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[Rooi]

I am an expat living in Taiwan and I have been searching all over for the best sources for wheels etc. I am purchasing a Poly 8 inch (hasn't arrived yet) , it seems to be able to manage two wheels and a flat lap. I would really appreciate any advice you knowledgeable folks can offer on what route to go with these limited number of wheel attachments. I looked at expanding drums using sanding belts (numerous options there), diamond sintered wheels, carborundum wheels... The list goes on. I plan to work cabs of regular and irregular shapes and sizes.

Another thing is the end Arbor 8" flat lap attachment. I see it is aluminium with a foam rubber attached base covered with what seems to be canvas. Is this enough or am I supposed to have alternative attachments for different coarse grade polishes? Another thing that caught my eye is that there seems to be a line of magnetic backed disc attachments for this kind of thing, being aluminium it obviously would attach, any ideas? (that's a lot of questions I know... I am very very new to the game ;)

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[Rooi]

I am an expat living in Taiwan and I have been searching all over for the best sources for wheels etc. I am purchasing a Poly 8 inch (hasn't arrived yet) , it seems to be able to manage two wheels and a flat lap. I would really appreciate any advice you knowledgeable folks can offer on what route to go with these limited number of wheel attachments. I looked at expanding drums using sanding belts (numerous options there), diamond sintered wheels, carborundum wheels... The list goes on. I plan to work cabs of regular and irregular shapes and sizes.

Another thing is the end Arbor 8" flat lap attachment. I see it is aluminium with a foam rubber attached base covered with what seems to be canvas. Is this enough or am I supposed to have alternative attachments for different coarse grade polishes? Another thing that caught my eye is that there seems to be a line of magnetic backed disc attachments for this kind of thing, being aluminium it obviously would attach, any ideas? (that's a lot of questions I know... I am very very new to the game ;)

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Typo ~ being aluminium it obviously would NOT attach (magnetically that is)

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[peruano]

Much of the answer will depend on what you can get in Taiwan or should we presume you can get anything, but shipping may be an issue?
You can do a might good job of cabbing with two wheels, but at least one of them has to be that expando wheel (armed with 3M diamond belts). You can get by with silica carbide or aluminum oxide belts for your coarser grades but will need diamond belt for the finer grits.   For your initial doming and preforming, you will probably want a hard diamond wheel (80 or 100 grit), but you could get by with a coarse belt if you elect to go with two expandos.  Never run the expandos without a belt (they can fly apart without the belt as support).  The flat sanding disk on the end will work for much polishing, but you will want a different substrate for each polish (felt for cerium oxide, leather for chrome oxide, etc. but the most important thing is to not mix unless you know what you are doing.  You can glue materials on your aluminum and can use some substrates that will allow easy (Velcro like replacement of the overlying material)..

Everybody has their own system, and much depends on what equipment you have, what rocks you work on, and what degree of refinement you expect as the final product.  Read, read, and read and just as importantly filter what is advised. 

[55fossil]

     I think you would be well off with two expando drums and silicon carbide belts. Diamond belts are quite expensive but do work better. Remember that the lapidary world made cabochons on nothing but silicon carbide for many years and still does. If I were to get one diamond wheel it would be a coarse grit for hogging off the rough quickly on your cabochons. Definitely use separate polish pads for different types of polish. My go to polish is tin oxide. I do not use multiple polishes on one cabochon. I can get a mirror finish on most agates and jaspers with tin oxide on a leather lap which I purchased from Richardson's Rock Ranch. I just replaced the leather after 20 years and still works great.  good luck,  neal

[lithicbeads]

Expando on one side and hard and soft wheels on the other. I used that setup for 30 years and tens of thousands of stones. You can change wheels very quickly with practice. I liked sic belts on the expando for the coarse grits and  diamond soft wheels for the finer grits. With the excellent soft wheels out there now most agate polishing ( and many other stones) is efficiently done with soft wheels . I like the sequence 3,000 , 8,000 and 14,000 .

[Rooi]

Much of the answer will depend on what you can get in Taiwan or should we presume you can get anything, but shipping may be an issue?
You can do a might good job of cabbing with two wheels, but at least one of them has to be that expando wheel (armed with 3M diamond belts). You can get by with silica carbide or aluminum oxide belts for your coarser grades but will need diamond belt for the finer grits.   For your initial doming and preforming, you will probably want a hard diamond wheel (80 or 100 grit), but you could get by with a coarse belt if you elect to go with two expandos.  Never run the expandos without a belt (they can fly apart without the belt as support).  The flat sanding disk on the end will work for much polishing, but you will want a different substrate for each polish (felt for cerium oxide, leather for chrome oxide, etc. but the most important thing is to not mix unless you know what you are doing.  You can glue materials on your aluminum and can use some substrates that will allow easy (Velcro like replacement of the overlying material)..

Everybody has their own system, and much depends on what equipment you have, what rocks you work on, and what degree of refinement you expect as the final product.  Read, read, and read and just as importantly filter what is advised.

Thanks Peruano : taken to heart

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[Rooi]

     I think you would be well off with two expando drums and silicon carbide belts. Diamond belts are quite expensive but do work better. Remember that the lapidary world made cabochons on nothing but silicon carbide for many years and still does. If I were to get one diamond wheel it would be a coarse grit for hogging off the rough quickly on your cabochons. Definitely use separate polish pads for different types of polish. My go to polish is tin oxide. I do not use multiple polishes on one cabochon. I can get a mirror finish on most agates and jaspers with tin oxide on a leather lap which I purchased from Richardson's Rock Ranch. I just replaced the leather after 20 years and still works great.  good luck,  neal

Thanks Neal!

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[Rooi]

Expando on one side and hard and soft wheels on the other. I used that setup for 30 years and tens of thousands of stones. You can change wheels very quickly with practice. I liked sic belts on the expando for the coarse grits and  diamond soft wheels for the finer grits. With the excellent soft wheels out there now most agate polishing ( and many other stones) is efficiently done with soft wheels . I like the sequence 3,000 , 8,000 and 14,000 .

Thanks lithicbeads.

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[Rooi]

Much of the answer will depend on what you can get in Taiwan or should we presume you can get anything, but shipping may be an issue?
You can do a might good job of cabbing with two wheels, but at least one of them has to be that expando wheel (armed with 3M diamond belts). You can get by with silica carbide or aluminum oxide belts for your coarser grades but will need diamond belt for the finer grits.   For your initial doming and preforming, you will probably want a hard diamond wheel (80 or 100 grit), but you could get by with a coarse belt if you elect to go with two expandos.  Never run the expandos without a belt (they can fly apart without the belt as support).  The flat sanding disk on the end will work for much polishing, but you will want a different substrate for each polish (felt for cerium oxide, leather for chrome oxide, etc. but the most important thing is to not mix unless you know what you are doing.  You can glue materials on your aluminum and can use some substrates that will allow easy (Velcro like replacement of the overlying material)..

Everybody has their own system, and much depends on what equipment you have, what rocks you work on, and what degree of refinement you expect as the final product.  Read, read, and read and just as importantly filter what is advised.

I'll have to weigh up all this great advice. Thanks! With the flat lap on the one side along with a wheel, I think will make it difficult to do two expanding drums. The lap will need to be removed every time I want to change a belt. But a coarse diamond wheel makes sense there probably a 100 (considering the previous advice), I heard that some stones don't take well to a very rough cut. I suppose 100 is that balance.

Move along to the single expanding drum, with all it's belts. What progression do you suggest from a 100 diamond wheel to cerium oxide polish (is that a good final polish)? I will be experimenting with many different stones (labradorite to start with)

Thanks

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[peruano]

Your flat sanding disc and whatever you attach to it should allow you to slip a belt past it to an expando further inboard.  At least that's what I would strive for. 

[lithicbeads]

A beginner should stay away from cerium or the other oxides. Learn to get as much out of the diamond pads and wheels as you can initially. Commercial poishes are rarely above 14,000 and many of the polishes you see on this site are less than that.

[gemfeller]

A beginner should stay away from cerium or the other oxides. Learn to get as much out of the diamond pads and wheels as you can initially. Commercial poishes are rarely above 14,000 and many of the polishes you see on this site are less than that.

That's an interesting comment Lithic.  I'm usually not satisfied with a 14K diamond polish and go to oxides for the final glitter.  I agree that it's good to learn as much as possible about diamond media but I'm curious why you'd warn beginners to stay away from oxides.  Maybe you mean that once diamond is mastered it's time to start learning the specialized uses of oxides. 

[55fossil]

    Maybe it is time for a separate topic on " how I get my best polish on a cabochon".  I know I have to use oxides or rouge to get the last little scratches taken care of. I have looked at so many cabochons that still have flat spots and scratches on them. Magnify the cab, roll it under bright light and really inspect the cab. And I know from the large pictures that Lithic posts that his cab and beads do look really well polished.

[edgarscale]

welcome    rooi to the forum from collingwood, ontario...great people here 

[Rooi]

welcome    rooi to the forum from collingwood, ontario...great people here 

Thanks for the welcome! I think I can get more information in these discussions than online tutorials.

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[lithicbeads]

I think people get tied up with the magic of oxide polishes. Without a superb pre polish the oxides are wasted. Also a number of people on the site have had contamination problems  that seem to me to probably be that the oxide brought up enough polish so that the bad scratches became very evident. Contamination obviously exists but it is an issue that many cutters can avoid by just getting  a perfect sequence leading up to the prepolish. If people took as much time trying to get the scratches out before leaving the 600 grit as they do trying to get scratches out polishing they would be happier and more productive.

[Stonemon]

I think people get tied up with the magic of oxide polishes. Without a superb pre polish the oxides are wasted. Also a number of people on the site have had contamination problems  that seem to me to probably be that the oxide brought up enough polish so that the bad scratches became very evident. Contamination obviously exists but it is an issue that many cutters can avoid by just getting  a perfect sequence leading up to the prepolish. If people took as much time trying to get the scratches out before leaving the 600 grit as they do trying to get scratches out polishing they would be happier and more productive.

What Frank said..., took me a while to figure out that 99% of the shape and polish happens on the course side. Without the prep, this game is not much fun.