Diamond Grinding Plate - Review

What?! another review?! That's right folks! If you haven't figured it out, I got a bunch of stuff to test  with my last shipment and am going through them one by one. Not everything turned out great, but the ones that look promising get shared here for all you plamo nerds to see. Today we'll be looking at another abrasive tool that I'm sure scratch builders and modders will love - Diamond grinding plates!

Click on the Read More link for the rest of this post...



I got a couple of these diamond grinding plates to see how they compare with regular sandpaper - and I was not disappointed! As one of our readers pointed out, diamond abrasives are coated in industrial diamonds - so you can expect them to be much more resilient than average sand paper, and should last much longer, if not forever, if all you grind on them is model plastic.

They're available from 120 all the way up to 3000 grit, so you can choose your favorite progressive sanding grits. The test pair I got is 800 and 1500, which I think is a good combo if you're only getting two, but now that I've tested them I wish I got a 400 one and maybe a 2000 or 2500 one for finishing. Oh well, there's always the next batch order!

"800 grit (left) and 1500 grit (right)"

The metal plates measure 170mm x 75mm and are about 1.5mm thick, pretty chunky, but that gives you a lot of room to work with. These grinding plates were designed for jade and stone ornaments crafting, so grinding model plastic against them is like grinding butter against a hot grater.

"mold line and nub removal test using 800 grit..."

They're ok for wet sanding and you can wash off sanding debris easily, scrubbing with a toothbrush. I actually dipped one in water and let it air dry to see if it starts to rust, so we'll see how that goes in a few days....probably just the back since the front is covered in the diamond coating.

"clearing of scratches with 1500 grit..."

Best thing about them is they're super flat and stiff, so if you're sanding down mold lines, nubs, or lumps of hardened putty, you can be sure you can get back that flat, smooth surface without worrying about rounding edges that you want to keep sharp.

"..and voila! smooth and super flat finish, with sharp edges preserved!"

I've been thinking about investing in a Platz Itasan Quatro which retails at about $70, but now that I have these grinding plates that do the exact same thing, I think I can survive without one.

If you're interested in ordering these excellent grinding plates, head on over to the shop page and send me a PM! (*sorry international readers, Philippine orders only at this time, but I'm working on it!)

Until next time, keep building plamo!