"I have always admired people who are capable of making solutions of problems that other people can’t even imagine".
This was what an old fellow astronomer said when he gave me his old schmit Cassegrain scope. The scope was a relic from the fifties when the color on the scopes was all but white.
Time had not been kind to it and it showed its age but it was well used and proven in combat.
It was an old American Criterion from the late fifties, a time when things where made to last for ever.
I really wanted to bring it back to its former glory, but since the color on it was gray (actually partially hand painted with silverpaint)I opted to paint it black and white to blend in with my other scopes.
I went along with the idea and started dismantling the scope.
First I removed the cradle arms, since the scope was to sit next to my Newton I did not need them so I stored them away.
Picking the scope apart was the easy part. The mirrors and the corrector plate vas put into a protective box and amazingly they were in mint condition so I did not have to restore them in any way. And on with the job I went.
When the telescope was dismantled I first sand blasted the back and spray painted it black.
I then moved on to the finder scope, this is a real beauty with nice crosshairs.
But this too was gray, so I masked it and sand blasted it too,
This is a really easy vary to remove old paint but don’t use too much pressure.
The paint was sprayed to; white on the tube and black front and end parts it turned out much better than I anticipated.
I also sandblasted the support rings for the finder and painted them black.
After these parts were ready and put aside I turned to the tube itself and due to the fact that it was a sonotube I could not be sandblasted so I used a spray filler used on cars and sprayed 2 layers and then polished the surface until it was really smooth, I then spray painted it white .
Having completed the outer surface I masked it off and painted the interior flat black.
Now the only remaining job vas to reassemble the scope and it went together as a dream.
The result is a telescope from the early fifties looking as a new one and working just as well and it now resides beside my 10 `` star finder with pride.
It’s just sad that my friend never got to see what I did to his scope.
But perhaps he is sitting somewhere up there watching who knows.