sheltie
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since January 2012
Posts: 982
|
Post by sheltie on Mar 29, 2013 8:15:37 GMT -5
I'm thinking of buying a wet/dry polisher similar to the Barranca Diamond. For those of you who have something like this, I have some questions.
How do you keep slabs in place when you are polishing them? Can you do multiple slabs at one time (using the same grit pad)? How long do the pads last? Do you have some sort of container in which you polish them (to keep the water and slabs from going all over the place)? Since the grit pads on all but the BD only goes to 3,000 vice 15,000, are these pads good enough for a high degree of polish? Do you work with the polisher indoors or outdoors?
|
|
|
Post by johnjsgems on Mar 29, 2013 9:36:41 GMT -5
I use a rubber warehouse mat in a pan with a drain hole. Cheapest pans are the black plastic "mud pans" from Home Depot. I graduated from that to an expensive demo box from BD when I demonstrated at shows. With the plexi windows on there is almost no mess. Some kind of containment box with sides 4"-6" will help with the water spray. Most people use way too much water. The water that flies is not doing much to help. The 3000 grit pads will be a pre polish only, not a final. You can probably use a felt pad and polish from there. I use the BD pads through 13K and use diamond compound on a felt pad if needed.
|
|
sheltie
freely admits to licking rocks
Member since January 2012
Posts: 982
|
Post by sheltie on Mar 29, 2013 11:01:26 GMT -5
John,
Thanks for the advice. I also want to make one thing perfectly clear. I really like the BD polisher and the primary reason I'm not buying it is because of the size. My wife has very small hands (as do I) and when we tried it at Q, it was just too unwieldy to us. For a person with "normal" size hands I don't think the BD can be beat.
Denny
|
|
|
Post by johnjsgems on Mar 29, 2013 14:09:00 GMT -5
If you had a monster air compressor, the BD air powered unit would be perfect. Tiny and powerful. One problem with electric tools is generally size matters. The smaller the size the lower the power.
|
|