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The Short Answer: What is BATT™?
A good, solid, cast tin alloy prepolishing and polishing lap. This hard tin alloy allows the casting to be rigid enough to serve as a solid lap, without bonding to a baseplate, or being excessively heavy. It provides sharper meets and higher speeds than are possible with laminated laps, and does so without the use of toxic metals such as lead and cadmium.
Details and Ordering Information
BATT™ Alloy was developed for the purpose of casting hard, dimensionally stable, nontoxic polishing laps for gem faceting applications.
Traditionally, tin and its alloys such as solders and type metal have made excellent faceting laps because of their ability to become "charged" with diamond and other polishes. Tin's low coefficient of friction or lubricity minimizes grabbing or dragging of the lap surface against the stone. But lead in these alloys adds no real benefits, and, with the use of acidic coolants such as vinegar, can produces toxic mists.
Pure tin's biggest problem, and one which is also present in many of its alloys is that it creeps in use, so is not dimensionally stable. It never work-hardens. This is beneficial when people are drawing or spinning deep shapes in pewter. Often with pure tin, the meets of the facets are not as hard as we would like them. So commercial laminated tin laps work well, at first, but become "bumpy" or "Orange peeled", and thinner at the edges. Hence, the effective height of the lap changes across its diameter.
The new "BATT ™" alloy is now used by hundreds of experienced and beginning gemcutters. Its casting and machining properties are superior to 95/5 solder and other tin alloys, and more importantly, performs better with oxide polishes. A harder alloy, it provides sharper meets and is more durable.
Being solid castings, finished on both sides, BATT ™ laps are more versatile than the one-sided laminated laps. Because they are solid castings, they may be resurfaced many times, to provide years of use!
Tuning the metallurgy:
In this metallograph, note the highly ordered grain structure in "BATT" as various alloying components sequentially crystallize when the alloy cools. Here, it is easy to see why the alloy can trap abrasive or polish grains. See why most people do not need to score these laps? The soft domains slowly erode, continuously creating a microscopically etched surface! 
Comparative Hardnesses of some lap alloys:
ALLOY__________Hardness, Brinell:
Pure Tin___________ 5.3
63:37 Tin/Lead solder:__14 95/5__________________14
Britannia Pewter_____22.5
Sn die cast YC135A___29
BATT________________32.5
Commercial Rolled Zinc____43
What Real Users are Saying...
A Published Product Review of the BATT lap!.
Many thanks to all the people who tried them and made suggestions over the last few years.
NEW!By popular demand!
BATT MANDRELS FOR Polymetric OMF MACHINES!
Why let the flat faceters have all the performance benefits of polishing with BATT Alloy? Standard mandrel sets of the 1/2" OMF size (Precision centerless ground .250 shaft with a 1-1/2" BATT section of 0.485 +/-.002 are available in sets of 3 for $55.00 Postpaid!
"OMF" is a Trademark for "Optically Magnified Facets" of Polymetric Corporation.e-mail for other sizes and configurations.
Ordering Information:
The 6" lap recommended sale price is US$ 69.00, .
The 8" lap is US$ 89.00.
Buy your BATT laps from one of these stocking dealers:
 Alpha Supply,Inc.
 Faceting Machines .com
 The Facet Shoppe
 
Ken's Gems Supplies, Inc. Bay 18, 2219 - 35th Ave N.E.
Calgary, Alberta
T2E 6W3
 The Rockpeddler
RESURFACING SERVICE FOR BATT ™ LAPS!
Back to the front gemcutting page.
BATT Users' Tips and suggestions.
How to charge a new lap.
"BATT is a Trademark used to describe a proprietary alloy, principally of tin, which contains alloying metals of low or no toxicity which harden and deoxidize the alloy and establish certain grain structures which are developed by a specific annealing and quenching process.
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