Repair work is delayed.  I need the "pickle pickers" that hold the magnet+dumbbell in the gluing fixture, for gluing them to the optic.  Here at the 40m we have a full set of SOS gluing supplies, except for pickle pickers.  We had borrowed Betsy's from Hanford for about a year, but a few months ago I returned all of the supplies we had borrowed.  Betsy said she would find them in her lab, and overnight them to us.  Since the problem occurred so late in the day, they won't get shipped until tomorrow (Thursday), and won't arrive until Friday.

I also can't find our magnet-to-dumbbell gluing fixture, so I asked her to send us her one of those, as well. 

I have 2 options for fixing ITMX.  I'll write down the pros and cons for each, and we can make a decision over the next ~36 hours.

OPTIONS:

(#1) Remove dumbbell from optic.  Reglue magnet to dumbbell. Reglue magnet+dumbbell to optic.

(#2) Carefully clean dumbbell and magnet, without breaking dumbbell off of optic.  Glue magnet to dumbbell.

PROS:

(#1) Guarantee that magnet and dumbbell are axially aligned.

(#2) Takes only 1 day of glue curing time.

CONS:

(#1) Takes 2 days of glue curing time. (one for magnet to dumbbell, one for set to optic.)

(#2) Could have slight mismatch in axis of dumbbell and magnet.  Could accidentally drop a bit of acetone onto dumbbell-to-optic glue, which forces us into option 1, since this might destroy the integrity of the glue joint (this would take only the 2 days already required for option 1, it wouldn't force us to take 2+1=3 days).