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Hows this for a lap?

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C

Cluster

Member
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Joined
Dec 5, 2001
Location
Canuckistan
Its been a few years since i lapped a heatsink, thought i'd give an old heatsink a rubdown to work out some of the ol' rust. Here's a couple of pics.

CIMG0249.jpg
CIMG0250.jpg

Started with some 400 grit as it was a touch high in the middle. Worked my way up through 600-800-1000-2000. The finishing touches were done with the micron sized lapping paper from Dave the pc lapping kits guy. I think the finest grain was 10 micron. Spent about 20 minutes or so polishing it up with the 10 micron stuff.

Next up will be my processor. The waterblock im getting wont need a lap, but, since those blocks are bowed, and im on an AMD chip, would it be best to go perfectly flat with the IHS? or should i aim to go a bit concave, just enough so that a few photons of light can get under the middle of straightedge? :D
 
Aye, i plan on leaving the water block alone. From what i hear they're lapped pretty good as they are, much better than most air sinks. The IHS really needs a lap though, so once i pull everything apart again, it will meet my sandpaper collection :)
 
looks nice but what about flatness? get the plate of glass you used to lap with and put a drop or 2 of ink on it and place the heatsink over the ink and try to avoid air bubbles. if its an even colour then your good to do. any darker spots means there is a void and the lighter coloured spots are close to the glass.
 
Its not perfectly flat. it rounds out a touch towards the edges. Didnt do the whole glass test, just the razor blade. That heatsink isnt something im going to use, was just a practice run before i gave the IHS a lap. I'll do the full glass test with the IHS, i know its not very flat, a bit high in the middle if i recall.

How thick is the nickel plating on those IHS? i have a couple of quarter sheets of 400grit, but from what i've seen it can take a good bit of rubbing to get down to a good copper face on them before moving to the 1000+ stuff.
 
you should be able to get to the copper in a couple of minutes, i think i lap with 320 to start, i haven't done it in a while though. the nice thing about the nickel though is it will tell you where its not flat, like the ink test. the lowest part will still have nickel on it.

it takes me about 20 minutes TOPS to get to all copper. but like alot of things it takes as long as it takes.
 
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