Tal1 OTA Paint Job advice please

[Alfian]

I'm in the process of renovating my Tal 1 110/810 reflector OTA. It was looking a bit tired plus I'm attempting one or two modification including a different focuser,  changing it from left handed to right handed (that will make sense to some people!) and fitting a standard finder shoe.  If it all comes together as I hope I'm going to give it a new coat of paint.  I was thinking of brush painting it rather than spraying it. Astro-Baby mentions i think in her Tal rebuild a good paint to use for brush painting but alas I cannot find a link to that  part of the rebuild and unfortunately her web site seems to have been down for quite a while now.

I had thought of smooth Hammerite but would appreciate any suggestions or help in how to achieve a nice smooth finish. White is the standard colour for this tube though Tals have historically come in other colours. Would it be sacrilege to go with another colour - a nice azure blue?  Odds are though if  not white, it would be smooth black.

[Starlight 1]

Powder coating will look the best  and last longer.

[Roy Challen]

Not sacrelige at all! I re-did my 100 RS a while ago. I used several coats of Halfords primer, sanding down between each coat, then two coats of Halfords Ford Ivory paint again sanding between each coat. Finally two coats of lacquer from Halfords. When fully hardened (at least two weeks) give it a good polish with a decent brand. I used 400 and 1000 grit wet n dry paper.

 

HTH

[Alfian]

50 minutes ago, Starlight 1 said:

Powder coating will look the best  and last longer.

I had thought of having it powder coated, especially given that there is a workshop just down the road that could do it. I had decided against though because the OTA is internally flocked and wondered whether screw threads etc might get damaged in the process. Perhaps I'm worrying needlessly as I'm sure the tube would be masked off.  Perhaps  I'll check that out.

17 minutes ago, Roy Challen said:

Not sacrelige at all! I re-did my 100 RS a while ago. I used several coats of Halfords primer, sanding down between each coat, then two coats of Halfords Ford Ivory paint again sanding between each coat. Finally two coats of lacquer from Halfords. When fully hardened (at least two weeks) give it a good polish with a decent brand. I used 400 and 1000 grit wet n dry paper.

 

HTH

Hi Roy, thanks for that info. I was thinking I might need some kind of enamel paint not thinking that I could use car paint.  Did you brush paint or spray?

[spillage]

I would spray it rather than brush. Just make sure your first few coats are just dust coats and then build up the amount you put on the scope to get a nice wet layer but not too wet that it will run. Also try to keep the edge wet by overlapping the spray and keep the can flat to the surface and spray before and past the scope. Sorry also allow a good 20 mins between coats.

 

 

[Roy Challen]

I used spray cans, pretty much as spillage says, but with a quick rub down using the 400 grit - no need to go mad, a couple of minutes just to remove specks of dust - in between each coat. I used the 1000 before applying the lacquer. Don't forget to blank off all holes unless you're going to black the inside of the tube afterwards.

[Alfian]

Thanks to both of you, thats food for thought. Main reason not wanting to spray is that it will almost certainly be done indoors.  We have a basement utility type room that I use as a a bit of a workshop (no garage or usable shed) and outside there is rarely no wind at all here (gales at the moment!) so a little concerned about over-spray floating around.

[spillage]

If you want to got mad:

400 grit to key existing paintwork and remove and blemishes unless you are going back to bare metal.

4-5 coats of primer then 800 grit to flatten.

Couple of cans of final paint followed by 1200 grit and a good t-cut and polish.

[Davey-T]

If you decide to go down the spray route I would go to an automotive paint suppliers, there's usually one fairly local, and they will supply aerosols in any colour that are much better quality than the Halfords ones which are far too thin and watery.

Spraying a tube requires supporting it vertically so that you can go round and round unhindered.

I would definitely recommend spraying as opposed to brushing but this is not really the right time of year for it unless you're inside with some form of heating, nothing with a naked flame though 

Also practice on something first, this is not a waste of paint.

Dave

 

[Alfian]

I have just had a quote from a local firm to powder coat outside of OTA for £35.00 which leaves me to re-matt black/flock internals, 'though he did say I could have the whole thing done matt black inside and out! How about that,a matt black Tal1. I could even put a red star on it to give it that genuine ex-military russian look.  I could have the pier done at the same time. A thought.

[spillage]

not sure on the pier as I a think allot of heat is used to back the powder coat so might damage any rubber or plastics grease. I would make sure before handing it over.

[Roy Challen]

That sounds cool! £35 seems like a reasonable price too.

[Alfian]

33 minutes ago, spillage said:

not sure on the pier as I a think allot of heat is used to back the powder coat so might damage any rubber or plastics grease. I would make sure before handing it over.

It would be just the pier, not the mount. The pier/feet is all metal with just a large pitch screw thread at the top to take the mount. Older Tal piers were reputedly made from old unused Tank barrels that were still rifled inside. They should take a bit of heat!

[Starlight 1]

£35 sound good  I would keep it white  as to black,  look at  post agin how about  asking them to matt black inside and white out side.

[Alfian]

24 minutes ago, Starlight 1 said:

£35 sound good  I would keep it white  as to black,  look at  post agin how about  asking them to matt black inside and white out side.

Yes, it can be done and that's how it should be but would obviously cost more.  I have to get it all together yet and ensure that all is well before getting the cosmetics done, but I just needed to weigh up the size of the work. The thought of a Matt black scope though I'd quite entertaining. There would be the issue of not finding it in the dark if my head torch failed!

[nightfisher]

Just a thought how about black carbon fibre vinyl wrap, quick less than a tenner and how bling would a TAL 1 carbon look

[Starlight 1]

10 minutes ago, Alfian said:

Yes, it can be done and that's how it should be but would obviously cost more.  I have to get it all together yet and ensure that all is well before getting the cosmetics done, but I just needed to weigh up the size of the work. The thought of a Matt black scope though I'd quite entertaining. There would be the issue of not finding it in the dark if my head torch failed!

Will black hold the heat longerrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[Alfian]

That could be funny if it wasn't a possibility! I I've never seen carbon fibre wrap let alone got to grips with using it so I'll look into that one Jules.

[Alfian]

4 minutes ago, Starlight 1 said:

Will black hold the heat longerrrrrrrrrrrrr.

No danger of heat being an issue at the moment!  Do open black tubes take longer to cool down at night than white ones? Could be an experiment for someone there, someone with time on their hands.

[timwetherell]

I would have thought that a black tube would cool faster than a white one because it will radiate more heat. Though what colour it is in the 10-20µm infrared doesn't necessarily correlate with what colour it looks to our eyes in visible light

I had a specially made TEC 140 in black once - can't say I noticed a spectacular difference between the cool down of that vs white scopes. Probably convection cooling by the air is more significant than radiative cooling anyway?

[deejay]

Have you thought about fake carbon fibre vinyl wrap or metallic type vinyl wrap, its cheap and it comes  off easily with a warm hairdryer. I have done a vintage Towa 3" in red and black carbon fibre effect and I think it looks OK for now. I do intend to get it refinished properly one day but this cost me a fiver. There's a pic of it in the show us your frac section.

[Bruce Leeroy]

If you do paint/spray it yourself try to avoid a water based paint, I find water based paint doesn't like being rubbed down with emery paper and water between coats.

[Alfian]

1 hour ago, deejay said:

Have you thought about fake carbon fibre vinyl wrap or metallic type vinyl wrap, its cheap and it comes  off easily with a warm hairdryer. I have done a vintage Towa 3" in red and black carbon fibre effect and I think it looks OK for now. I do intend to get it refinished properly one day but this cost me a fiver. There's a pic of it in the show us your frac section.

Yes, Jules (nightfisher) suggested this, and having looked into it, if you can wrap cars, vans, etc in it, I'm sure you can wrap a 'scope in it! I'd need to practice a little on something else but as you say it's cheap enough to have a play with. 

[Stu]

On 11/01/2017 at 17:22, Alfian said:

That could be funny if it wasn't a possibility! I I've never seen carbon fibre wrap let alone got to grips with using it so I'll look into that one Jules.

Here is my (now sold) carbon wrapped 150mm f5, before and after  

[Alfian]

Oooooo, I like it. That could be a wrap! (sorry) This is looking very promising.