ATM pitch lap woes--help appreciated

["Rodney Mayes" <r.gm@muhlon.com>]

Well, thanks to all the good info I received from you good folks, my second
attempt at making a 10 inch lap turned out a little better; however, I still
don't think I'm there yet.

First try--if you remember--I let the pitch cool before it fully covered the
dental stone disk.  This time around, I heated the dental stone in the oven
at 170 degrees while the pitch was melting, and also kept the plate glass
mirror submersed in hot water.  I heated the pitch just a little faster this
time--around 2 hours compared to 3.5 the last time.  Also, this time the
temp in my garage was about 60 degrees compared to about 35 degrees the last
time.  If anything, I went too far the other way this time because it took
several minutes for the pitch to cool enough to press the mirror and press
channels (as described on the stellafane web page).

The good news:  I have a full diameter lap with a nice bevel around the
edges.  The pitch is about 1/8 inch to 3/16 inch thick.

Now the bad news:  I have some rather large indentations in some of the
squares that will not cold press out because they are too deep--probably
1/16 inch.  I believe these were caused by air bubbles.  Although not
perfectly round, there are about 8 of these, and some are roughly the size
of dimes.  Also, my channels closed up.  But I am not worried about this.  I
will either channel with a soldering iron or maybe try the saw technique
someone described to me--then I will mirco facet.

But about those bubbles--what would you do?  This is my first mirror
project, but common sense tells me that if I try to use the lap as is, I
will create zones on the surface with this lap.  What do you think?  Should
I melt some pitch and fill those shallow "holes."  Or, will it be OK as is
as long as I have good channels and micro facet the lap?  I would really
appreciate any information/comments.  Thanks in advance.  Rodney