrix.
No, unfortunately not tried yet but i am interested in. I've heard similar positive things and I look forward to your video. Thanks for the info👍
@@GermanGemcutter it arrives Monday along with one of his 99.9% cerium oxide polishing sticks is there a gemstone rought or a couple types you can suggest that I test on the video I have lots of natural Untreated rough of different types there are two that I just don't trust myself to cut I know I'm not at that skill level one is a 2.83ct winza Tanzania sapphire it is spotted equally throughout of a nice little darker than sky blue and a vivid pink and stunning the pattern of colors and contrast between them, the other is a hyalite opal from Zateces Mexico that is fully daylight florescent and a very good size. So I will most likely pay someone to cut both for me I know my level of skill and would break my heart If i made a mistake and just ruined what they could be. But I do have a very large selection of rough and would like your opinion on what ones to show on the video for the polishing capabilities of this lap I plan on using one side for diamond going 14,000, 50,000, 100,000 and then a 200,000 grit polishing with the cerium oxide I will pre polish to at least 14,000 grit but do you think I should do a 50'000 grit as well I know alot of people use 50,000 as final polish so I think I will prepolish one each the diamond at 14,000 then then 100,000 polishing stick and then one doing the same with a 14,000 then straight to cerium oxide polish on the new wheel and Polish a second stone with my OCD polishing steps but this will be first video I post and would like your input and appreciate any guidance and critique that you offer
@@GermanGemcutter sorry I ramble a bit at times in typing I had a bad stroke two years ago
Sorry, what dis are you using, sir, for finishing
Thank you for watching. For finishing i use oxides. For Quartz Zirconium (faster and more aggressiv) or Cerium Oxide works best. The Sticks are BATTSTICKS by Gearloose Lapidary and the Lap is the Darkside.
Hi there...
How do u change the kind of oxide?
I mean if u use the xerium oxide abd than u are going to use the alumium oxide.. how do u clean the darkside disk?
Do u use just a water, soap, alcohol or aceton?
You can clean the Darkside Lap quickly and easily with water or alcohol. The oxides just float on it, they're not embedded in the Lap.
I merely faced with the trouble there.. I got scratches one time... it have happened immediately and I cannot eliminate this trouble(((
I change tye stones, washed the diak, changed tge battsticks, kinds of oxides.. but anyway scratches are going on((((
I am in frustratiin(((
So I have gone to my BA5T with 60K diamonds(((
I used to polish with darkside before((((
Maybe u have any ideas?
Gearloose doesn't answer((
Keeping everything very clean is extremely important, it may sound silly but it helps 90% of the time to avoid scratches. What material did you try to polish on the Darkside? Polishing works best with very small amounts of water and oxides. I use a spray bottle to apply the water.
At which speed do you polish? How did you prepolish your stone?
@@GermanGemcutter I try emerald...
Before it was ok.. but nowadays it is a nightmare((
@@evgenyk.4681 hard to tell what happend if it worked before 🤔 please let us know if you find a solution. Btw In general i prefer the Greenway to polish emeralds. No experience with Darkside for Emeralds.
Darkside polishing mandrel where available sir?
It is made by Gearloose Lapidary
gearloose.co/shop/darkside/
Here is a list of Dealers
www.darksidelap.com/dealers.php
PS: I bought and imported my Darkside lap directly from UltraTec along with my machine.
what material is darkside ?
A metal backing with polymer composite layer