Now a bit about diamonds. Diamond is the hardest of known minerals, also beautiful and fantastic, carbon in crystalline form because that is it in fact, which has been absorbing the souls and minds of all people for a long time. It is characterized by a very small coefficient of friction, has the lowest coefficient of thermal expansion, is chemically inert and abrasion resistant, and is an electrical insulator and also a very good heat conductor. It is transparent in the ultraviolet and infrared spectrum. Due to such unique features, it is used, including undoubtedly the use of jewellery, as a preventive diamond coating applied to joint implants in which abrasive wear is of key importance, whether human heart valves, for grinding and lapping cemented carbides, rock drilling, wire pulling and rods, dressing ceramic grinding wheels, as indenters for measuring hardness and for measuring surface smoothness, cutting plates made of glass and ceramics, abrasive machining of optical and decorative glass, machining non-ferrous alloys and of their alloys, machining plastics, semiconductors, ceramic materials, grinding diamonds and semi-precious stones in dental and surgical instruments.
Extremely commonly, diamond abrasive is used for the production of powders, suspensions, pastes, grinding wheels with resin, metal and ceramic binders, but also for microscopic preparations. We are most interested in the implementation enabling extremely accurate processing of all known natural and artificial materials.
In the production of diamond pastes, the diamond grade is important, the larger and more regular (similar to a natural crystal) the diamond grain is, the greater its abrasive and cutting capabilities. Depending on the nature of the application, the division into grains in microns or mesh has been determined, which is the number of meshes per 1 inch. And so: very general 8-12 mesh, general 14-24 mesh, medium 30-60 mesh, accurate 70-120 mesh, very accurate 150-240 mesh, super accurate 280-600 mesh. The size of these grains depends on the type of material being processed. For coarse-grained material, coarser grains are used, for fine-grained ones fine. Smaller diamond crystals significantly improve the quality of the final treatment and its polishing. The grain form depends additionally on the assumed crystalline form. The more perfect, the greater the impact strength of the crystal.
