Re: ATM pitch hardness

["Bill T." <twentiethwave@hotmail.com>]

Try trimming the lap with an Xacto knife.  Before each session, trim away 
the parts of adjacent facets that are close to touching.

Do this under a gentle stream of room temperature water.  Trim away no more 
than 1 mm per cut until you get the feel of it -- if you're too aggressive 
you cause surface chips.  Cut at a slight angle so the channels assume a V 
shape.

This will gradually turn your round "Thompson" facets into irregular square 
facets that will still produce a good surface.  It only takes 1 or 2 minutes 
of trimming per session.  You don't need to trim all the facets, just the 
ones that are closing up.  You can literally use the lap until there is no 
more pitch left, without ever re-channeling, re-casting, or whatever.

Make sure there's a net or sieve or something over the drain to catch the 
pitch trimmings before they clog up the pipes.  I use a wad of the bridal 
veil net I use for micro-faceting.

Pitch has a set of dynamics all its own.  If your round facets made hard 
Gugolz 64 are closing up fast, it is probably because they are sitting on a 
base of underlying pitch that is too thick.  Minimizing the thickness of 
pitch under the facets might increase your facet life.  Texereau style laps, 
where the facets have NO underlying pitch, close up quite slowly and are 
somewhat hard-acting even with soft pitches.  This has also been my 
experience with molded laps sitting on a very thin pitch base.

Bill T.


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