Diamond Abrasive Types and How They Work

Welcome back to the His Glassworks Cold Shop

In our previous video we spoke about

the different types of abrasives you can use in your cold working

And if you haven’t seen that video yet

I highly recommend you go do that

so you get a better understanding of how abrasives work

so you’ll know which ones to choose for your processes

When it comes to Diamonds as an abrasive

you can generally break it down into two main formats

Natural Diamonds and Synthetic Diamonds

Natural Diamonds are exactly what they seem to be

Diamonds that are mined from the Earth that occur naturally

due to eons of pressure and heat

Most of the Diamonds in the world are going to be Natural Diamonds

When it comes to Natural Diamonds those can be broken down into

Industrial Diamonds, which is what will be used in our Coldworking tools

and then diamonds that you’ll see in jewelry

the majority of Diamonds in the world are actually Industrial Diamonds

They’re a little kind of greyish, blackish, brownish colored

so they’re not all that pretty to make

jewelry out of, but they work great for grinding and polishing

So in Natural Diamonds, you can take a closer look at those

you can see that this is a Natural Diamond

it’s sort of greyish, blackish mixture there

but you can see it’s got a light coloration to it

and that’s a pretty typical look for a Natural Diamond

now Synthetic Diamonds

are again exactly what they say they are

they are lab grown Diamonds

where they are specifically made

by generating heat and pressure in a shorter amount of time

to generate a specific type of Diamond

now Synthetic Diamonds are pretty easy to recognize as well

as you’ll see from this pile

the Synthetic Diamonds have this kind of golden color to them

they’re very different from what you’d see from a Natural Diamond

so you can very easily tell the difference between a Natural Diamond

and a Synthetic Diamond

so you may be asking yourself

so what’s the difference between a Natural Diamond and a Synthetic Diamond besides the color?

that’s a good question

Synthetic Diamonds are generally made for specific purposes

so for something like a Resin Bonded Diamond

those are all going to be a Synthetic Diamond

because they're grown in a lab specifically to bond to resins

so they’ll hold in longer and preform better

a Natural Diamond will actually break out of a resin bond much faster than a Synthetic Diamond will

Natural Diamonds are also going to break a little differently than a Synthetic Diamond

a Natural Diamond, when it breaks off

is going to leave a sharper edge

it’s a little more random in the way it breaks

a Synthetic Diamond on the other hand, when it breaks

is going to leave a bit of a flatter surface

it’s almost like it tabletops

when it breaks, so it’s a little less random

so the Diamond life on a Synthetic Diamond can sometimes be significantly shorter

we’ll talk about why that’s not such a big deal

in resin bonded Diamonds and other situations in a moment

but those kind of cover the biggest differences between a Natural Diamond and a Synthetic Diamond

So what’s the real difference between a Synthetic Diamond and a Natural Diamond when it comes to your Diamond tools?

Why choose one over the other?

as I’ve already discussed, Synthetic Diamonds can be engineered to do specific things

where as a Natural Diamond cannot

so let’s take our most common tools that we offer

our Electroplated, and Resin Diamond disk

so in our Electroplated Diamond disk, this is used with a Natural Diamond

it’s electroplated onto a copper substrate with nickel

so it holds the Diamond in place

Natural Diamonds work really well in this situation for Electroplated Disk

because as they break, they will still leave sharp edges

so as this disk wares down it will still remove material from your glass very efficiently

if we were to use a Synthetic Diamond in this disk

since the Diamonds are locked into a single orientation with that nickel

as those Diamonds broke, they would no longer be as effective

because they would leave a flatter surface on top of the Diamond rather than a sharper surface

so Natural Diamonds work really well in a situation where the Diamonds are locked into place in a single orientation

like our Electroplated Diamond disk, where it is nickel holding this Diamond in place

conversely, with our Resin Diamond Pads

our Diamonds are mixed into a Resin and then coated onto an optical felt substrate

now these are going to be Synthetic Diamonds that are grown specifically to bond well to resins

so as you use it, you won’t be knocking the Diamonds out of the Resin as quickly as if we were to use Natural Diamond with this

so these pads will last longer

if it were a Natural Diamond it would wear very quickly

because it would release from the Resin much faster

than an engineered Synthetic Diamond does

Well hold on minute you say

when I said Synthetic Diamonds break and leave a flat surface

why would I want to use them in a Resin Bonded Pad?

well’ unlike our Electroplated Diamond Disk

where the Diamond in locked into place in a single orientation on the surface of the pad

in Resin is a softer substrate

so as the Diamonds hit the glass they will actually move slightly within the Resin

so imagine grass blowing in the breeze

and you'll get a good idea of how the Diamonds move on the surface of a Resin Diamond Pad

so as your glass comes along and hits the Diamond, it shifts out of the way

as those Diamonds break in a Resin Pad

they’re still going to shift a little bit to the left and the right

as your glass hits it

so you’re always going to be hitting a sharper edge of that Diamond because it’s not locked into a single orientation

That’s what makes these pad very effective

so are Electroplated and Resin Diamonds the only type of Diamond tools out there?

No, actually they’re not.

Electroplated Diamonds are definitely the most common that you’re going to find

be it a flat lap, or something like this Electroplated Diamond Wheel

again you have Diamonds that are Electroplated with nickel onto the surface of a wheel locked into place

so they’re going to give you a very aggressive grind on your glass

but this is not the only option for Diamond tools

you also have what’s called Sintered Diamond

that’s S-I-N-T-E-R-E-D

Sintered Diamonds is going to take your Diamonds, be it Natural or Synthetic

they can be used both in a Sintered Diamond

mixing it with a softer metal matrix that is then compressed onto a tool with heat and pressure

so a Sintered Diamond tool, like this Diamond Wheel here

you may be able to see

there's Diamond all the way through this wheel

so there's probably about three quarters of an inch worth of Diamond on this wheel

compared to something like this Electroplated Diamond wheel

where you only have this single layer of Diamond on here

so these become much longer lasting wheels

but they also have other advantages over an Electroplated wheel

Remember with our Electroplated Diamond, the Diamond is locked into place with nickel

so you have a single layer of a single orientation of Diamond

so the Diamonds are really quite high in that nickel matrix

when you grind your glass, it’s going to give you a very aggressive grind on the glass

because all the points of the Diamond are sticking up out of the nickel

so you get this really aggressive grind on the glass

that will slowly begin to break down, and get duller and duller as you this single layer of Diamond on here

with this Sintered Diamond tool

as we've mentioned, there's Diamond all the way through here

and this metal matrix where the Diamond's mixed in is a little softer than this nickel based

so the Diamonds will move slightly in this metal matrix

it's a little bit softer

and they're a little bit deeper into that metal

as where the Diamonds in the nickel are raised up

the ones in a Sintered Diamond are actually a little bit further down into the metal matrix

so you're getting a little bit of a softer grind with the same grit level

you'll still get that high removal rate

that is comparable to an Electroplated wheel

but you're going to get a much softer surface on the glass

and something that's going to last a tremendously long time

because as this wears down old Diamonds will fall out of this metal matrix

and expose brand new Diamonds underneath it until you've gone all the way through

which honestly

would be both of our lifetimes together

so we've talked about Electroplated Diamonds

Resin Diamonds

Sintered Diamonds

and how they actually will traverse different tools

so it's not just flat laps or wheels

when we look at your saw blade

saw blades are going to be lots of different versions

you'll find Electroplated Saw Blades

Sintered Diamond Saw Blades

Resin Diamond Saw Blades

the most common of course is a Sintered Diamond Saw Blade

and you're probably very familiar with that these look like

you've got this sort of yellowish, brown, bronzey rim around your Diamond saw blade

and you now know, looking at these wheels, this is a Sintered Diamond Saw Blade

which means there's Diamond all the way through the metal matrix of this rim

this makes Saw Blades very long lasting

as they wear down the Diamonds with shed off of here and expose new Diamonds

so the saw blade just keeps going and going

Core Drills are the same thing

Core Drills will be Electroplated or Sintered

if you have a Sintered Core Drill

it's generally going to have this sort of bronzey color that you see in the Sintered Diamonds

that's going to be a much longer lasting Core Drill

this is a Resin Diamond Blade

so as we know if the Diamond is mixed into a Resin

it’s going to move around a little but more than it does if it's locked into place in a metal, be it Electroplated or Sintered

so this blade will actually give you a very fine cut on your glass, but it's going to be a lot slower because the Diamonds are not locked into place

Resin is also very fragile, you have to be very careful with these blades

but they will give you an excellent cut on your glass when you use them

the same thing goes for Belts

you can have Electroplated Diamond Belts

you can have Resin Diamond Belts

you're not going to see a Sintered Diamond Belt unfortunately

because it's just not feasible physically to create that

but you will notice when you start working with a lot of rougher grit Electroplated Diamonds

there's going to be a little dot pattern to a lot of these things

be it the Belts

or something like one of these Handipads

this is basically there to allow the score for the ground glass you create to move through this material and around it instead of clogging up the Diamonds

that can happen with a lot of the Diamond tools

so you'll often need to make sure that you clean them out, wash them off

keep all of that ground glass out of your Diamonds

to make sure that the Diamonds are still working as optimally as possible

so you may be saying, "Well are these the only options in Diamonds?"

"You've got Electroplated, you've got Sintered, you've got Resin"

"What else is out there?"

well Diamonds are extremely versatile

You can use them in a Paste to do Hand Lapping, that is often used

there is also a product from 3M called Electrostatic Diamonds

where they'll take Diamonds and adhere it to a paperback surface with an adhesive

and then they'll electrostatically charge the environment as the adhesive cures

what this does, is it creates

an environment where all the Diamonds will stand up

on the surface of this pad

but since they are locked into a very soft adhesive

some what like our Resin Diamond tools

you'll also get that effect where the Diamonds are kind of flowing back and forth as you grind with them

so they give you an extremely fine surface on the glass

that's easy to achieve because the Diamonds are a very aggressive medium

So what's the big take away from Diamond Abrasives?

the easiest things to remember are

Electroplated Diamonds are going to be

very aggressive on the surface of your glass

there's only going to be a single layer of them, so as they wear down that's it

your tool is finished, you're not going to get another layer of Diamond underneath that

with Resin based Diamond tools

you have a single layer of Diamond on there trapped into a Resin

so it's in a softer matrix than if it were Electroplated with nickel

that means it's going to move around a little bit more

and give you a softer grind on the glass with less removal

Sintered Diamonds, where they're mixed into a metal matrix

like this wheel, or your saw blades

are going to give you an aggressive grind on the glass

but a fine surface appearance

so you kind of get the best of both worlds between Electroplated and Resin

now Sintered Diamond tools are going to be a lot more expensive

but in the long run they will give you faster, better surfaces

than Electroplated or Resin tools typically will

So we've done a quick overview of Diamonds as an abrasive

how they're used, what types there are

and I know it can get really confusing

and we haven't even touched on Grit Size yet

which is a huge component in how you grind and polish your glass

so we're going to do another video soon that is going to cover Grits

from Rough to Fine

when to use which one

and the differences between them depending on the type of Abrasive you're using

so you get a better idea of how that progression works in your Cold Working