Secondary mirror hub and vanes. How easy to build?

[Daz69]

Morning all.

I have the Celestron Astromaster 130, but the plastic front end is big and ugly, and I'd love to swap it all out for a better, slimmer looking finish. The vanes are massive, and need to go on a diet. I was wondering if it would be possible to make a new hub and vanes, and getting rid of all of that ugly grey plastic.

I should be able to machine a new hub from an ali block, but how would be best to fit the vanes to it? I'm not sure if the vanes should be ali as they will be thin, so this would probably be best using mild steel, somewhere between 0.5mm and 1mm thick. I even thought of hacksaw blades as they are strong and thin??? I'd remove the sharp pointy bits as they'll cut your hands to ribbons every time you remove the secondary lol  

Just thinking!

[Peter Drew]

Hello Daz.  Apart from improving the looks, to be frank, I think any performance difference would be too little to warrant the effort. Having said that, it would not harm to replace it if you would prefer. Don't bin the old one just in case. 

[Daz69]

6 hours ago, Peter Drew said:

Hello Daz.  Apart from improving the looks, to be frank, I think any performance difference would be too little to warrant the effort. Having said that, it would not harm to replace it if you would prefer. Don't bin the old one just in case. 

Lol, yes it does seem mad doesn't it! I enjoy tinkering, and any improvement just to the looks would be a benefit IMO. To me, it just looks a little too "toy'ish" even though it is a good starter scope, and this is it's downside. I cannot afford to upgrade to my dream SW200 yet (read a couple of years) so that will give me time to learn loads on this one. 

 

[CraigT82]

6" steel rules make good vanes... stainless and easily available. You could check out stellafane website for tips on making your own bits https://stellafane.org/tm/dob/ota/spider-stalk.html.

[Daz69]

2 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

6" steel rules make good vanes... stainless and easily available. You could check out stellafane website for tips on making your own bits https://stellafane.org/tm/dob/ota/spider-stalk.html.

Thanks Craig for the link. I like the simplicity of the curved vane. I'd use the original secondary and it's mount, however I'd prefer to make the hub from ali rather than wood as the link shows. That way I can safely drill the 3 collimation holes plus the centre hub hole to hold the mount, as per the original design.