Dual slide holders for a flat lap grinder.

[The QCC]

Grinding rocks to make thin section slides can be a boring and time consuming task. Holding the slide to the flat lap disk by hand is both boring and tiring. I do not have a robot to hold the slide, so I came up with this Rube Goldberg solution.

Flat lap machine with holders.

FlatLapWithHolders.jpg (37.32 KiB) Viewed 4098 times

The holders consist of a 5cm length of Sheffield .13mm steel shim stock with a 12mm nut glued to one side and wheel balancing weights on the other side.
A 3M Velcro hook Dot is stuck to the nut to grip a Velcro loop Dot on the slide.
A strip of loop Velcro is fastened to the length of steel. This strip is attached to hook Velcro glued to the side of the flat lap machine.

In operation, the wheel weights, approximately 35gr, press the slide against the spinning wheel. Thus relieving me of the tiring task of holding a slide against the spinning wheel with varying pressure.
Click the photo to see more images of the dual slide holder.

Two slide holders.

SlideHolder-1.jpg (44.04 KiB) Viewed 4098 times

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[gekko]

Ingenious. So you can install about 5 of those around your turntable and grind them at once?

[billbillt]

I think this a great way to do this... It certainly does take the drudgery out of it...

[The QCC]

So you can install about 5 of those around your turntable and grind them at once?

That was my original thought. But physics did me in.
The slides need water flowing between them and the disc. As soon as the third slide was added, it started bouncing around because of the drought created by the preceding slides.

My lap machine in its present form only supports 6" discs. Subtracting the centre label area of approx 1" does not leave enough area to space out the slides.