This morning, I clamped the cantilever-with-mirror that we bonded yesterday.

I first used a broken cantilever to practice the clamping. I clamped the test piece first in the nominal position, then with slight alignment errors in the available degrees of freedom to see what those errors would look like. If the cantilever is misaligned such that it does not rest in the clamping groove, the clamping block will show a larger than usual gap on at least one side (attachments 1, 2). If the cantilever is not entirely 'in' the clamp, the thicker part of the cantilever will be visible above the clamp (attachment 3). Attachment 4 and 5 show the test cantilever in good alignment.

Next, I clamped the cantilever-with-mirror by 

1. Insert the alignment pins into the clamping block
2. Place the bottom clamping block flush with the aligning piece
3. Place the cantilever on top of the clamping block and aligning piece, such that its long edge is flush with the aligning edge and the thick part of the clamped Si is just at the end of the clamping block
4. Set the top clamping block into place, holding the bottom block in place and lining up with the alignment pins. Make sure the gap between the two clamping blocks is even, and that the thinned part of the cantilever ends just at the edge of the clamping blocks.  
5. Add the clamping screws and tighten enough to secure the cantilever. Attachment 6 is the final result. 

The Q may improve with more clamping force, but I'd like to do a more controlled test of how much torque can safely be applied to the clamping screws. We don't want to break any usable cantilevers.