How to easily repair a dobsonian telescope bearing laminate without messy glue or contact cement. Note: Formica -42 finish (named 'Crystal') is a good substitute for Wilson Art Ebony Star that is no longer available.
Your mods and repairs using everyday things not "astronomy" related are always inspirational and innovative to watch. I've learned a lot from watching all your videos. Keep it up!
I see you have put a bottom plate on your mirror box, that's non standard, I assume it's to keep the dust and dirt off your primary mirror coatings? Also I notice that your laminate glue from the factory doesn't look strongly yellow like mine does (mine was manufactured from March to May 2022)
Mine is from 2019 so maybe they've upgraded the glue. I've put a bottom cover to block ambient light when the dob is operating at lower altitudes. It also helps to keep ground dust/dirt off the back of the primary as you said. Check out ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4FuGniNZlg4.html (27:44 in the timeline)
Thanks. Could you tell me if the refractor telescope suffers a lot of damage if I want to observe from the seashore? I say this because of the salinity that can affect the lenses. Is there a trick to protect it and be able to go anyway?
I wonder if that glue would have come off the back of the laminate if you had of used the same stuff that I used to remove those horrid sticky labels off of certain UL16 parts as supplied by the HO factory, I used Tamiya brand (Synthetic) Laquer Thinner. Alcohol is an organic solvent, and won't attack plastic, and neither will the Tamiya Lacquer Thinner, but Acetone does attack plastics. For tape, you need as smooth a surface as possible to adhere to, but for glue you would want as rough a surface as possible. I always clean surfaces with Alcohol before sticking stuff on, in order to remove finger grease. Someone else with a HO UL16 used Copydex rubber glue to stick their formica back on, and said it was pretty effective. I would be tempted to use Epoxy!
