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When I talk to people about their favorite polishing techniques, I find that works for them may not work for me and vice versa.  Here are the old standbys that seem to work for everyone.

Leather pads do NOT have an adhesive backing. So, you have to use feathering cement to attach them to a base plate or master lap. Feathering cement can be found on our accessories page..

Cerium Oxide:

We sell two grades of Cerium Oxide: Optical grade, which is good for soft glass and tumbling and the Top grade of Cerium Oxide (99.9% pure), which works on all glass, polishes opals and faceted stones and other quartz-based gem materials.  There is a substantial difference in the price between the standard (90%) grade and the 99.9% grade, but I find the faster polishing speed of the high quality cerium oxide makes it worth the extra cost.

Cerium Oxide is a must for polishing quartz, agate and jasper, but it also works well for opal, beryl, tourmaline and many soft stones.

Tin oxide is a great polish for most cabbing materials, glass and any material containing quartz. It is the polish of choice for marble. Many other stones in the hardness range of quartz and softer polish best with Tin Oxide. Often, when a full polish can't be obtained on a stone, tin oxide will do the trick.

Our Tin Oxide is 99.9% pure.

Aluminum Oxide (Alumina):

There are two types of Aluminum Oxide:  "A" and "B".  Because the brand name "Linde" used to be almost synonymous with high quality Aluminum Oxide, many people still use "Linde A" and "Linde B" to describe the two types.  Our Aluminum Oxide is the highest quality (99.9% pure) and equivalent in quality to Linde.

Aluminum Oxide "A" is used for polishing tourmaline, beryl, garnet, topaz, peridot, danburite, etc.  Sometimes topaz, peridot and danburite don't polish well with Aluminum Oxide and polishing with diamond is required.

Aluminum oxides labeled as "A" are not all equal in quality or performance.  Check the size of the grit.  In order to be of top "Linde" quality, Aluminum Oxide "A" should be .3 micron in size, and Aluminum "B" should have an extremely small micron size of .05.  To put this into perspective, 50,000 grit is .5 micron and 100,000 grit is .25 micron.  For more information on grit vs. micron sizes, check out the How-To & Tips Section of our Facetingmachines.com website.

Aluminum "B" polishes very slowly and is mostly used on soft and difficult stones. We no longer sell it.

We are very impressed with this new polishing powder. Super Blue is a relatively coarse aluminum oxide that is finely graded for particle size. The grains of the polish stay sharp as they break down, which makes for an aggressive polishing action.

Super Blue will quickly polish most stones softer than sapphire, especially chrysoberyl and cubic zirconia. Super Blue puts a quick and fine polish on spinel, topaz and garnet. It also works on opal! However, we have found this polish works best when used on stones 8 and harder on the Moh's scale. We have not gotten satisfactory results with it on quartz. This may be because quartz doesn't polish well with aluminum oxide. Like diamond, if too much Super Blue is put on a lap, it will scratch.

Zam is the most common brand of green rouge. It produces an excellent final polish on most medium hardness to soft stones. It is often used after diamond polishing to create a super high luster on turquoise, chrysocolla and many other stones.

Zam also works great for polishing silver, bronze, gold and other metals.

Diamond Powder:

There are two main types of diamond powder: natural (Standard) and synthetic (LapidaryPro): LapidaryPro High Grade Powder is synthetic diamond and is more uniform in shape, size and quality than natural diamond.

Diamond Powder is used to charge copper, bronze, tin, BATT and other laps as well as grinding and polishing pads.

Standard Diamond Powder:
Note: we are discontinuing Standard Diamond Powder, but still have some 180 grit available.

LapidaryPro High Grade Friable Diamond Powder:

LapidaryPro diamond is the highest quality synthetic diamond available. Unlike other diamond that rounds out when worn, LapidaryPro diamond is friable and retains sharp edges that continue to cut, even as the diamond particles wear down. So, less diamond is needed and it lasts longer. LapidaryPro diamond is also very finely graded, which means the powder is extremely uniform in size. So, it cuts like one would expect it to, and with less of that problematic scratching that is so well known to those of us who use loose diamond for grinding and polishing. We stock LapidaryPro High Grade diamond powder from 325 to 200,000 grit in both 5 carat and 25 carat vials.

Italdo Diamond Spray:
Italdo Diamond Spray was the first diamond spray on the market and it is still the best.  Italdo contains the finest friable diamond, which continues to expose a sharp edge to facilitate quick polishing, but without scratching.  Italdo uses the flotation method to grade their diamond grit.  The floatation method sorts out different grit sizes with incredible accuracy.  The result is quick pre-polishing and polishing, with no hazing or scratching caused by oversized diamonds.  We highly recommend Italdo Diamond Spray on all types of pre-polishing and polishing.  The spraying action is done by a pump, so it contains no harmful CFCs.

This item can not be shipped outside the US.

LapidaryPro Diamond Compound uses the highest grade friable diamond that is used in LapidaryPro diamond powder. It lasts longer, cuts faster and has less scratching problems than standard diamond compound. We stock all grits of LapidaryPro Diamond Compound from 3,000 to 200,000 grit.

LapidaryLube is used to lubricate and disperse diamond powder on laps and polishing pads. It also serves as an extender for diamond compound. Works similar to Crystalube.

This item can not be shipped outside the US.

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