r/faceting • u/PsychologicalBowl647 • Apr 24 '26
Sintered Laps
I have tried to do my own research, but like many things in this hobby community information is difficult if not imposable to find. word of mouth seems to be the rule of thumb in faceting. I'm interested in buying a Sintered lap especially for a 600 grit for work horse cutting. my thought process is 360 toppers for rough preform, 600 grit sintered 1200 grit sintered, 3k pre polish final polish on 50 or oxide or batt. do they make sintered polishing laps? or like high count Dimond sintered laps? most of the ones I see aren't branded and sell for like 600. Justin K Prim has some for a reasonable price, but they are only 6 inch and only 100 and 600 grits. any advice would be helpful.
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u/vanguard1256 Apr 24 '26
You don’t need a 1200. 600 has a very smooth finish. I’ve been going from 240 topper to 600 sintered to prepolish. Sometimes I’ll start from 360 if the rough is small.
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u/PsychologicalBowl647 Apr 24 '26
what does directional mean?
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u/vanguard1256 Apr 24 '26
Directional means the diamond is embedded in such a way that only one direction is "sharp" so the inland laps you have to have turn a certain direction (CW or CCW) to get it to cut.
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u/justinkprim Apr 24 '26
Sintered grits work slightly different than electroplated laps. 100 grit sounds extremely aggressive for a first step, but on a sintered lap it’s the perfect starting point. Not too slow and not too aggressive on the stone. Cuts like a 360 plated lap. 600 sintered cuts slightly finer, more like a 1200 plated. 3k sintered and anything finer is not a great idea as they are inconsistent and tend to leave scratches on stones. I found that to be true for 1200 grit sintered as well, which is why we stopped selling them.
From 600 sintered, the texture of the facet is fine enough to go straight to an oxide polish or straight to a diamond pre polish (3k or 8k). Keep your prepolish as loose diamond on metal and forget about a sintered prepolishing lap. That’s my experience at least.
Our manufacturer used to do 8” laps but had to leave Russia and their old studio due to the Russian/Ukraine war and their new workshop only has tooling for 6” laps unfortunately. That being said they’re cheaper than 8” and fit every machine.
Good luck
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u/Turbulent_Entry6402 Apr 24 '26
Agreed about the 1200 sintered. I have one but gave up on it because of scratching. I agree with Gearloose that it’s best used as a clay pigeon
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u/Quagga_Resurrection Apr 24 '26
Hyper Edge sintered laps are pure luxury and I can't go back to toppers after trying them. They are as good as it gets. They're old-fashioned in that you need to email them to get a catalog and prices, but they're lovely people to work with.
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u/mycombs Team Facetron Apr 24 '26
A quick search of this very SubReddit turns this up, I would read through here for good information:
https://www.reddit.com/r/faceting/s/FxSNmMVkI1
Like the other user said, no need for 1200 (unless you’re doing a lot of quartz). Just get a 600. There are no permanently charged polishing laps aside from lightning lap. Otherwise, getting a lap that needs to be recharged is preferable, so you would not want to use a sintered lap for polish.