The first phase of rough grinding my 8.5 inch Pyrex disc into a telpe mirror. Including beveling the edges, measuring sagita (central depth), and grindin...
Mel Bartels, a well respected west coast amateur, recommends on his Large, Thin Mirror Grinding web page starting with something between 30 and 60 grit, and then 120, 220, 500 (=25 micron) and finishing with 9 micron. This is just a 5 grit sequence, as opposed to 8 to 10 for the more traditional sequences usually recommended for novices.
To contact TelpeMirrorBlanks with questions or comments about our glass mirror blanks, please email David here: mirrorblanks (at) gmail (dott) com. You must place the "@" sign and "." in the usual places when writing - we spelled them out here to defeat those nasty spam bots. For regular mail inquiries or purchases, please write to our ...
Welcome to King Telpes Not an impressive website. However, we are not in this for a profit. Our intent is to provide a source for lower cost, mirror blanks, and supplies for grinding your own telpe mirror. If I had known as a kid how, well not easy, but indeed not as hard as I would have expected to grind my own mirror.
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FORCE When grinding thin mirror blanks, be conscious of downward pressure, which if excessive, may bend the mirror blank momentarily out of shape. While this is not a problem during rough grinding (as the amount of flex is exceedingly small) the effect becomes important as you reach the later stages of making your telpe mirror.
I know it is bordering on the edge of extremely thin with a 32:1 thickness ratio but it is possible as John Dobson has been known to successfully grind a 24" mirror 3/4" thickness. We have decided on an F/6 with a .25" sagitta it allows .5" center thickness.
Thin Telpe Mirrors . Abridged from an article appearing in Telpe Making #12 Provided: Courtesy of Astronomy Magazine Article's Author: Bob Kestner . Part I - Grinding . For many years, amateur astronomers and telpe makers thought it essential that glass for telpe primary mirrors be at least one-sixth as thick as its diameter.
Ready Mirrors, Mirror Grinding Kits, Eyepieces, Secondary & Other Accessories. Tejraj & Company – Tejraj is well known for supplying telpe, optics and related accessories in India. I buy my secondary mirror and few astro eyepieces from them. You can also buy the GSO primary mirrors from them if you don't want to grind your own mirror.
In this video I am showing you how to make a DIY telpe mirror! This is the second part in the series, showing fine grinding in a step by step tutorial.
The process for grinding telpe mirrors at home actually doesn't look too much different than when Isaac Newton first developed it, and he didn't have any power tools. ... One can cut the Hartmann mask laboriously out of thin card. The ultimate test is the Bath interferometric test, but it's a little complicated.
I developed my process while working on large thin mirrors in the 1980's and on my recent 13 inch [34cm] f3.0, 6 inch [15cm] F2.8, 10.5 inch [27cm] F2.7 and 25.1 inch [637cm] F2.6 mirrors. I read comments like, "thin mirrors cause astigmatism", "the thermal effects of plate glass make figuring difficult". Neither is true because process matters.
The center will deepen during the first stage of fine grinding as contact is achieved across the mirror face and fine grinding tool. On larger mirrors, the ring tool may leave the zones part way to the edge a little underground. For these mirrors, as you near the depth, you can alter the strokes to be off-center.
Mirror-O-Matic grinding machine. When I decided in 2009 after a ten-year break to get into mirror making again, it quickly became clear to me that I would need to construct machine, as hand grinding big mirrors is not something very beneficial for the hands of a musician.
The photo at right show an aluminized 4" mirror. The black ring is used for telpe alignment, the apparently mottled surface is the reflection of textured white ceiling in the room the photo was taken. Summary. Mirror grinding and figuring consists of four major steps (plus aluminizing).
is my father's garage where he is currently working on his telpe hobby. The Diamond curve generating machine in this vi...
Read Jean Texereau, How to Make a Telpe, even if you do find a good mentor to work with. It's a classic, very well written and the methods he describes are still spot on, in year 2020. I would recommend NOT starting with a thin mirror, a really big mirror, or a really fast mirror. An 8 inch f/6 or even 6 inch f/8 is a great starting point.
My Mirror Grinding Machine. For a long time I've wanted to build a machine for grinding telpe mirrors. Dennis Rech's M-o-M designs finally inspired me to just get up and do it. Over the years, I'd been collecting motors, gear boxes, pulleys, etc. …
Grinding and Polishing a Meniscus Mirror ATM In many respects, the grinding and polishing stages of fabricating a thin meniscus telpe mirror are not different from any telpe mirror. There are lots of resources, online and in print, describing that. This article will focus on the specific issues introduced by working on such a mirror.
Welcome to my channel - in this video, we will begin to make a telpe mirror from scratch! I'll be showing you the basics of telpe mirror grinding!Her...
The 1.3m telpe mirror blank has been completed by Peter Wangsness and is now … 1.3m mirror blank – yard stick comparison . 1.3-m Mirror Grinding Machine – Photo: Mike … Mirror-o-Matic mirror making machine – ATM pages of Berthold …
small mirrors, plate glass will work fine too. Telpe mirrors are relatively thick. The concave shaped face is made by repeatedly ... There may be a very thin film of plaster over some the tile faces, this will grind off in the first few grinding sessions. ...
The problem with thin mirrors is that they flex more easily during grinding and polishing, making it hard to achieve the required surface precision. They also need a more complex mirror cell (additional support points). Plop is a useful software to let you calculate the number of points needed based on the diameter and thickness of the glass:
Thin Telpe Mirrors . Part 2 - Polishing . Abridged from an article appearing in Telpe Making #13 Provided: Courtesy of Astronomy Magazine Article's Author: Bob Kestner . I am going to start with some additions to topics covered in part 1, on grinding mirrors.
10 Inch Mirror Blanks, 3/4" Thick: $55 + S&H (16);Shipping prices are to the USA - not shipping outside the US, sorryCombined shipping is possible - Write. For a complete mirror making KIT, with all abrasives, polishing compounds, pitch, and grinding tool included, please see our Buy Telpe Mirror Kits website for great prices on plate glass ...
Note the thin veneer layer on top because these two mirrors happen to be very fast and deep, F/2.7-2.8. It's important to keep the pitch approximately the same thickness from center to edge because thinner pitch acts harder and thicker pitch acts softer.
Thin Telpe Mirrors . … I can buy it easily and get all the starting work done on diamond-grinding machines – something most of you don't have access to. Mirror grinding machine – Hack a Day. ... Telpe mirror grinding machine Mirror making and optical testing … The images below show the completed grinding machine in it's new ...
Benefits of using thin plate glass mirror blanks? There are several advantages to using thin plate glass mirror blanks for grinding your telpe mirror: * Thin mirror blanks are less expensive, allowing more people to afford the hobby of grinding their own telpe mirror. * Choosing a thin mirror blank gets you more aperture for your dollar.
A pitch lap is used to polish and figure your mirror. It is used with a polishing abrasive such as Cerium Oxide. Traditionally, the lap is poured on the tool used to grind the mirror. But this means the that tool is no longer available should you need to return to fine grinding due to a …
(3) A homemade telpe mirror can be made with more accuracy and smoothness than the mass-produced, commercial mirrors available today. Unfortunately, the cost of mirror grinding kits and pyrex blanks has increased significantly in recent years to the point where any savings from making a mirror versus buying one are minimal at best.