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Old 25-05-2014, 10:39 AM
IanW
Pedantic dinosaur rider

IanW is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Perth WA
Posts: 99
Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley View Post
I've had a lot of experience with silicone. Its actually a very strong adhesive and tough. Horrible stuff really. Has the ability to get on everything.

That seems like a crude way of mounting a secondary - cheap and nasty. No wonder it causes problems.

Greg.
Silicone is horrifc on mirrors. I experimented with the damned stuff in the 90s on a full thickness 10" Mirror. The deformation was horrific.

Back decades ago cheap small Newtonains used a single vane spider for the secondary, often little more than a bit of bent piano wire. The manufacturers used a blob of Araldite to hold the secondary. That was bad enough.

Any manufacturer in this day and age using Silicone anywhere near a mirror is simply cutting corners IMHO. I for one would never buy a telescope that was using silicone anywhere near the optical train, regardless of manufacturer.
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