DoN. Nichols wrote:
On 2008-02-24, Christopher Tidy wrote:

DoN. Nichols wrote:


[ ... ]


Thanks. That was a fascinating read. I have a small two-stage mechanical
vacuum pump. I was also offered an oil diffusion pump a while back, and
I suspect the offer is still open. But it does seem a great deal of work
when I hadn't intended the microscope to be a project in itself!


I can understand that -- but I figured that you should know what
is actually involved so you could decide for yourself. Since there was
a lot of this being done in an Army R&D lab where I used to work, I got
to learn how it was done, although I never did it myself. But I always
like to learn how anything is done, so I kept my eyes open.

For that matter -- the older copies of The CRC _Handbook of
Chemistry and Physics_ used to have a lab tricks section which included
two or three ways to silver mirrors. Those were mostly chemical
approaches, not high vacuum deposition.

Thanks very much for explaining it to me. I too like to learn how things
are made. But sometime I feel the need to limit the number of projects
I'm working on!

Best wishes,

Chris