The sites for projection and the sites for water bonding are on opposite sides of the copper amalgam. That's the problem. It's just that easy and just that hard.

The alchemist could store water or quicksilver to perform one operation first and the other second, but that requires extra machinery and some storage space. We would like neither; the number of 'stations' for manipulation should be minimized. Thankfully, we use this motif in the first station that allows for projecting and bonding in one station. A second station is mandatory because the center of the product requires both bonding and unbonding, so we perform the unbonding in the second station.

It is unfortunate that we lack the spare cycle to finish the outer ring of bonds in the first station, so an extra glyph of bonding touches up the product in the second station. It is doubly unfortunate that a collision occurs if one of the quicksilver-handling arms on a track is exchanged for a single arm performing a rotation; were it not for this, our rate-product could be 11,700. Perhaps someone has found a cure for this woe, but we otherwise do not expect significant further improvements to this design to exist.

I've given a few of my gripper arms a shiny new coat with this instant mirror paint. They don't perform any better, but they are eye-catching.

- Alchemist Kazyan, in correspondence with Alchemist Jasper