Dynalap Spectra Laps for Polishing Quartz & Opal

Hi, I'm Steve Moriarty from moregems.com, and today I'm going to give you a few tips on spectra laps. These are things I've recently learned. I've used these for years, they're my go-to lap for amethyst, and I also use it when I facet opals.

So here's the spectra lap in place, you know, they do require a master lap underneath. Now what I used to do, you know, I... You can use these plain, just run water on them and they work just fine. But after you use them for a little while, they slow down significantly, so I've found that the addition of cerium oxide aids in the longevity of the lap and actually speeds up the polishing.

Now I used to just put it on there, and spread it out, and then run the water really slow because it would just wash it away and you'd have to recharge constantly. But recently I found a better way of using this. And how you do this is you just put a little ring... Start this up. Well, these things get clogged up a little bit. So you just put a little ring of cerium around the center of the lap and put the water drip just outside that ring. And so it doesn't wash it away, but when you need material, you just dip your finger in there and then drag it out. And then you can drag it out for quite some time until this actually gets too dry to use, and even then you can still use it. But this has been a really effective way to keep it charged.

So as I'm polishing, once I loose this material, which I'll use my finger and actually help keep it in by angling my finger so it comes back in towards the center, and then when I need more, just dip it, and pull out a little bit, and start polishing again. So I've found it the best way to use these Ultra Laps.

So when you're polishing with Ultra Laps, or diamond, or pretty much anything, or cutting, for 40 years I have cut and had no ventilation. And just recently I purchased a fan that I'll run while I'm cutting, with the hopes that it's going to at least blow the material, that's coming off the lap, out of my area. And so you're not breathing in whatever's coming off there. Because when I polish with diamond, I can actually taste the material that's coming off the lap. So hopefully this will help, I mean, a little late in my career. Not too late, but for you young cutters, 40 years of breathing in this material is probably not a healthy thing. I haven't had any issues, but better off you take some methods that will keep this out of your breathing area.

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