[ATM] my first Foucault look-see-semi-test

[Roman Toledo <rtoledo2002@yahoo.com>]

     Hello folks, just excited about my very own first Foucault test.

first a few facts,  it's 13" D  by 1"thick plate glass, with a f/7 91"

  I set my tester at 182" and it's right on the money, I have polished
it with CEO for 3 sesions give or take for about 30 minutes each.

   The lap is full size. I mixed 2.2kilos of 73 "hard as a rock in
Southern California wheather currently 77f"( I ordered it while at home
on vacation during that 2 week heat wave, people died and all) and 1
kilo of 64, it was still too "flaky" as I cut the channels so I
re-heated it without boiling it, and added about 12 flax seed oil pills
cold pressed(put a hole and dropped about 2 drops per capsule).

   this left me with a pitch that seems ok with the finger nail press
test, it barely leaves a dent(I'm new so take it with a pinch of salt).
 if I leave it out in the garage it gets too soft, but I have been
doing my polishing at night around 7:00 to 8:00pm and lately the temps
around here are in the high 70's, humidity in the 60%.

   With all this flax seed modification, it still too flacky if I try
to do a channel clean up while cold (I take indoors at night) we keep
the A/C on cold. so I use a heat lamp for 5 minutes.


   anyway back to the topic, as I look at the mirror and find the spot,
I see a golden sphere with a 3" semi darkening depression spot right on
the center, it looks like the depression on the picture at the home
page of atm_free yahoo groups, it does not look as "deep" and only
shows up in the middle 3" or so of the mirror view.


   I am using a exact replica of the tester on the stellafane web site,
except I used the edge of wood flooring slit to slide the razor blade
on,  this is not ideal to me at all. I will have to work on this.

   I tried to slide the knife edge across and I could see half of the
disk and then it would disappear, but my procedure needs much
improvement to  me.

   I'm going to re-read  David Harbour's  pages again until it sinks
in.


   Anyways  I'm excited I've gotten this far. sorry it got so long.

any and all suggestions are WELCOMED.

thank you all

Roman Toledo 
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