Two Vibrating Flat Lap Grinding Pan Questions

[herb]

I am now the proud owner of a 10 inch Raytech vibrating flat lap (paid only $10!) and a old 15 inch Lortone vibrating lap and have questions about both that I hope you folks can guide me on.

For the Raytech 10 inch vibrating lap, the polishing pan is in good shape, but the grooved grinding pan is fairly worn (the inner 2 groove circles are barely visible) I though I saw someplace online that sold replacement pans but now I can't find it anymore! I see lots of places with 15 and 20 inch replacement parts, but no 10 inch pans. Anyone know where I could find one?

I was also thinking about possibly just having a flat disk ground with the grooves and just placing the disk inside the old pan. I was wondering if it would add too much weight though. Also, not sure what it should be made out of. I think the original pan is cast aluminum. There are a zillion different kinds of aluminum and I have no idea what type to ask for if I call around local machine shops to get a quote.

I guess another option would be to just have the existing worn pan ground flat and re-grooved, but am not sure if it would be worth the cost.



For the 15 inch Lortone vibrating lap, the grinding pan doesn't have any grooves in the bottom to hold the grit. It seems to be slower than the 10 inch Raytech. I was thinking about having some grooves milled in the bottom of it and was wonder if it is just my imagination or if the grooves would actually speed up the grinding process. I called a small machine shop and got a quote of about $100 to do it. Wanted to see if people think it is worth doing before I drop the dollars.

Thanks,
-herb

[HankRocks]

Nov 26, 2018 15:22:11 GMT -5 herb said:

I am now the proud owner of a 10 inch Raytech vibrating flat lap (paid only $10!) and a old 15 inch Lortone vibrating lap and have questions about both that I hope you folks can guide me on.

For the Raytech 10 inch vibrating lap, the polishing pan is in good shape, but the grooved grinding pan is fairly worn (the inner 2 groove circles are barely visible) I though I saw someplace online that sold replacement pans but now I can't find it anymore! I see lots of places with 15 and 20 inch replacement parts, but no 10 inch pans. Anyone know where I could find one?

I was also thinking about possibly just having a flat disk ground with the grooves and just placing the disk inside the old pan. I was wondering if it would add too much weight though. Also, not sure what it should be made out of. I think the original pan is cast aluminum. There are a zillion different kinds of aluminum and I have no idea what type to ask for if I call around local machine shops to get a quote.

I guess another option would be to just have the existing worn pan ground flat and re-grooved, but am not sure if it would be worth the cost.



For the 15 inch Lortone vibrating lap, the grinding pan doesn't have any grooves in the bottom to hold the grit. It seems to be slower than the 10 inch Raytech. I was thinking about having some grooves milled in the bottom of it and was wonder if it is just my imagination or if the grooves would actually speed up the grinding process. I called a small machine shop and got a quote of about $100 to do it. Wanted to see if people think it is worth doing before I drop the dollars.

Thanks,
-herb

I have a 20 inch Vibrating Lap that I have been using for some time. It has a smooth bottom. The claim is that the grooved bottom speeds the grinding. If that is the case then it really would only be help during the Coarse stage(80 in my case) as it takes the longest depending on the smoothness of the cut. After that the next two stages, 220 and 600 are much shorter runs as they are only cleaning up the 80 grit marks. I have definitely not considered having the bottom grooved.

Adding a flat disk(plate with groves will need to be a good fit sealed properly otherwise the grit is going to migrate between the original pan and the new plate. That and you don't want the added plate moving with the rocks, thus reducing any grinding.

I am very satisfied with the Vib Lap and the polish it produces. The main issue for me is having a well weighted rock, either heavy enough with it's own weight or needing to glue weights to lighter, flatter rocks, the gluing is a bit of a hassle. 

[agatemaggot]

If you decide to have another 10 in. plate made I would recommend 6061-T6 aircraft Aluminum, that's about as tough as it gets. A plate that will just fit inside would be just fine because you can hold it in place by putting a (SMALL) amount, about Pee size drops of hot glue on opposing sides to keep it firmly in place and a box knife will get it out easily if you need to .

[QuailRiver]

Raytech was bought out by Lyman Products over 20 years ago. Lyman is a shooter's supply company and they wanted the rights to Raytech's vibe tumblers to sell to their ammo reloading customers. Lyman's never gave a rat's yack about lapidary and let the non-tumbling lapidary line of products suffer. A few years ago Rick Scott of Scott Manufacturing Inc. began purchasing the rights to produce those other non-tumbling pieces of Raytech equipment. Along with the rights to produce and sell those other pieces of equipment he did acquire some of the old stock of parts. I do not know if there were still any Raytech vibrating lap parts in that inventory or not but it would probably be worth giving him a call to check. 800-303-2466 or [phone].

Larry C.

[minerken]

If you have an angle grinder or Harbor Freight near you can get one for $20 or so. A flat plate of 1018 steel (common hardware steel) 1/8" thick scribe a circle of desired diameter using a cut off blade on the angle grinder rough out the circle (cut a bunch of tangent lines around the circle then grind to the circle). After making the circle lay out a grid on the plate using the angle grinder and cutoff wheel score groves on the plate and just set it in the original @agatemagot method. The only problem I see is that you would want to seal the edge so no grit or water would get under the plate.

[herb]

Nov 26, 2018 18:45:36 GMT -5 QuailRiver said:

Raytech was bought out by Lyman Products over 20 years ago. Lyman is a shooter's supply company and they wanted the rights to Raytech's vibe tumblers to sell to their ammo reloading customers. Lyman's never gave a rat's yack about lapidary and let the non-tumbling lapidary line of products suffer. A few years ago Rick Scott of Scott Manufacturing Inc. began purchasing the rights to produce those other non-tumbling pieces of Raytech equipment. Along with the rights to produce and sell those other pieces of equipment he did acquire some of the old stock of parts. I do not know if there were still any Raytech vibrating lap parts in that inventory or not but it would probably be worth giving him a call to check. 800-303-2466 or [phone].

Larry C.

Thanks for the info! I gave Rick a call. He has a bunch of the 15 inch pans available, but no 10 inch pans :-(

Looks like my best bet will be to have someone mill up a insert to put inside the existing pan.

[herb]

Nov 27, 2018 11:25:11 GMT -5 minerken said:

If you have an angle grinder or Harbor Freight near you can get one for $20 or so. A flat plate of 1018 steel (common hardware steel) 1/8" thick scribe a circle of desired diameter using a cut off blade on the angle grinder rough out the circle (cut a bunch of tangent lines around the circle then grind to the circle). After making the circle lay out a grid on the plate using the angle grinder and cutoff wheel score groves on the plate and just set it in the original @agatemagot method. The only problem I see is that you would want to seal the edge so no grit or water would get under the plate.

An interesting low cost solution! But wouldn't the 1018 steel rust? I suppose a bead of caulk or something similar would seal it well enough. The rubber tube bumper would protect the caulk from getting worn away and would still make the insert removable for when it wears out. Knowing my luck, I'd grind thru the plate while scoring the grooves!

[minerken]

There would be rust but if your using it and it's only surface rust I wouldn't think that a problem and if storing it for a time give it an oil or WD40 coating. Your grit is going to remove the rust very quickly and if you think about it some polishes are actually iron oxide's, so unless the rust was very thick shouldn't be problematic and even if it 's it would be broken down in a hearty beat. Another thing that you may do is make circular divits in the worn pan i.e. using a drill and say a 1/2" bit just make shallow
depressions on a grid actually some of the pan designs use this instead of the scored checkerboard lines. I have no clue as to how much better or worse one is than the other but I would say it was worth a go and may allow you to get some more lif out of the original pans.

[QuailRiver]

Nov 27, 2018 11:27:35 GMT -5 herb said:

Nov 26, 2018 18:45:36 GMT -5 QuailRiver said:

Raytech was bought out by Lyman Products over 20 years ago. Lyman is a shooter's supply company and they wanted the rights to Raytech's vibe tumblers to sell to their ammo reloading customers. Lyman's never gave a rat's yack about lapidary and let the non-tumbling lapidary line of products suffer. A few years ago Rick Scott of Scott Manufacturing Inc. began purchasing the rights to produce those other non-tumbling pieces of Raytech equipment. Along with the rights to produce and sell those other pieces of equipment he did acquire some of the old stock of parts. I do not know if there were still any Raytech vibrating lap parts in that inventory or not but it would probably be worth giving him a call to check. 800-303-2466 or [phone].

Larry C.

Thanks for the info! I gave Rick a call. He has a bunch of the 15 inch pans available, but no 10 inch pans :-(

Looks like my best bet will be to have someone mill up a insert to put inside the existing pan.

Since it's only a 10" diameter pan you may want to consider having a thin copper insert disc made and charge it with diamond grit in the way a copper faceting lap is. While diamond powder is more expensive than SC, man-made diamond grit has come down considerably in price from what it used to be. And once diamond grit is pressed into copper it remains for a while longer unlike the SC grit which breaks down and gets washed off after use. It shouldn't cost more than a few dollars per charging for a 10" diameter surface and will cut much faster and last longer than SC. Might be worth experimenting with.

Larry C.