Re: Cutting Pitch Laps/Bee's Wax

Bob Luffel (bobl@hpgrla.gr.hp.com)
Sun, 30 Jul 95 16:24:21 MDT

>
> You wrote:
>
> >There has been several interesting suggestions on this thread.
> >Alexander's idea of random scratches sounds some what like micro
> facets, doesn't it? Hummmm?
> >Friendly Bob
> >
> >
> As stated, the random scratching is a standard in industrial optics.
> The guys who I'ved worked with over the years in our polishing dept.
> all seem to do it, it sort of is a quick fix for a tool closing up, but
> is working so well you don't want to disturb it substantially.
>

Sorry if this has already been discussed to death (I missed a couple of days of posts to this group)...

When I did my 10", Jerry Wilkinson (made many of Galaxy optics' mirrors, and has also worked in several optical shops) had me scratch the pitch lap using a stiff wire brush (the kind sold in hardware stores for removing paint) - buy a brand new one, the sharper the ends of the wire bristles the better (you want lots of very sharp edged scratches). He had me scratch the lap quite frequently (every couple of wets, you can feel the lap start to grab more as the scratches press out and round off).

The scratches really sped up polishing and reduced the grabbing tendencies of the lap.

Bob