Thread: Do diamonds wear

Originally Posted by prodigy

Garrett, aka jnats, from japanese-whetstones.com makes his own. I'm not sure exactly how the process works but the steel plate is the base, then nickel is used to adhere them to the steel. Not sure if that helps, but that's the extent of what I know.

Whatever they use, it is TOUGH and holds on to the diamonds! All I could say.

I believe everything in this Universe is subjected to the inevitable force of - entropy.

Originally Posted by Phrank

I believe everything in this Universe is subjected to the inevitable force of - entropy.

entropy is still a member IIRC but hasn't posted in quite some time AFAIK ..........

As far as the durability of diamonds...............

The diamond plates are made by embedding the diamonds in nickel. The steel plates must be copper plated first, then nickel plated. I assume that they place the diamonds then nickel plate over them until the depth is enough to hold the diamonds (relatively) securely. As far as how they get the diamonds uniformly and regularly placed on the plates, I haven't a clue on that one. I'm thinking perhaps they are kept in solution with the nickel plating solution and they just get dispersed evenly across the surface as the nickel is deposited, then cemented in as further nickel is deposited. Or maybe they deposit the diamond with a thicker nickel plate solution help keep the diamond dispersed evenly and in solution then pull it out of that tank and switch to a pure nickel plate tank to finish the nickel deposition.

You know, when you cut a loaf of bread you don't use much pressure on the loaf you let the knife do the work (sound familiar?). I suspect if you want a diamond hone to last you use minimal pressure and let the diamonds do the work without you assisting cause they don't need you to assist.

Back in the Geology Lab our Lapidary Saws used a gravity feed mechanism and a lot of lubrication. There was very little pressure against the rock the diamond blade just slowly bit off pieces of the rock and the saws lasted a very long time.

Yes, less pressure will help the diamonds last longer, although using less pressure to lap something hard like a very hard bond aluminum oxide synth hone or an Ark will get you nowhere fast unless using a brand new diamond plate. That's one of the reasons I always recommend using loose grit SiC for the bulk of lapping hard stones - it saves that wear and tear on the diamond plate.

Lapidary saws are also a lot different than a diamond hone. Diamond hones are electroplated with a single layer of diamond, whereas a lapidary blade uses a metal or resin bonded sinter and a LOT more diamonds in a much thicker layer. Those are made so that when the diamonds dull, they pull out of the sinter/matrix and are replaced with a new sharp diamond after the resin or metal bond standing proud of the next diamond is rapidly worn away. This means that they are able to last orders of magnitude longer than a diamond hone and also able to keep cutting at a very rapid and consistent pace since they always have fresh new diamond abrasive particles available.

Flattening stones can be analogous to restoring edges. Start coarse & finish fine in a workable progression.
The main advantage of SiC powders is you can get them in the double figure grit range to kickstart the work, whereas diamond plates would be costly if they came in 20-50 grit.

I was looking through some of my stash of hone/honing info pdfs the other day and ran across this study/paper regarding diamond surfacing pads used on silicon wafers. This is a download of a PDF, so be aware of that before clicking - it's from Google so it's saf e. It mainly discusses the effect of diamond abrasive wear on surface finish and productivity, and may be dry reading for some but it was interesting enough to me so that I saved it. I forgot I had this or would have posted it earlier. There are some nice SEM images of quite rounded worn diamonds in the paper.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...idg7sYmBaewURw