ATM Rouge? was Getting the smoothest mirror (no dog biscuit)

[Scott Rychnovsky <srychnov@chem.ps.uci.edu>]

Is good quality rouge still significantly better than cerium?  Is it worth
the bother?  I have never used rouge but would consider giving it a try.
Are there other alternatives?  Whre does one get good rouge?

Thanks for thie information.

Scott



>thinking that the lap is in good contact when it may not be.  In fact,
>even when thinned, the Ceriums which I've used -- the best so far being
>that from WB (as I said, I haven't tried the premium ones from Salem yet)
>-- are still somewhat forgiving of less than perfect contact.  When I
>think I've got good contact with Cerium, and then switch to rouge, the
>lap usually grabs horribly.  It takes quite a bit of patience and care to
>get the drag smooth with rouge, but once you do -- magic!  All the
>roughness vanishes in minutes, using fairly long, slow strokes with
>plenty of pressure, and avoiding *short* figuring spells.  Also, I
>generally alternate 2 minutes of polishing with 1 minute tapered cold
>pressing -- but since the lap stays on the mirror, I don't think this
>constitutes short spells.  Even TDE seems impossible to maintain/produce
>with rouge and a reasonably hard lap -- I've *never* had a mirror
>finished with rouge show anything less than a perfect "diffraction edge".
> (By *hard* lap I mean #73 Gulgoz, even though it's listed in the
>catalogs as *medium* -- and my shop temps are usually 70-80 degrees.)
>
>Cheers,
>
>Michael Pankratz
>Tesuque, NM
>papilio1@ juno.com


--
Scott Rychnovsky
srychnov@chem.ps.uci.edu