Clay: Sorry about having to fabricate my own paddles for film. So far, I really like the plate glass platens and I understand that at least one of your distributors is making glass paddles too. The blank paddles I purchased from you have aluminum platens which would seem to be quite practical, but the samples I have are less than flat. I think I’m going to try to remove the aluminum and replace it with some 18 gauge stainless sheet steel I have left over. Have you heard of anybody filing them flat? Is there anything I should know about removing the aluminum?
Glass is one way to provide an absolutely flat surface, but I think that 1/8″ thick stainless steel would work as well and be more durable. I just didn’t feel like cutting 20 pieces with an angle-grinder. The local glass shop charged me $1.00 each.
Next Question: As I have been fabricating my own blocks, I’ve used the dimensions of the standard stones as a target dimension. In measuring the different stones, I noticed that as I go up in grit, the thickness drops off slightly – maybe a total of 0.040″ over five pairs of stones. There is no case of the thickness increasing – only decreasing. A devious mind could deduct that progressively reducing the thickness has the effect of slightly increasing the angle by a very small amount with each step up in grit. The net effect is to ensure that a finer grit will not fail to reach the apex, simply because of a slight thickness error.
Was there method to this madness? You could assume this question implies a complimentary view. Cool. B)
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