thanks all
If you ever want to paint your scope, I can't recommend the paint I used highly enough. All I needed to do was to lightly buff the old paint with some steel wool and then I cleaned it off with metho. The paint went on super-smoothly from about 30cm in long sweeping strokes from end to end of the tube. The great thing about the PlastiCote is that you don't have to wait between coats. As I made my way around the tube it was nearly tack-dry when I got back to where I'd started. The whole thing took three coats in one continuous go and not one single drip or flow mark resulted. Sensational paint. Dry to touch in 30 minutes and ready to reassemble in two hours.
Bigger picture:
http://www.omaroo.net/albums/album34/007_G.jpg