ps_bond
15-08-2013, 08:37 AM
In my fun with flush setting the mother of pearl, I scratched it. Soft stone, fairly soft but still not soft enough tools - it's going to happen.
To fix this, I cut a cocktail stick into short lengths (around 1cm) then, using some cheap diamond lapping pastes from EBay (the Chinese pastes - cheap, but they work) I used the cocktail stick nubs as polishers in the flexshaft (chuck handpiece, obviousl) and worked down through the grits to about 0.5u to take out the scratches. You don't need very much paste, but you do need to change sticks for different grits. As the sticks are now impregnated with diamond grit, you could save them (individually bag with the approriate paste) although I didn't bother.
Not much use for chipped ones, admittedly. If you've got the magnification you can polish facets if you're careful though.
To fix this, I cut a cocktail stick into short lengths (around 1cm) then, using some cheap diamond lapping pastes from EBay (the Chinese pastes - cheap, but they work) I used the cocktail stick nubs as polishers in the flexshaft (chuck handpiece, obviousl) and worked down through the grits to about 0.5u to take out the scratches. You don't need very much paste, but you do need to change sticks for different grits. As the sticks are now impregnated with diamond grit, you could save them (individually bag with the approriate paste) although I didn't bother.
Not much use for chipped ones, admittedly. If you've got the magnification you can polish facets if you're careful though.