6" Darkside Polishing Lap from Gearloose [Size: 6 inch]

The Darkside POLISHING REVOLUTION:  DARKSIDE LAPS - these are proven sellers from Gearloose - maker of the famous BATT laps.  Now available from Aussie Sapphire - official agent in Australia.

DARKSIDE and BATT LAPS are a revolution in faceting that has taken the USA by storm - now you can see why the Americans are raving about these by buying direct from Aussie Sapphire.  These will give you trouble-free polishing without scratches. These are NEW released in early October, feedback is outstanding one user wrote: "This Darkside Lap is Truly amazing, I'm no expert and always had trouble getting a polish. I just threw this Darkside on and it worked, no scoring or breaking in GREAT !!" 

The DARKSIDE™ is a brand new lightweight lap, made of  specially developed material coated onto an aluminum baseplate, then machined both sides for flatness. It can be used directly on the platen, or if you are one of those facetors who likes to press down hard when polishing, put it on a master lap. For its thickness it is surprisingly rigid. It is designed for polishing, though it has been tested successfully with 3K as a prepolish.

The Darkside lap is designed for polishing only - you will NOT be able to cut with the DARKSIDE™ as you can with the BATT.  "DARKSIDE is a Trademark used to describe a proprietary advanced composite polymer that has been engineered to produce low coefficients of Friction and thereby run cooler than other polymeric laps. It has domains which are lyophilic and hydrophilic, allowing use of any polish medium.

Like all Gearloose laps, the polishing mechanism relies on surface complexity for polish retention, and lubricity for reduced heating and higher polishing efficiency. Some users have gotten three pavilions done before needing to add more diamond. Because the composite contains carbon, it has a natural affinity for diamond, but the hydrophilic domains accept oxide polishes.

USING THE DARKSIDE (info sourced from the manufacturer):

Go Easy! Be stingy with the polish! For use with diamond polish, you can use a tiny bit of spray compound, or a THIN SPARSE amount of the regular compound, or, with a tissue wipe on a thin film of WD40 or any common oil type extender, then wipe dry. Wipe on a THIN film of diamond powder. Wipe clean once in a while to remove stone dust buildup, and repeat as needed to maintain polishing speed. Slower speeds are used than with a BATT™. Try 200-400 RPM until you get the feel of the lap.

For oxide use, either use it right out of the box with a THIN, dilute slurry of the oxide polish, or, if changing from diamond to oxide for that pesky quartz, wash the lap with a little detergent (409 or Fantastik work well), rinse, and begin polishing. After oxide use, if you want to go back to diamond, rinse the lap, and prepare as above with the oily tissue to "polarize" the lap for diamond.