Turtle Wax - There is no substitute

[Moonshane]

Hi all

I recently read (thanks Olly!) that to get your dob base (partic the azimuth bearing) running smoother than a baby's bum, there's nothing like Turtle Wax.

I always though my dob mount was quite smooth. Orion Optics kindly make their paint job on the dob base a little orange peely so that it's like the Ebony Star material that everyone raves about. The other bit is Teflon pads.

I struggled a bit to get the paste Turtle Wax as I thought this might be better but eventually got some online for about £8 delivered. This is about 10 years' worth of polishing for my dobs so not bad really.

Having just applied two coats, dried and polished the base of my dob, it's now superb. Very light finger tip control.

So if you have a dob base and want to make it super smooth then add some Turtle Wax; even better if you add some dimply laminate first though

Cheers

Shane

[Demon Barber]

Hi Shane try looking on the Obsession user`s forum there`s loads of info on the best combinations of polishes, I use a combination of good quality wax and Armor All Original polish for my Obsession scope,

ATB

Mike

[Andrew*]

Sounds great - can you give us a link?

[calibos]

Its definately the final part of the stiction puzzle. I was a bit disappointed after I replaced my old Orion XT12i's nylon azimuth bearing pads with real virgin teflon pads in combination with an Ebonystar ring. Its was definately smoother than the original Orion azimuth motions but it didn't seem to be the cure all I had heard about.

For visual it was probably enough alright but for High mag planetary imaging it wasn't. With tracking looked after by an equatorial platform one would think the battle to image at high mag was already won. However, trying to centre Saturn at nearly 1000x was still an excercise in frustration. Initial centering took forever and if the planet drifted to the edge of the cameras FOV during the capture window then I was almost guaranteed to have to bin it and start over. The reason being, that even trying to make fine adjustments to the pointing of the scope with the tip of a finger resulted in losing the planet out of the FOV and it taking forever to find it again. The stiction of the scope meant that the OTA and base flexed before the stiction in the azimuth bearings broke.

Anyway, long story short, once I discovered waxing of the ebonystar I was able to make the finest pointing adjustments imaginable with the lightest of touches with the tip of a finger. The scope moved without flexing and there was no risk of the planet bouncing out of the FOV.

[LMC]

I've had the opposite problem with Dobs.

I can't seem to get them to stop moving. Its quite windy where I live and there is usually a breeze blowing 9 nights out of 10.

The fool things just won't stay still. They whirl around like a Taxi meter!

I've had to resort to the hi-tech solution of a sand-bag on the base.

Most annoying.

[Demon Barber]

Hi Andrew here is a link to Obsession user`s group obsessionusers : Obsession Telescope Users Group also visit the Obsession website http://www.obsessiontelescopes.com/

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!

ATB

Mike