Help me design a telescope case
 

Good evening, my wife has a telescope and nobody seems to do a case. I was thinking of making one for it. Anyone good with wood that could advise how to do it?

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

wideload

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

what kind of case are you looking to make? what criteria do you have for the interior or are you looking at making just a box?

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Probably a wooden one with a hinged lid. Either padding or supports inside with storage for some eyepieces and other related items. I'm thinking maybe a piano hinge for the lid and a couple of carry handles.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Piano hinge is ok if you can get a decent quality length of it, its pretty universal. Depending on how long your telescope is I'd be tempted to go for 2-3 but hinges then they can be cut them in so the lid sits down nice and flush with minimal gap, would look neater. How are you planning on fixing the piano hinge? If its between the lid a bottom (so the hinge leafs are hidden inside the fold when shut) you be left with 2-3mm gap on the hinge side. That's why I'd go for hinges.

Construction wise theirs quite a few ways of doing it but it will come down to how confident you are with wood (snigger)

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Well I haven't done any woodwork since high school some 14 years ago! I am always will to try my hand at stuff. If multiple hinges would give a better fit then thats what I would go with. What wood would be best? The scope is 850mm x 170mm diameter with a 90mm eye piece on the side.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

If it was being done professionally it would have halved dovetail joints but they're not easy to do. Something like a housing or small halving joint on the end is probably the easiest and effective joint if you're not massively experienced (hard to explain how wood joints look but they'll come up on google). Mitre'ing the corners would work but they're not particularly strong joints even with dowel, if your knocked it over or dropped it it would just fall apart.

Make it so the internal dimensions are about an inch longer than your scope eboth ends and once its together buy some polystyrene blocks, cut them to fill the inside then shape it out for your scope to fit in. You can felt it afterwards but be carefully if you use glue as some will melt polystyrene.

There's loads of different ways of putting something like this together but it's all down to what you like and are hapoy with. Wood wise avoid oak, everyone loves it but it moves all over the place over time. Sooner or later it will develop splits and start falling apart. Mahogany/sapele are the best timbers for boxes and case, but I prefer walnut for its looks. If your not into the look of dark wood then ash is a good allrounder.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

My dad made one of my guitar cases.
He rebated the piano hinge so it's flush when closed.
We covered it in black vinyl so ply was used.
For my mike and floor effects possessr I bought a. Telescope. Case and just removed the foam. Cut out ploy with a Hot wire and lined it with black velvet. Used corrrydex rubber solution glue.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

I would probably try and cover it with something so I was thinking a simple butting up of the corners with maybe a dowel or two and a L-brace on the inside.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

well if you're going to cover it just use plywood like ntec's and but, glue and screw it together.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

What thickness would you recommend? I take it I would need to drill a pilot hole to avoid the wood splitting?

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

18mm, 12 usually spits even with a pilot.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Dad could box joint. 12 mm ply.
But he was a clever stick like that.
Their must be a YouTube video that will give you inspiration

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

I've never herd of a box joint.

Edit: ah you mean a finger joint. Well if kenzie can manage that then I'd still say go for dovetails. Interlocking angles will prevent it pulling apart if its dropped/knocked about Alot.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

With good glue it's going to be strong
And it's easier than dove tails

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Not that much easier. I don't think kenzie has much woodworking experience (no offence, just from what you said) and finger joints are pretty much the same process as cutting dovetails without the angles, they're still pretty tricky. That's why I suggested just screw, glue and butt it. Finger joints and the like are very strong but generally they're for aesthetics over strength as you don't want see screws in a nice piece of hardwood, an effective joint can be achieved with glue and screws and if it's being covered it won't matter how it looks, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with putting the effort into it. When I first saw the thread I thought the idea was to make a nice hardwood presentation kind of case that's why I posted about dovetails ect.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

New hobbie for him.
The cheapest router out of Lidl and a jig and there's no stopping what he might create lol.
p's
Apologies to my dad who would despaire in the absolute cheat of using a router.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Whittle it out of a tree trunk. anything else is cheating.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

I don't know. I gave away my dads Record 405 and about 30 blades last year as I could do a neater job with a decent router. I had no idea where I could source replacement blades or even get them sharpened. Sometimes modern technology is far superior to traditional tools.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

You sharpen them yourself. When you start In the trade your suppose to learn how to do everything by hand at a* quality before you learn how to do it with power tools. All my work is by hand of manual machinery nothing automated. I've never used a dovetail jig, cnc ect.

I'd pick hand tools over power tooks every time.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

fine by hand with an oilstone for the rebate type blades. and even on a grinding wheel when needed. But for profiles such as hollows and rounds I would have thought they require a profile stone of the appropriate diameter. The manual advised using emery wrapped round a piece of dowel and saw file etc. I remember my dad trying to match existing picture rail on one house, even sourcing the correct blades was hard enough.

My uncle was a cabinet maker. all his joints were by hand. But one piece would take months, and cost a fortune. If he was doing it today. I guess jigs and power tools would exist in his workshop. No two drawers were properly interchangable I couldn't see the difference ing gaps, but he could.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

You can grind a lot of profiles on a bench grinder with a variety of different width wheels and you can get rounded oil stones for gouges ect. I make up basic profiles for spindle moulder blocks.

But that's what you pay for, most jobs don't take that long to make. This crap you buy from the likes of oak furniture land is just that, mass produced crap. It's advertised as "solid oak" which it is, but its just useless little offcuts from something else (most likely waste from another company) thats been glued together and machined to death. General rule of thumb in the wood trade is that you don't show end-grain, you match timbers (colour and grain) and anything with knots is either put out of sight or chucked.... All of which OFL don't do and then charge bespoke prices for something that's been mass machined by some underpaid asian.

The overall price of a job is probably more materials than labor these days. Current timber prices are ridiculous. Pretty much all the work that I do these days is bespoke one off's, nothing mass produced.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

So the question is then Wideboy, how much would you charge if I asked you to make one?

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Depends how big the telescope is, and how much additional weight you're willing to lug around. I'd probably go with something like this:

1) cut the sides, ends and bottom from 6mm ply. A decent timber yard will be able to do this more accurately than you can with a hand held saw.

2) make the edges from solid timber and rebate to take 6mm ply.

3) mitre and glue the edges together at the corners

4) glue and screw the plywood sides and bottom to the edges

5) Buy some 2 part polyurethane foam and use the manufacturers data to calculate how much you need to almost fill your wooden box. You will also need a couple of bin liners, gloves and eye protection because 2 part foam is nasty stuff.

http://www.demon-tweeks.co.uk/motors...-foam-seat-kit

If you have enough chemicals it's worth trying a dry run of the next bit with a cardboard box and a wine bottle to get a feel for how it goes.

6) Mix up the appropriate amount of the two components then pour roughly equal amounts of the mix into two bin bags. Tape them closed and put them at either end of your box and wait...

7) Once the reaction is under way, insert the telescope in between the bags of foam to create a hollow the right size and hold it until the foam starts to set. This can get _hot_ so be sure to keep your gloves on. Remove the telescope before the foam has completely set or you might find it's a little too secure.

8 ) At this point you should have a box full of nice solid polyurethane foam with a telescope sized hole and a bit of overflow. Cut off the surplus foam, then decide how you want to attach the lid.

If you don't want to be messing around with nasty chemicals, take a look at Instapak Quick, That's the same thing pre-packed in bags.

9) Once you've got this far you can decide whether to cover the box with vinyl or just sand it and paint it.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

depends what you want ;-)

TBH I would probably turn you down, way to busy at the moment and for the next few months. Currently making a massive circular serving counter from oak which I've got half completed and glued together, then i need to make two five metre long counters with curved ends. Curved work is stressful.

Similar to the counters in this picture. That's haskins restaurant in ferndown which i did about 5 years ago, i've lost all my picture's i have of it so that's lifted off their website.

http://www.haskins.co.uk/images/rest...t_interior.jpg

last year was really bad with barely any work at all but this year looks to be mental.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Depends how big the telescope is, and how much additional weight you're willing to lug around. I'd probably go with something like this:

1) cut the sides, ends and bottom from 6mm ply. A decent timber yard will be able to do this more accurately than you can with a hand held saw.

2) make the edges from solid timber and rebate to take 6mm ply.

3) mitre and glue the edges together at the corners

4) glue and screw the plywood sides and bottom to the edges

5) Buy some 2 part polyurethane foam and use the manufacturers data to calculate how much you need to almost fill your wooden box. You will also need a couple of bin liners, gloves and eye protection because 2 part foam is nasty stuff.

If you have enough polyurethane it's worth trying a dry run with a cardboard box and a wine bottle for the next bit.

6) Mix up the appropriate amount of the two components then pour roughly equal amounts of the mix into two bin bags. Put them at either end of your box and wait...

7) Once the reaction is under way, insert the telescope in between the bags of foam to create a hollow the right size and hold it until the foam starts to set. This can get _hot_ so be sure to keep your gloves on

8) At this point you should have a box full of nice solid polyurethane foam with a telescope sized hole and a bit of overflow. Cut off the surplus foam, then decide how you want to attach the lid.

If you don't want to be messing around with nasty chemicals, take a look at Instapak Quick, That's the same thing pre-packed in bags.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Shame. Maybe I will post a build thread.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Something like this ?

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Perv

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Actually the stuff from there is surprisingly cheap when you consider the price of MDF furniture.

Definitely not bespoke prices.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

£500 quid for a side board unit made of glued together offcuts

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

Well that's steep, probably because it's got a lot of parts, but when I looked at their bedroom stuff it wasn't too much more than mdf crap.

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

oh i see then looking elsewhere for your furniture eh?

Re: Help me design a telescope case
 

not really. I'm happy with what I've got.