From: Don Bates 
To: atm{at}shore.net
Reply-To: Don Bates 


After reading several posts in the archive, I am convinced that there may
not be a "right" answer to this question. But like any good
ATM'r, I'll ask anyway:

Should I pour a new lap prior to beginning the figuring phase?

I am almost done polishing my 10" f6.6, and the lap has become
woefully thin. (probably somewhere around 1/16" thick.) I still need
to remove a few more pits, so it could get a bit thinner still before I am
ready to figure. One camp advocates pouring and breaking in a new lap
before finishing the polishing phase. That way you have a nice thick lap to
figure till the parabola God shows you the right strokes for a 1/20 wave
mirror.
The other camp says "Absolutely not! The new lap will ruin your
figure, ripple the glass, and never really mate properly with the mirror.
Since you won't be using the lap (hopefully) for long sessions of figuring
anyway, as long as there is still a shred of pitch on the surface of the
tool, keep on strok'n! Any thoughts?

Don

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