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Old 06-09-2018, 06:45 PM
jimmontg jimmontg is offline
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Join Date: Jan 2016
Location: Now live in Las Cruces NM.
Posts: 1,345
Michael, to hold stone I use 1/8" loveless screws.

I use a #30 or.128 carbide drill bit for the inset nut and a 3/32 carbide drill bit for the threads in addition to the epoxy. I also use diamond compound for polishing stone work. I used the diamond once to put a quick polish on a blade I had jeweled and I was sold. I now have several grits of diamond up to 18,000 grit. 5,000 grit puts a mirror polish on most steels and is great for lapidary too, I've found. I find the diamond compounds are much more aggressive and you can skip grits on the way to a mirror polish.

BTW if you finish by hand, you can get a near mirror polish on D2 tool steel, no high speed buffing. I put the compound on leather glued to sticks, but it is a rather tedious process as it obviously must be worked up to, but you can skip from 1500 to 3000 to 5000. I discovered this by lucky accident.

I buy my compounds from Boride Engineered abrasives as they have a huge selection of oil and water based products.

Here's the tiny loveless screws from Jephco Knifemaker Hardware.
http://https://shop.jephcosupply.com/Hardware_c4.htm

And here is Boride, who also have the best prices I've found for the Cratex products I use for jeweling.
http://https://www.borideabrasives.c...e/Default.aspx
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