Bug by William R. Deazley or Memoirs of the Polishing Bug Lappy

Faceting Hints

"How I lost My Lappy Home"
by William R. Deazley, Title by Elaine Deazley for suggestions

Submitted by Elaine Deazley, wife and friend in memory of William R. Deazley,
past Editor of the USFG Newsletter, US Faceters Guild, July 24, 1998, © Copyright
Posted to the Web by Lance Kanaby, Bill was my friend and mentor.

HOW I LOST MY LAPPY HOME

This is a story of the observations of a small microbe named "Bug" hiding in a crack in a piece of topaz * while it is being polished on a tin/diamond lap. *(or whatever stone you prefer)

Bug looks out of the crack and sees the tin lap surface rushing by. He is fortunate enough to be located right near the edge of the topaz surface being polished (eroded/worn/torn). Because bug has extremely rapid reflexes the movement of the tin surface appears to be quite slow and he can see the interactions that are happening in the gap between the tin lap and the topaz surface.

The first thing that bug notices is there is a fluid film between the tin surface and the topaz surface. This fluid film separates the tin lap from the topaz. It is impossible to squeeze all the fluid out as the lap sweeps under the topaz.

Then bug notices that there are small chunks of diamond imbedded in the tin surface that just barely contact the topaz as they swish by. Where they touch the topaz small amounts of the topaz flakes off and the topaz powder is suspended in the fluid film. As time goes by, more and more of this topaz powder is seen in the fluid.

Soon there is enough to call it topaz mud. The mud eventually gets dense enough to form a slurry of fluid and topaz particles that force the gap between the topaz surface and the tin lap to increase. Now bug sees that the diamond points stuck in the tin lap's surface can no longer contact the topaz as they sweep by. The mud has formed a slippery layer between the two surfaces, and the topaz is riding on these loose topaz chunks almost as if the are a bunch of ball bearings

Now bug sees that the topaz surface is rubbing against the particles and is being bumped by them as they swarm around in the fluid. Not much is happening to the topaz surface. The bumping and rubbing wears some of the topaz surface away but the amount worn away is drastically reduced because only topaz is rubbing and wearing against topaz. The diamond chunks are no longer in the picture.

Bug then notices that as the slightly uneven tin surface sweeps by, the high spots crowd the mud more than the low spots. This, bug sees makes the topaz mud scrub at the much softer tin surface. This scrubbing soon begins to undercut the tin supporting the imbedded diamond chunks while at the same time not letting the solid topaz surface push the diamond back into the tin. It is not too long before the loosened diamond chunks get caught up in the swirling mud slurry. Now the slurry is composed of topaz, metallic tin, and small amounts of diamond and other things like tin oxide etc.

Bug sees that because the diamond has no solid support it really can not contribute much to the wearing down of the topaz surface. Worse yet, every once and awhile the very thin fluid and mud film at the high spots becomes so thin that tin contacts the topaz surface. The tin/topaz contact is a high friction point that tears out a topaz boulder.

Bug wondered how this soft tin would pull hard topaz apart. Then he remembered one of his teachers telling him that crystalline substances are usually very weak in tension and tin, which is ductile, can compress and bunch up and not pull apart. The unfortunate topaz fractures first and a big boulder gets dislodged into the mud slurry. Because this boulder is often much bigger than the distance between the tin lap and the topaz surface it rolls between them and forms a series of deep pits in a line that looks like a scratch.

Occasionally Bug sees the same boulder come rolling by, much diminished from all the rolling and rubbing. Eventually the boulder gets stuck in the tin and slowly sinks down to where it no longer contacts the topaz surface. There are a few small groves left in the topaz surface where it contacted the worn boulder as it was being forced into the tin. The scratches or groves were smaller in width than wavelengths of light visible to humans so they could only be seen directly by Bug who has vision that reaches far into the ultra-violet wavelengths.

Bug has wondrous powers of communication. He is able to send his thoughts to the human who is running this massive machine. Bug is worried about these flying boulders and particles of mud that are banging close to the cave where he is snuggled down in the topaz. He decides to place a thought in the human's mind to clean off the mud and flush the remaining debris with more of the clean fluid.

There is an ulterior motive in Bug's message because if the fluid film were thick enough, no further eroding of bug's cave entrance would occur. Of course the request backfires because the fluid is a poor lubricant and the fluid film thins down rapidly. It isn't too long before the diamond points sticking out of the tin surface are again scrubbing the topaz surface away- much to Bug's dismay.

This erosion is worse than when the mud was cluttering up the fluid. Bug couldn't help but admire how clean and sharp the edge between the two facets had become when there was no muddy slurry bunching up at the intersection between the two facets. He could also see a corner, formed by three facets, that was no longer looked rounded down by the mud. It had looked more like a prow of an ocean liner from the erosion as it plowed through the mud.

These new facet edges appealed to Bug's sense of correctness but he was continually being forced farther and farther back into his crack from the rapid erosion that was occurring. It finally got bad enough that there was no more crack left and Bug clung helplessly to the last small imperfection in the topaz surface. Bug saw a diamond point rushing toward him and he saw that it was going to hit him so he let go of his handhold and went swirling along with the rest of the topaz chunks. Bug was never heard from again.

Of course Bug's fate wouldn't have been much better if the human had smeared Teflon grease on the lap or had changed the fluid to some smelly sourstuff (German for acid).

In the Teflon case the small plastic spheres would have been mashed down on the tin because Teflon behaves very much like wax and would have formed a slippery tough film that would protect the tin from eroding as it was being scrubbed by the topaz mud. The diamond points would stick out above the Teflon film and still do their thing. The reduced friction and the surface protection would also have helped prevent high friction tin-topaz contact so very few boulders would be torn out of the topaz and scratches would have been greatly reduced. The topaz mud would still build up and eventually wear away the Teflon film, if it was not continually washed out with clean fluid and replaced with an added application of the Teflon grease.

In the case where sourstuff might have been used, Bug would have seen that the crystal surface of the topaz was weakened by the chemical destruction of some of the topaz molecules. Chunks of weakened topaz were being broken loose from the surface. The mud also included abrasive suspended in the sourstuff in a colloidal form that helped scrub the weakened surface. Erosion was strong and mud would have formed rapidly. Therefore it would have been necessary to keep flushing the tin surface with more and more of the sourstuff. This would work very well, but the mess would be awful and the machinery would begin to show bad signs of corrosion and pitting.

The human decided to leave this chemical approach to the professional cutters who could afford to replace their faceting machines when they wore out.

Bill Deazley (bugged by all the polishing controversy)

Title by Elaine Deazley (amused by all the fuss)

William R. Deazley, February 14, 1926 - July 18, 1998

I knew Bill for over 15 years from his attending the gem and mineral shows where I was an exhibiting dealer. I knew that he was a hobbyist faceter, but never knew or understood the massive amount of knowledge he possessed in faceting.

Bill was a scientist and loved to understand everything, especially faceting. His quest for understanding also included his ability to teach others. He was an instructor at the William Holland School for the Lapidary Art in Georgia. He also created and constructed his own faceting machine that he called the "Concentric Faceting Machine" that is a unique design that is way ahead of its time.

This machine and his knowledge of faceting enabled him to enter and win 4th place on the USA team that placed 2nd in the 1998 Australian Bi-Annual Faceting Competition. One of the three gems entered, all were natural - no synthetics allowed, was a Kunzite. Can you imagine the skill that it takes to facet a Kunzite at the competition level and this was the first time he ever faceted this gem variety?

Bill started teaching me competition faceting for the past several months before his passing. I thought that I understood faceting, but I was introduced to a whole new world of information. I now know that I have only scratched the surface in understanding competition faceting. I still remember his first question to me, "Do you want to learn to how to cut or facet?" This was the start of my wonderful relationship with Bill, I am deeply sorry that it was cut so short.

He loved teaching and showed as much enthusiasm in my cutting as I did. It was like the gem that I was faceting under his instruction was his child or creation, even though he would never touch my machine because it was my stone. I had to do it all, but could ask all of the questions I wanted and sure enough he could explain to me in a way that I would understand. I was fortunate to have such a mentor and the faceting world has lost a truly gifted person and teacher. Hopefully I can pass on some of his knowledge, but much is lost forever.

Bill was my friend and faceting mentor and I shall miss him.
Lance A. Kanaby, July 24, 1998