Spring Clean

[George]

After scratching my head as to why I couldn't get any sharp detail on saturn with the webcam I decided to re-collimate. I bunged in the laser and it was spot on, hmmm lets take a closer look......

Seems Mr & Mrs Spider had been house building the last couple of weeks :shock: and found the mirror clips ideal anchor points so........

Mirror got a scrub.

First job was a trip to the bathroom and a leisurly 5 minute shower with moderately hot water to loosen and remove the worst of the cobwebs and gunge. Then it was dried off with a hairdryer. Slight hazy film was still apparent so off to the kitchen sink for stage 2. Stage 2 consisted of hot water with the addition of some washing up liquid, mirror was swirled around for a few minutes and left to soak for 5. I then nicked a couple of the daughters makeup thingy pads (100% pure soft cotton) and gently dragged from the centre to the outer of the mirror. Mirror was then treated to another 5 minute shower and again dried with a hairdryer......bingo no water marks.....job done 8)

I guess the purists will view this treatment with shock/horror, (no alcohol or pure H20 used) but the mirror is spotless, no water marks or scratches. :hello1: Also made a mental note to replace end caps etc after use ( I have an habit of forgetting this)

BTW Mr & Mrs Spider were humanely evicted and are enjoying life in my tool shed

[rawhead]

Looks good to me. Interesting to see how it performs.

Cheers

Jon

[barkis]

Well your cleaning methods certainly had me cringing George. It looks a lot better in the after shots, so you may have got away with it. I hope so, time will tell.

I'm pleased you allowed the spiders to remain, albeit in a new location.

Ron.

PS. I visited your site, but obviously it is not finished.?

[George]

PS. I visited your site, but obviously it is not finished.?

Yes got to start from scratch on the website, it was hosted on my home server but unfortunately the hard drive decided to call it a day

Its now what you call ongoing

[Sam]

Well done George - your methods work fine - I did a similar thing with my 8" mirror. The key bit was getting the water off so no marks were left - you photos came out well and really show the difference!

[haitch]

Oooh you almost gave me palpitations. Done cleaning like this myself and I'm so nervous when I do.

Just a note if anyone else is going to try cleaning like this - "dragging" (I hope) refers to drawing it across the mirror incredibly lightly so it just touches to take up any water droplets. In no way should friction be allowed. Especially as make up cotton wool pads (although stated as 100% cotton wool) will contain some man made fibres that can be abrasive on the mirror surface. The only really pure "pure" cotton wool is the surgical stuff.

Always let the water & detergent do the cleaning.