Difference between Lapping and Polishing

What is Lapping?

 

The general purpose of Lapping is to arrange parallelism and flatness and to get accurate alignment of parts. This is grinding method to get flat finished surface with accurate size by cutting the extremely small amount from the surface of workpiece with abrasive’s working after adding abrasive and lapping fluid between the surface of workpiece and surface plate for lapping and moving them relatively to workpiece and lap. However, the existing lapping method is not eco-friendly, difficult to be cleaned and has long working time because it needs lots of abrasive and polishing fluid. More SuperHard makes abrasive of the wheel fixed grain and attaches it to the base for lapping workpiece with wet corrosion to improve the existing lapping method. Abrasive and lapping fluid to be used are reduced with fixed abrasive grain, and eco-friendly, and easily cleaned fresh working environment is available decreasing working time and maintenance cost.

 

What is Polishing?

 

The general purpose of Polishing is to maintain parallelism and flatness, to improve surface roughness and to remove scratches after Lapping or after the whole process. This is polishing method to get the glass-like side with consistent surface roughness of workpiece with abrasive’s working after adding abrasive and polishing fluid between the surface of workpiece and surface plate and moving them relatively to workpiece and lap similarly with lapping.

 

Relationship between Lapping and Polishing

 

It is usually difficult to tell the difference between Lapping and Polishing like the descriptions above. Simply to say, Lapping is to arrange size and accuracy of workpiece, and Polishing is the process after lapping workpiece. So, it is the process of glazing to make glass-like side instead of polishing the surface of workpiece. It is difficult to select abrasive and lap for Polishing.