Polishing mineral glass with diamond paste.

[vext01]

Hi all,

Has anyone had experience with polishing mineral glass using diamond-based pastes? Would you recommend them?

E.g. glass polywatch

Thanks!

[Graziano]

Hi there ,I have used diamond paste ,depending on how deep the scratches or damage is start with a course cut and a tiny bit of oil on a brass lap and work it in straight lines ,then clean off thoroughly and the lap before you step up to a finer cut .Then do the next cut at 90 degrees to the last one that way you can see the progress . go all the way to polish it .You can do this on sapphire crystal but it takes a lot longer . Sometimes it saves a lot of time to just buy a new one . Hope this helps 

[jdm]

2 hours ago, vext01 said:

Has anyone had experience with polishing mineral glass using diamond-based pastes? Would you recommend them?

Give a read to the below

[mikepilk]

I have a Citizen Crystal Seven which had very deep scratches in the (very thick) glass. Wet and dry wasn't having much effect, so I used a 1000 grit diamond whetstone (plenty of water). It worked really well, then I moved on to diamond paste. 

[vinn3]

"laping on a laping plate",      i use the "figure 8 "  motion.    if you don;t have one,  a thick glass works good also.   vin

[kozmo9000]

On 3/5/2020 at 2:49 PM, mikepilk said:

I have a Citizen Crystal Seven which had very deep scratches in the (very thick) glass. Wet and dry wasn't having much effect, so I used a 1000 grit diamond whetstone (plenty of water). It worked really well, then I moved on to diamond paste. 

In what grit sequence did you put the paste?

[jdm]

34 minutes ago, kozmo9000 said:

In what grit sequence did you put the paste?

There is no need for a long sequence, you can do with a single grit too. Have a read into the below walk through. 

 

[mikepilk]

I bought a cheap set of pastes from ebay, they range from W40 (about 320 grit) to less than W1 (8000 grit).  I started with the W40 on a Dremel with hard felt disc.  Even the W40 didn't cut as much as I expected, which is why I used the diamond 'whetstone'. I think I then went to W20, W10, W5, W1. The end result looks good, but it's a lot more work than the few minutes it takes to polish acrylic.

[jdm]

16 minutes ago, mikepilk said:

 Even the W40 didn't cut as much as I expected

Basically one can't remove scratches with paste alone. I tried to explain that in the topic linked above.

[watchweasol]

As explained by jdm  scratches in sapphire and glass take longer the remove as the material is harder and requirers a staged approach with finer grit and polishes to achieve the desired finish.  Acrylics are a differnt matter being easily polished with the likes of  Sovolautosol, brasso, toothpaste the usual household products  or the propritry branded polishes specific for the polishing of watch glasses..  A friend of mine who makes Glasses  used a several stage system using different grits/polishes done by machine to achieve the Optical range and desired polish.