My piece keeps "grabbing" the disk, especially at finer grits, what's going on?

This is almost always caused by too much water on the finer grits. What's happening is you are hydroplaning on the disk. As you grind, you are floating on top of a layer of water. Occasionally, you will displace enough of the water so your piece will "grab" the wheel. You may feel like you're grinding along nicely, but it's inefficient.

Reduce the amount of water flow that you are using on the wheel, and that should fix the problem. The other possible cause is that you are not putting uniform pressure on your glass while grinding.

We've also had some customers who start off using too little water. This can have the opposite effect of hydroplaning, where you create too much friction between the diamonds and the glass, and the friction pulls the glass out of your hands. It's crucial to have the correct amount of water on the disks.

A good rule of thumb is to reduce the water flow on your disk until you start to see the white ground glass build up on your disk's edge as you work. Then, use more water to get that buildup off the disk as you work. That's generally the right amount of water for each grit. You'll eventually get the hang of which disk requires which amount of water.

You can also watch our Coldworking 101 Video on Diamond Grinding to get a good idea of the correct amount of water for each step.