A little 6" F/7 scope I built for my Father:

Just thought I'd share some pictures of a scope I just finished for my
Father.

Mostly aluminum framed, with birch plywood filler panels. The
aluminum was powder coated in a powder coating oven I recently
finished, and the birch is finished with hand polished black lacquer.

http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/Projects/...pe/page_01.htm


Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 18:53:30 GMT,
(James Lerch) wrote:

Just thought I'd share some pictures of a scope I just finished for my
Father.

Mostly aluminum framed, with birch plywood filler panels. The
aluminum was powder coated in a powder coating oven I recently
finished, and the birch is finished with hand polished black lacquer.

Nice work James. Looks like you have a good handle on
aluminum welding. Plan on flocking the inside of the shiney tube?
One of these years you really must try a refractor. With all your
machinery it would not be hard at all.

BTW, do you have a day job:-) ??

Dan C.

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 06:34:51 GMT, (Dan Chaffee)
wrote:

On Sun, 09 Jan 2005 18:53:30 GMT,
(James Lerch) wrote:

Just thought I'd share some pictures of a scope I just finished for my
Father.

Mostly aluminum framed, with birch plywood filler panels. The
aluminum was powder coated in a powder coating oven I recently
finished, and the birch is finished with hand polished black lacquer.

Nice work James. Looks like you have a good handle on
aluminum welding.

Thanks, You know the saying "When your only tool is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail"? Well, now that I can weld Al at home,
EVERYTHING looks like it should be welded out of aluminum

Plan on flocking the inside of the shiney tube?

I had, but I'm trying to turn my Dad into an ATMer. So the plan is to
convince him of the benefits of flocking / baffling, and put him to
work (Plus he needs to make some decent end caps, to replace the
shoddy shower caps I supplied!)

One of these years you really must try a refractor. With all your
machinery it would not be hard at all.

The thought of trying to polish and figure 4 - 6 surfaces, keep wedge
under control, and just pick the right glass to start with, sorta puts
the breaks on any refractor projects :0

Plus, for visual use, it might be tough to go back to small aperture
after routinely viewing thru my 16" Bino's. Using both eyes + modest
aperture results in views that look very similar to "Middle of the
Road" amateur long exposure gray scale astro photography, with the
exception of Orion.

Here's a link to some pictures of the 16" Bino's which will be with me
at the WSP next month: (And I hope and pray the weather is better than
their first light experience at Chiefland last November!!)

http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/Projects/...ht/page_01.htm


BTW, do you have a day job:-) ??

I do, but its akin to the old "Maytag repair man commercials" When
you million+ dollar Unix server goes belly up, I'm the guy that is
guaranteed to show within two hours, 24x7 and make it all better (that
is if your in west central Florida) Fortunately, million dollar Unix
servers don't go belly up very often.


Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge

On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 15:16:05 GMT,
(James Lerch) wrote:



James,

Here's a link to some pictures of the 16" Bino's which will be with me
at the WSP next month: (And I hope and pray the weather is better than
their first light experience at Chiefland last November!!)

Wish I could play with it!
I plan to do an 8" newtonian binocular some day, but these days I;m
pleased to announce that I spend more time using than making.
How many hours do you think you have in making that thing? Were you
able to get to within nearly 1% of the focal length of each mirror?

Dan

James,

Yes, purple was the right color for this scope! It looks very nice.

That was no small task to weld all those parts together! Congrats on a
very nice job.

What did you use for a mirror cell and mirror? And the biggest
question of all is... how does it perform for you and your dad?

Michelle Stone
Plettstone Telescopes
http://www.plettstone.com/telescopes

On 11 Jan 2005 07:57:54 -0800, "Michelle Stone"
wrote:

James,

Yes, purple was the right color for this scope! It looks very nice.

Thanks Michelle, and the camera doesn't do the purple color justice!
The purple is actually a translucent candy, over a chrome base coat.
So in real life it has a much more 'apparent' depth. (BTW, I LOVE
powder coating, it is by far the most forgiving method of adding color
to something that I've ever come across. (normal spray paint and I
usually don't get along!)

Here's a link to the powder coat oven I recently finished:

http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/Projects/..._Coat/Oven.htm

That was no small task to weld all those parts together! Congrats on a
very nice job.

Again, thank you, I received a new Tig Welder as an early Christmas
present, and now EVERYTHING looks like it should be fabricated from
aluminum

What did you use for a mirror cell and mirror?

The mirror cell is just a simple three point arrangement, and the
Zeodor optic was ground and figured by myself and some friends at the
'03 Orange Blossom Star Party as part of a demonstration.

Here's my interferometry test results on the optic:

http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/Inter/Fri...ter_axis_1.gif

Of course being a true die hard ATM, I coated the optic myself in the
home built vacuum chamber, seen he

http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm/Projects/...ng/page_01.htm


And the biggest
question of all is... how does it perform for you and your dad?

Other than one small flaw that I need to fix, it is one heck of a
double star splitter / planetary scope!

When Dad will let me pry the scope out of his fingers, I need to add
some additional support to where the Alt bearings attach to the OTA.
As-Is they are currently attached only to the 1/4" thick birch plywood
filler panels. This results in a failure of the "Bump Test" at high
powers due to prolonged oscillations from having the thin birch
plywood as the only support point. I think adding an internal plate
that spans the alt attach point and attaches to the aluminum framing
members will solve this one..


Take Care,
James Lerch
http://lerch.no-ip.com/atm (My telescope construction, Testing, and Coating site)

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
Calvin Coolidge