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› Forums › Techniques, Tricks, and Tips › Make your own cerium oxide polishing lap
Hello. Have great, easy way to make crylic cerium oxide polishing lap. Technique passed to me from my 92 year old instructor. He’s a certified gemologist by GIA as well as master faceter. It makes polishing glass, quartz,etc. so quick and easy. Coat lap with acrylic solvent. Coat with cerium oxide immediately. I dip lap i metal round cake pan and tranfer to 2nd pan with powder. Solvent dries quickly so be fast. Brush off excess powder. Do outdoors – powder flies everywhere. Do not breath in. Put on machine with water drip about 2 drops per second. Break in with scrap material. Breaks in quickly. Light to medium pressure. Last a long time and works better than ANY other polishing lap I’ve tried (and I have them all).
I read your post and find it interesting. Can you provide more details?
1. What kind of lap is being coated – lucite, cd, topper, ???
2. What keeps the CEO2 from building up and causing scratches?
3. Do you use a water drip when polishing? How much.
4. How do you get rid of the swarf?
I’d like to try your method. Hope you can reply.
jim
Hi Jim. Glad my post was of interest. It was a babasic 8″ acrylic 1/4″ disc you can purchase at most lapidary supply vendors. 1/4″ arbor. I use The Rock Peddler. No issues with swarfing. Its a very fine polish. No visible filings. I rinse well after polish and spin lap dry. No problems wuth build up as I use until all cerium oxide is pretty well gone. My teacher scscored his and then did the dip. I simply put my disc in the solvent and quickly dipped into the cerium oxide. I use water drip. I also run a quarts ir hard rock across a few times to “scrape” off excess. It polishes my quartz better than anything I’ve ever tried. I can send pictures if you want.
I am intrigued by this method. I would like more information on the acrylic solvent.
I am interested in this too. What kind of acrylic solvent are you using?