I hand made a Dobsonian telescope. Hope you like it :-)

[GasGiant]

Hi folks

Telescopes have long interested me from an engineering point of view, there is just something inherently 'cool' about how they look. Well, I think so anyway 😀

In my spare time I make things in metal. Mechanical things that interest me or I find visually appealing.  I have a small workshop with a lathe, a mill and a couple of laser cutters as well as the usual hand tools etc 

I decided to have stab at scope model. Loosely based around a Dob, I whittled away kinda freestyling it with no real 'design' as such.

Everything is fabricated from bar stock. The truss rods are carbon fibre, I forget why I had it but its perfect for the model.  The scope moves up and down and swivels of course though I cant see much down the eyepiece, maybe it needs collimating 🤣

Anyway. here is the result. Im pleased as punch with it.

 

Carl 

[westmarch]

Lovely piece of craftsmanship. Well done. 
 

John

[PeterStudz]

Fantastic and looks superb. As far as I’m concerned there should be more of this kind of thing. Maybe even a model telescope challenge on this site 🤔 

[GordonD]

That is gorgeous - well done!

[davidc135]

That's amazing.  David

[GasGiant]

[Zermelo]

Exquisite.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Wow! That is amazing and beautiful craftsmanship. 

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

That looks fun, how many hours to make?

[RobertI]

Beautiful, such attention to detail. 

[bosun21]

Lovely piece of craftsmanship. Makes a great decoration piece.

[Bugdozer]

Beautiful work of art! 

[Second Time Around]

Wow! Absolutely superb!

[GasGiant]

Thank you guys, very kind. ☺️

@Mr H in Yorkshire  It took about three-ish days. Started Thursday and finished yesterday. Id like to find a small round mirror and plop it in the bottom but apart from that its done.

 

 

Edited January 14 by GasGiant

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

You could simulate a mirror with a piece of cooking foil carefully smoothed out, or get an inspection tooI, I have one, a small mirror on a handle, but the  mirror is about 1" so maybe too big? As the model is metal, why not a disk of stainless steel with a good polish. At least you can machine that to fit.

Edited January 14 by Mr H in Yorkshire

[GasGiant]

good shout. I think I will turn up some ali and give that a good polish 🙂 

 

[Nikolai De Silva]

Very nice @GasGiant! 👍😊 I really love scaled models! This dob is really good and nicely done! 

42 minutes ago, Mr H in Yorkshire said:

You could simulate a mirror with a piece of cooking foil carefully smoothed out, or get an inspection tooI, I have one, a small mirror on a handle, but the  mirror is about 1" so maybe too big? As the model is metal, why not a disk of stainless steel with a good polish. At least you can machine that to fit.

I also made a dob, but with waste. For that I used an old bicycle mirror.

I have got Wrong here down with the Quotes😁

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Edited January 14 by Nikolai De Silva

[Nikolai De Silva]

This is my one 🙂 Not good as yours @GasGiant!

[Nikolai De Silva]

15 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

Fantastic and looks superb. As far as I’m concerned there should be more of this kind of thing. Maybe even a model telescope challenge on this site 🤔 

That's a good idea! Can't we really have one?🤔

[Mr H in Yorkshire]

43 minutes ago, GasGiant said:

good shout. I think I will turn up some ali and give that a good polish 🙂

Or go the long route and cast a tiny speculum disk! Maybe for when you make a model of Herschel's scope.

[GasGiant]

@Mr H in Yorkshire That would be a undertaking ! :-0 

Ive started building a full size Dob, lol. However, I really do need to pencil some ideas down before I go too much further. 

[Astronomist]

If the quality of that model is anything to go by I can't wait to see the full size Dob! What aperture will it be?

[GasGiant]

2 minutes ago, Astronomist said:

If the quality of that model is anything to go by I can't wait to see the full size Dob! What aperture will it be?

Probably 8"   

[tomato]

Beautiful piece of work, 3D printing is great but I can’t warm to them like I can machine tools.

On the subject of models, here is my very crude, hastily crafted 1:1 scale model of a Mesu 200. Why on earth? I wanted a second hand flight case for it, and as it is an irregular shape I took the model to the shop to check it would fit in the case.

 

[GasGiant]

@tomato genius! 😃