Re: ATM Speeding up the polishing process. aka Stupid question of the day.

[Edmund Stevens <ehs@teleport.com>]

Bill,

If you can find a copy of N.E. Howard's book on telescope making (Standard Handbook for
Telescope Making, currently out of print - check with your local club if you are
interested.) he has a chapter on polishing which includes quick polishing methods.  He
describes two different methods.

1. Make a normal pitch lap with hard pitch, get good contact and polish using your
finest abrasive (4 - 6 micron).  You dust the surface with the abrasive and cold press
again to embed the abrasive.  Polish for an hour or two and you're almost polished out.
THEN you make another pitch lap and polish with CeO or Rouge.  I've never tried this.

2.  He talks about using a plastic cloth, very fine thread count.  Place this over the
top of the lap and use CeO etc.  Supposed to polish out a 6 inch mirror in 3 hours and
leave a lumpy surface.  Pull off the fabric, press and smooth the surface.  Again I've
never tried it.

Has anyone ever tried either of these two methods?  I'm interested in what the results
were.  Always wanted to try it.

Ed Stevens

Bill Cotten wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> As I was polishing out my 14.5" the other day a stupid thought popped into my head.
> Would it be possible to speed up the polishing process if you were to do a few wets
> with polish and your tile tool before switching to the pitch lap? Local ATM'ers here
> use tile tools from 80 grit to 5 micron then we switch to the pitch lap for final
> polishing out with Ceo.
>
> I would think that the danger of scratching the glass would be increased but other
> than that I can see no down side. Any thoughts?