Fake carbon fibre wrap as telescope tube spiffer-upper

[orly_andico]

If you have a telescope tube that's gotten nicked, dinged, bad paint job, etc. etc. there are several ways to refurbish it. I have tried manually stripping and repainting telescope tubes, and I also had one tube powder-coated.

But this one has got to be the easiest yet, and it doesn't look too bad. I purchased a 1 metre length X 1.7 metre width fake carbon fibre wrap (generally used on car bonnets) for $25 from a car detailing shop in Yishun.

It took about 30 minutes to cut out the right size and stick it on to the telescope tube (the wrap is self-adhesive). It doesn't look bad at all!

I then poked holes in the wrap for the screws using a hot soldering iron (although I had to manually cut out the focuser hole with a box cutter).

[Great Red Spot]

Nice! Orly, can you show us the part where both ends of the wrap meets? I believe that will be the tricky part.

[Hardwarezone]

^overlap the ends slightly and arrange it at the direction less seen.

For cars they use hairdryer to maneuver the vinyl around tricky curves.