[ngcles]

Hi Logan,

If you really want to get fair-dinkum, see if you can find a drapery where they sell German black 100% cotton velvet. Not the crap stuff sold at Spotlight or Lincraft and so-on but German 100% cotton velvet. The black stuff is amazing. Spread it out on the carpet at home and it looks like a hole in the floor. Light just seems to fall into it. It isn't shiny at all -- that's the acrylic stuff that sells for a few dollars a metre and is crap.

German cotton velvet it isn't cheap though -- expect to pay around $70-90-odd for enough to do your tube. The roll is usually 1500mm wide, so you will need a bit less than a metre.

Strip the tube of optics and so-forth. Roll the velvet up on a broom-handle. Use wallpaper glue as adhesive (paint shop) -- it works fine with material on metal. You can use an epoxy glue but you will get stoned on it because you will be working with you head in the tube for about 15-20 mins while you lay it on and smooth-down. Wallpaper adhesive works just as well, you just don't get the high at the end of the job. (Imagine a "stoned" emoticon here.)

Lay the tube down and paint a long strip of adhesive several inches wide from top to bottom inside the tube. Put the broom in, lay it down and roll off a couple of inches and smooth it down like wallpaper with your hand. Paint a few more inches, roll the velvet out and smooth it down by hand. Repeat etc etc till the tube is done. Wait till it is all dry, cut off the loose ends and threads, cut holes for screws, etc where your fittings go.

Vacuum -out the inside of the tube. Re-assemble. You will be amazed how well this works -- much superior to any flocking or felt. German velvet is getting hard to obtain now though!


Best,

Les D