FAQ
Do you ship internationally?
Yes - Canada ($30) and Europe ($50) for a flat rate, buyer responsible for relevant duty and import taxes.
Are these ready to use straight out of the box?
The laps should be simply dressed before initial usage for best results.
How often should the laps be dressed, and how is that done?
See the Care and Maintenance guide, linked above.
Do these have a steel or aluminum baseplate?
The baseplate of these are aluminum to keep them at a comfortable weight and easy to care for.
Should I expect these to arrive flat and balanced?
My goal is to deliver products that are exceptionally flat and balanced.
Is an Impulse hybrid bond lap a sintered lap?
Colloquially within the gem community "sintered laps" are assumed to be 100% metal bond laps, though resin, metal, and hybrid bond laps are all created from a sintering process. Hybrid laps are closer to resin bond than metal bond laps in practice, but contain significant amounts of both metal and resin in the matrix.
How do hybrid bond laps differ in performance from typical metal sintered or resin bond laps?
At similar grit size and relative diamond concentration, you should expect hybrid bond laps to cut faster and with a smoother finish than metal sintered laps. Against similar diamond content resin bond laps, you should expect faster cutting and longer form holding.
What materials are hybrid bond laps intended for?
The 500grit hybrid bond lap was developed intentionally for an ideal sapphire cutting lap, exceptionally fast and smooth cutting without ever reaching the glassy, work hardened, orange-peeled state that can happen with too fine a lap and materials with significant directional hardness. That said, it works great in most materials tested so far, including quartz through moissanite - the metal content holds the form against the harder materials and the resin content keeps the finish smooth and fast on all.
I want to completely resurface my laps, how do I do that?
All hybrid bond laps can be flat lapped at home against a cast iron or glass lapping plate (or against themselves) with silicon carbide powder, details of that process in the Care and Maintenance guide.
I often offer factory resurfacing service to bring the laps back to ideal flatness and parallelism. Please reach out if you are interested in that service.
Where are these made?
These are formed and balanced at a diamond tools manufacturer in Zhengzhou, China, and finished lapped and turned for flatness and parallelism here in Washington.
How do I reach out if I have issues?
Please contact me using the contact form on the website or reach out directly to garretts@impulsegems.com through email and I will get back to you as soon as I can.