Flocking a sliding dew shield

[Stu]

This may be old hat, but I thought it may also be useful for some.

I have several refractors with sliding dew shields which cannot have flocking material permanently stuck to them as they then would not retract.

Some time ago I read on the forum of someone who had applied flocking material to flexible card for flocking the inside of a scope, so that it was removable, and thought the same idea would work on the francs. So here it is, very simple but effective. If you lay the flocking over the dew shield, sticky side up, then apply the card whilst rolling it around, it naturally forms into the right curve with no creases.

I've done two now, one for the Stellarvue and one for the Astrotech and they work well. I've added some Velcro pads to the Astrotech one as it helps to hold it in place. They are easily removed when you need to store the scope.

Hope that's useful. Kept me busy for a while today anyway :-)

Stu

[emadmoussa]

I remember I talked to celestron a couple of months back to sort out my C11. I came to mention flocking...they said it wasn't recommended since the flocking matrial available in the UK tend to disintegrate after few months, leaving residue on the lenses. I am not sure if things changed since or somebody has a better hands on experience.

[Stu]

I've not seen any negative comments on the forum and plenty of people have flocked their scopes. I don't see how it can disintegrate? It does give off a bit of fluff but that is easily removed.

Stu

[emadmoussa]

I dont know really. That's what they told me. To be honest, I am not convinced either..

[Gina]

I haven't seen any mention of this before and hundreds of people have flocked their scopes. I'm sure if there had beeen any hint of a problem it would have been mentioned here.