In 1973, LECO Corporation introduced the industry’s first line of complete solutions for metallographic analysis. All of these instruments typically require some kind of consumable, but it’s up to the customer to decide which ones they would like to use. LECO offers a wide selection of consumables – for example, we offer fourteen different types of polishing cloths for polishing samples. Trying to select the right ones can leave your head spinning as much as your grinder/polisher. When you begin to feel like you’re drowning in a sea of choices, you can breathe easy knowing our experts will be there to help you make the right selections based on your goals. Each customer has different wants and needs, so there is no single “correct” answer as to which consumables are the best. However, we aim to focus on a few options that work for the most applications. Sticking with the polishing cloth example, we primarily use three polishing cloths in our labs – Gold Technotron, Red Felt, and Imperial.
Gold Technotron is a durable, versatile, woven satin cloth for all polishing applications and abrasive sizes. It can be used for nearly all types of materials, but LECO experts use it as a first step in our polishing process.
Red Felt is another reliable polishing cloth to have in your lab. It is a flocked felt cloth that has been a LECO favorite for years and continues to be our pick for a high-quality option for intermediate polishing.
And lastly, Imperial is a fine polishing cloth that pairs excellently with colloidal silica. This cloth works best with abrasives 3 µm and under and is the perfect pick as a final polishing cloth, as it delivers a beautiful finish to your sample.
If you’re unsure about which consumables you should use with your samples, contact our knowledgeable sales team and we’ll be ready to answer your questions. Even if you already have a line-up of consumables that is working for your metallographic analyses, we still encourage you to chat with our team of experts to find out how LECO could save you precious time and money in your lab.
