New Kemet Lapping Plates for Hard, Heavy & High-Volume Components

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Following the success of Kemet International Ltd’s Copper SP2 composite plate, the development laboratories of this 75 year old UK company have come up with two more new composite plates which will be added to their offering by the end of 2015.

Kemet’s Copper SP2 was the first composite lapping/polishing plate to truly provide both good stock removal and final Ra value, all achieved with the same plate. This means that a single Kemet lapping/polishing machine fitted with a Kemet Copper SP2 plate can now do what in the past had required two machines.

But this is not the priority with all lapping and polishing processes. Many high volume applications need multiple machines in order to meet the throughput demands of their businesses. In these circumstances, it’s the stability of the lapping process that becomes a priority.

The new Kemet Iron SP2 composite plate is a breakthrough in diamond lapping technology, specifically developed for applications that make high demands on the lapping process. These can be tungsten carbide coated gate valve lapping where the parts are large and heavy, or high volume 24 hour production scenarios where there is little time available for plate dressing or flatness maintenance. The specially formulated Iron SP2 is a low maintenance, highly stable composite designed for applications like these.

For the polishing end of the process spectrum, Kemet’s labs have also developed the new Kemet XL polishing plate. Two years in development the results have been worth the wait. Primarily a general purpose, super finishing plate for medium to super hard metals and alloys, its performance on hard aluminium oxide and silicon carbide ceramics takes it beyond industrial polishing into the realms of optical finishing.

Kemet are not resting on their laurels, however. They continue to work hard, pushing the boundaries of what is achievable in lapping and polishing, embracing and adapting to new technologies as they develop and grow. Keen to work with all industries they encourage engineers to throw their finishing challenges at their R&D process development departments to come up with a solution.