as i have said i have many cutting and polishing laps. been faceting for 50+ yrs.. it has come down to using a coarse to shape/rough in, a fine (1200) to finalize and make ready to polish– then 50k on a tin lap. finer polishing diamond powder takes longer to get work done and eyes can’t see any diff.. as to the ceramic i have 2- 6″ and one 8″ and haven’t found any polishing agent or method that produces a good polish so just us them as master laps– their useless to me. the batt lap i found out is 90% tin and has been doing a hell of a lot of polishing with no problem now for over a year and with students using it too and again we all us SLOW speed, and just enough(VERY SLOW DRIP) water to make our slur. as for charging any kind of lap with grits for cutting its no wonder folks have scratch problems. if you can push diamond in, your stone can pull it out, why are we going back to antique methods???? and get contamination from loosening diamonds. yes cleaning is important but we her don’t have to over do that and cut several stones before clean up. the only loose diamond we have around is the 50k., that way we don’t have to worry about that kind of problem. gemmakermz@cs.com