[ATM] Hand held testing & Nixon's comming

["Russell Jocoy" <russjocoy@hotmail.com>]

  Hello all,     I have read the listings on this site lately and the
Chinese optical "lab" or basement grinders , caught my attention. Looking at 
all the responses I do believe it caught many other ATMers .  The concept or 
an
Army of mirror polishers has me worried. ,, Are the mirror "soldiers" 
qualified??
   Can the mirror "general" make sure his "soldiers" are in line with the 
rules
of optical laws of baseline acceptance??  These Chinese are diligent 
workers,
you know $5.00 a day is primo pay for figuring an optic...
    To get real, the workers in this optical workshop are laborers... They 
come
in to work know what they have to do and by repetition,.. do it.  I would 
bet
the newbies grind or hog... then intermediates shape the sphere, and the old
guys that have been there , figure to the 1/4 wave Parabola...
   I think that the older guys at the completion end are the only ones that
have a clue as to what really needs to be done.  I may be wrong but china is
another world. If you lived in a country that tells you what to do and ask 
no
questions,....you ask no questions....you are a worker....shut up, keep 
polishing.. (this is what I tell myself)..
      The mystery of the hand held tester is really easy... After dealing 
with
a terrible TDE I have been testing with a 45 degree flashlight. On the face 
I
have an opaque filter,.. on the face of this I have a homemade Ronchi screen
(about 60lines..monofiliment wound) on the face of this flashlite.
      Instead of rigging up my tester and getting everything lined up for 
the
big let down, I leave my mirror on the stand and set my chair at the ROC.
I aim my flashlite at the center of the mirror. I move left and right and up 
and
down until I see my desired image.. I can then move in and out to see the 
lines
from 40 to 1... when I get to 1 or 2 lines the Rhonchi imitates the knife 
edge
and I can see how bad "or good" the surface looks..
   Two days ago I got real pissed because the glass was not moving anywhere 
with
me moving all over the place.  Well I thought that I would fix this TDE real
quick...!!(ps.. all you "newbies" don't ever fix anything real quick)
     Well I pulled out a undersized lap (9" mirror, 4" lap) and the lap was
beeswax with zirc-ox... I attacked the 80% zone with chordual strokes.....
     Well after about 20 min....and looking through my "chinese inspection
devise" it looked like somebody had carved grooves in a fan like fashion
around the outer edge.  Hey you can really dent this stuff...
      The surface looked like the moon.     I have spent 2 hours tonight 
cleaning
up my mess with a good old pitch lap of Gugolz with the old sphere dance. I 
do
appriciate all of the advise of the list although I sometimes don't 
follow....
until I learn by experience.... The hand held tester really works...
            Searching for the Parabola      forever.......RUSS JOCOY

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