What I understand, from talking to people that grind lenses and mirrors for telescopes, hand lapping is the best. No machine can do as good a job as a properly lapping job done by hand.
The reasoning behind this is, a machine is really good at doing a specific job the exact same way every time, but that doesnt make for a good lapp job. A good lapp job is done by introducing randomness into the lapping process, which is what the human hand is best at.
This is why all those cheapo telescopes you can buy at the Discovery Channel Store at the mall are all machine lapped, whareass good expensive telescopes are all hand lapped.
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