I built this scope back in 1974-1975 with the help of my father while I was still at school. The last time I actually saw it was roughly 10 years ago & then it suddenly 'vanished' from the family 'coffers'.. Found out just recently where it was & today I went & retrieved it.
Some of the original stuff is missing, like the home made brass helical 1.25" focuser & the aluminium main mirror cell but even so, I'm so happy to have it back!
I lovingly ground this 8" F6 mirror every night after school for months but it looks like it might need recoating
what a lovely article of you and your father...i nice read and i hope you restore your scope back to it's glory..if your dad's still here he'd probably love to have a look through it again.
Thats gold Really like the news paper articles, try and keep it 100% original though when rebuilding. I would have the articles and scope put in a glass display case for your study ect
I'm so happy for you, that you found your old scope. I agree, keep it original.
I hope you post a few pictures of the process for us to see.
The newspaper article was great too. And I bet the interviewer didn't ask you once about aliens.
I lovingly ground this 8" F6 mirror every night after school for months but it looks like it might need recoating
To be lovingly restored
Wow. What a great story. Not only about father-and-son, but also about old telescopes being rebirthed. I imagine you had mixed emotions when you saw the scope after all this time - in that condition. But recoating your own mirror gives it meaning that a bought one could never have.
While you have it out, it may pay to check the mirror's figure. It would be a good opportunity to make sure it was as good as it can be.
I hope you share the journey with us.
Well, I have all the glass out of the OTA & I'm not happy. The secondary has a massive chunk out of it and a new one will be necessary. The main mirror is the major concern - It appears that someone has attempted to clean it & judging by the million & one fine scratches across it's surface, it was done while it had an inch of dust on it. So two operations need to be done. Polish the mirror, & send it away for realuminizing, which needed to be done anyway, I'd say it has 10% of it's coating left.
I still have some cerium oxide so I'm wondering if these scratches could be taken out by hand..?
I still have some cerium oxide so I'm wondering if these scratches could be taken out by hand..?
The scratches will be many times deeper than the parabolic correction, and probably not possible to polish out at least not in reasonable time. Your only choice is to just regrind the mirror , or just recoat it. Its possible that many of the scratches are just in the coating. It is not easy to scratch a mirror.
Ok here we go. It looks worse in photos than in real life I think but suffice to say the fine scratching doesn't appear to be on any areas where the coating is non existent so we might luck out with a simple recoat, but I guess inspection would be necessary after the old coating is off. Next question is what is the procedure for getting the coating completely off? Whoever does the recoat would do this, is that right?
yep clean it off and look .I can see scratching on the silver so maybe it wont be too bad? Ill wait and hear what Mark has to say. Nice piece of family history there, dont loose track of it again
Figured I may as well make a start today. I'd forgotten what it felt like to have bleeding finger tips from several hours of wet rubbing, geez. Not only am I reliving the past in an astronomical sense, but 1970's pain as well lol! We never had an orbital for this kind of work back then, so I can't see any reason to start now...Might have to do a couple of banks & get me a set of Naglers now that I've got no finger prints
Already spent just over $100 on wet & dry, undercoat, Topcoat (Back to it's original white! ) rotary wire brushes, rust converter & assorted nick-nacks.
Hopefully the old man is watching, & approving. Afterall, he's the one that said "get stuck in, kid!" Which I interpreted years later as: "nothin' wrong with a bit of blood sweat & tears" Well I ALMOST cried when I saw the state of the mirrors, and I've certainly lost some sweat & some blood.
Some progress. Topcoat #1 on. By the time I rubbed most of the inperfections like chips out, it was down to bear ally in most places so had to etch prime, plus 3 coats of metal primer. I'll just go the 2 coats of topcoat, & maybe a coat of clear over the top.
Really like the news paper articles, try and keep it 100% original though when rebuilding. I would have the articles and scope put in a glass display case for your study ect 
