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Great Flocking Material- Superb results

DaveGibbons

By DaveGibbons
in DIY Astronomer

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oldfruit

oldfruit

Posted
Posted

Done my scope today too. Love the results. In the picture the tube is flocked except the far end which as you can see the results speak for themselves. The second pic is fully flocked and re-assembled.

Excellent heads up and a big thankyou for Dave Gibbons for bringing it to our attention.:icon_confused::rolleyes:

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Beulah

Beulah

Posted
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Three months on (from flocking) and I have had to service the scope due to mount troubles - it turned out the OTA screws needed a tweak, amongst other issues.

That involved the removal of the primary mirror, so whilst it was off, I might as well pop it under the tap for a clean (distilled water was used).

I did notice a fine layer of black fibres on the mirror's surface, so this 'flocking paper' does shed.

Incidently, I flocked the inside of my blue camping mat with some leftovers and turned it into a temporary 'dew shield' until I buy black ones...:icon_confused:

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Coco

Coco

Posted
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Am glad to see you active again Dave, your one of me favourite reads :rolleyes: You've so much to give the members in great advise..:icon_confused:

Guy..

Hi All, If you are looking to flock your scope then get yourself down to a Wilkinsons home store as they stock a self adhesive black velour material in easy to handle rolls of 1m length by 45 cm width,at least my Southport shop does!

It's absolutely superb and having just done a 10" skywatcher dob tube it is in my opinion as good as or even better than the far more expensive Prostar stuff I have used on a number of scopes in the past. It cost £5 a roll and took 3 rolls to do the 10" dob total cost £15. It's manufactured in Germany by D-C-FIX and is extremely black and has better adhesive qualities than Prostar. A month on and I can see no evidence of any fibre shedding on the mirrors and it is definitely a great buy.

I've actually bought a few more rolls for future use as you never know how long they will stock it. Check out your local store .

Just added a picture of the inside of the tube. I used a full flash just to show how well it cuts down on light reflection, just try that on an unflocked one !

You can see from the bare section on the focusser tube that allows the bearing to run freely the general difference in reflection qualities.

cheers

Dave

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fbassett

fbassett

Posted
Posted

This is my first attempt at flocking my ST 80. The material is very easy to cut and shape, the backing although very sticky is easy to peel back and re-apply, once set in place and left overnight it is difficult to remove. As you can see from the picture, its appears to be very good at absorbing light, the lower right hand side is still un-flocked(is that even a word?). I'm very pleased so far with results.

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JKB

JKB

Posted
Posted

Thanks for the heads up. Obviously FLO have been to the Wilco's in Exeter because I only managed to find one roll! :icon_confused:

So easy to apply, looks good, and I am well pleased. 1 Roll did the 150P plus inner front ring and inside of focuser tube with a bit to spare. £5 bargain!

Before and after shots

Cheers

Jamie

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Psychobilly

Psychobilly

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Posted

If your nervous about messing it up when applying it you might what to try this...

Use one drop of washing up liquid in a bowl of water to moistened the surface before applying this will temporarily reduce the adhesive strength .... The surface should be damp not soaking wet...

We use this method for applying fascia graphics to instrument panels all the time ...

Peter

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spaceboy

spaceboy

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Thanks for the heads up. Obviously FLO have been to the Wilco's in Exeter because I only managed to find one roll! ;)

So easy to apply, looks good, and I am well pleased. 1 Roll did the 150P plus inner front ring and inside of focuser tube with a bit to spare. £5 bargain!

Before and after shots

Cheers

Jamie

What did you use on the draw tube of the focuser??

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Beulah

Beulah

Posted
Posted
Anyone have a good how to guide for flocking a scope? I've just picked up some rolls today and want to do my SW explorer 200pds, but it's a bit scary... Any pitfalls to look out for?

Obviously you need to remove the main mirror, the secondary mirror, spider vanes, focuser and any other screws and attachments. Put the primary mirror into a box and put it somewhere safe.

Cut the paper into narrow strips. The flocking paper can be cut in half or thirds lengthways. (think about the method of applying wall paper). Each time I flocked a telescope, I usually cut the paper in half.

Make sure you have cut enough to cover the entire length of the OTA (excluding about 2 inches from the mirror end).

With the paper, roll it back up and expose a few inches of the adhesive. Stick to the interior of the OTA , pressing down and smoothing to avoid bubbles and expose a little of the adhesive side at a time as you progress down the tube. If the paper looks wonky, you can pull it back off again and retry. However it is harder to pull the entire length of applied flocking paper, so check for accuracy as you go along.

Any subborn bubbles can be 'popped' with a sharp Stanley knife and smoothed down.

Any screw holes can be reopened with the knife.

Whilst the secondary mirror is out, paint the edges with a matt blackboard paint.

When everything is reattached except for the primary mirror, paint the screw and nuts inside the OTA with blackboard paint.

Before reattaching all the gubbins: using a dry cloth, wipe the interior of the OTA to loosen any stray fibres so that they don't shed onto the primary mirror.

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FLO

FLO

Posted
Posted
Hope that it doesn't become Astronomical in price Steve :-P

You must be thinking of another retailer :)

We have setup an account with the manufacturer so will be offering the same flocking material soon, possibly before Christmas. We are currently discussing what order quantitys will be necessary for us to achieve £5 per roll.

HTH,

Steve

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AndyH

AndyH

Posted
Posted
You must be thinking of another retailer :)

We have setup an account with the manufacturer so will be offering the same flocking material soon, possibly before Christmas. We are currently discussing what order quantitys will be necessary for us to achieve £5 per roll.

HTH,

Steve

:):hello2::(

:D

Andy.

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David010167

David010167

Posted
Posted

Just done this myself after a trip to Wilkinsons in Kingston.

Stripped the 200p down to the tube, measured two strips to do the tube length ways using only two sheets and using plenty of soapy water eased the first sheet in place, spent a few minutes smoothing bubbles out, then added the second sheet with a 5mm overlap to the first sheet and it is now drying overnight for reassembley tomorrow.

So far looks good and the Wilkinson flocking had no issues with the amount of water I used, small amound of flocking flecks on my hand as I smoothed and pushed out bubbles, but no major issues.

regards

David

The water and washing-up liquard trick makes it very easy to corect alignment issues and helps in smoothing the bubbles out.

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FLO

FLO

Posted
Posted

It's absolutely superb and having just done a 10" skywatcher dob tube it is in my opinion as good as or even better than the far more expensive Prostar stuff I have used on a number of scopes in the past.

...It's manufactured in Germany by D-C-FIX and is extremely black and has better adhesive qualities than Prostar. A month on and I can see no evidence of any fibre shedding on the mirrors

We have fifty 45cm x 1m rolls of black velour flocking material en-route from the manufacturer in Germany, they will be on our shelves ready for dispatch first week in January :icon_biggrin:

Unfortunately we cannot achieve £5 per roll. The velours are more expensive than regular finishes but Wilkinsons charge the the same for all of them. With 366 stores they are clearly ordering in a larger quantity than us so can afford to average the cost across all versions.

We can however achieve £7 per roll.

For us this journey started back in February when someone asked us to supply Protostar flocking material. We approached the US supplier but they weren't interested in appointing a UK dealer. Fortunately, thanks to Dave and his thread here on SGL we can now now offer a sensibly priced alternative that is at least as good :icon_salut:

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