optic wave labs

In the middle of May I finally decided to take my 16" mirror and have it refinished and recoated. It had a horrible rough surface which caused the previous coating to be dullish in color. I had purchased it this way from another nameless auction site. I decided to use Optic Wave Labs aka Woden Optics after emailing and speaking with Carey on the phone. Carey recieved my mirror within a couple of days. I was told it would take a couple of weeks. Since the middle of May, I've been playing the waiting game. I've phoned Optic Wave Labs several times, sometimes recieving odd messages from the voice mail system ie this mailbox doesn't exist as well as recieving one cryptic email about being behind because of the heatwave in the area where he lives near San Fransisco. Personally I think I've been remarkably patient after 2 1/2 months of waiting.

So my question is, has Anyone ever done business with Optic Wave Labs aka Woden Optics and recieved a mirror back or am I sucking wind here?

Colten Edwards
s

Colten, I wouldn't worry too much about getting your mirror back. I would guess that the size of your mirror (16") and the fact that it probably had to be re-ground to a sphere before refiguring is what is causing the delay. I recently had Cary OWL test, retouch, and refigure a 10" F6 mirror that was originally made by Parks Optical. I should note that this mirror wasn't all that bad except for a turned edge, the surface was smooth and it measured 1/6th wave PTV. I shipped the mirror to OWL on 6/10/2008 and it arrived on 6/16/2008. The mirror was shipped back to me on 7/15/2008 and arrived back on 7/22/2008. Note that my mirror only had the figure retouched, it did not go through the more extensive refiguring process. The specs on the mirror now are 1/15 wave PTV and a strehl of .988 I haven't had any decent seeing to really test the mirror thoroughly but so far it looks good. As a point of reference a friend of mine recently sent off his mirror to be refigured after waiting 9 months in line just to send it to one of the premium mirror makers. I would suggest either emailing or calling again to find out what step of the process the mirror is in. I never had any trouble reaching someone on the phone at OWL, I usually called around 3pm PDT.

Joplin

Well, after 8 months of waiting, I recieved a email asking for some credit card info so they could ship my mirror back to me. Just before christmas I finally got my mirror back. It was a long wait, but hopefully it will be worth it. I figured I'd better post a follow up to this thread to let everyone know that I eventually recieved a mirror back from OWL.