When I first bought my 10" scope optics back in the late 70's, I put all my available money into the mirrors, without thinking too much about what I would house them in. I'll worry about that later, I thought!
The reality, of course, was that I couldn't afford a tube, or a mount to attach it to. I therefore decided to make my own.
After much thought, I settled on a hexagonal design, which I considered to be stronger than a square section tube, and relatively easy to make with everyday hand tools. Below are a selection of pics showing the different stages of the build.
The tube sides and hexagonal ring supports are 4-5mm plywood, with additional pine square section beading around the supports to enable the sides to be glued and screwed. The final tube is very rigid whilst also being light. The mirror cell is attached to an aluminium plate which my father made for me many years ago.
The small door near the back of the tube allows access to the primary, which can just be seen covered with a blue plastic cover below (actually the bottom of an old bucket!). The finished tube was decorated in a tasteful shade of green (well I thought it was at the time). Unfortunately, thoughts of making a proper mount were abandoned, and for a few years I enjoyed the use of an alt-azimuth mount, courtesy of my B&D workmate. Looking back, this was incredibly primitive, and I'm amazed I stuck with it. Shows how dedicated I was at the time!
I was very proud of my OTA, so much so that I've still got the tube in the attic! I'm pleased to say that after struggling with the Black & Decker for a few years, enough was enough, and I eventually upgraded to my current set-up - a Superscopes driven equatorial (more pictures to follow in a later post).
