Rough Grinding The Mirror
Making a 4.25 Inch Dobsonian
Reflector Telescope
A
Grinding/Polishing Bench
You will need either a stand or a
bench to do your grinding and polishing.
The traditional method was to get a old oil drum, and fill it with sand
for stability. You could then walk
around the drum as you worked the glass, leaving the tool or blank stationary. In the class I took, Dobson described in a
video the use of a board on two stands.
This being my second attempt, I built something a little more
elaborate. Note that you want a slight
slope so as to let excess fluid and mud drip off in one direction. Dobson suggests a special kind of nail to
keep the tool in place, but I found that small pieces of wood nailed in worked
just as well. For most of the
grinding you will put the tool on the bench and move the mirror back and
forth. If you over-grind your mirror,
you can reverse the blank and the tool to flatten out the curve.
Rough
Grinding
If you mirror is bigger than 6",
start with #60 grit carborundum.
That's grits that are approximately 60 per inch or 1/60th of an inch in
size. With a smaller mirror starting
with #80 grit is ok. If you buy a
kit, that's the size grit that will come in the largest size. You place your tool on the bench, lock it
in place. You spread a small amount
of grit on the surface, and then add a small mount of water. Trial and error will teach you how much is
a good place to start. At first the
grit will have a dark gray color. You
will also hear a rather loud noise, rather like sawing wood. After a while the grits will become worn
down and turn a lighter grayish color.
When the grit is significantly worn down, you need to replace it.
The
Grinding Pattern
You might ask, why would grinding the
mirror and the tool together cause there to be curved surface. The answer is in the grinding pattern. You want to hold the blank on either side
of the tool and rub back and forth.
You don't want the mirror to slip so a distance of about 1/3 the width
of the blank is good. After you have
rubbed the mirror back and forth a few times, on the left and on the right, you
will want to spin the mirror either clockwise or counter clock wise. After doing rotation the mirror a few
times, you will want to move the tool underneath a similar amount. So you end up spinning the blank a lot
more than the tool. All of these
operations, the number of times you rub back and forth, the amount you spin the
mirror, how often you turn the tool should all be done without concern for
constancy. In fact you want to avoid
any consistency in your grinding.
Consistency can cause various
problem with the curve of the mirror.
An obvious question is how can you consistently grind
inconsistently? My method was not to
pay too much attention. You want to
pay enough attention to make sure you aren't accidentally being too
consistent. Is that clear?
What
Are We trying to Do?
I'm glad you asked. What is the goal of this grinding two
surfaces together, turning the blank and the tool, and doing it all a little
inconsistently. While you find the
activity tiresome and tedious (I recommend listing to hard rock on an iPod) you
are doing a very rough activity in two dimensions that will create a very
precise result in the third dimension.
If two surfaces can slide back and forth smoothly in two dimensions,
then they are either both perfectly flat, or both perfectly spherical. That is the goal, a spherical surface. As you grind, wherever the surfaces aren't
perfectly matched, the grit will cut away.
How
Long Will this Take?
The dumb answer is as long as it
takes. It will depend on which grit
you are using, how often you replace it, how quickly you rub back and
forth. The two biggest factors are
first how big is your mirror? The 4.25
mirror only took just few hours. The
12.5 inch mirror took 5 or 6 days, maybe 6 hours a day. The second issue is how deep do you want
the curve. This is a very important
issue that is covered in another section, The Focal
Length.
How
Do You Know When You Are Done?
This
is an important question. The obvious
but un-useful answer is when the focal length is close to where you want
it. But how can you figure this
out. There are three methods that I
can suggest.
1)
On a sunny day, cover the mirror with a
layer of water. Reflect the sun off
the mirror onto a wall. Move the
mirror back and forth until the image of the sun is as small as possible. Then measure the distance from the mirror
to the wall. This method is not
particularly accurate, but if you are not too particular it is easy and works
well. The method was suggested by
Dobson.
2)
Measure the sagitta of the mirror with coins or a spark plug gap gauge. What is a sagitta? A picture serves best.
Roughly
speaking, it is the depth of the curve on your mirror. To measure the sagitta, you can place a
metal ruler across a diameter of the mirror, and measure the distance
underneath it at the center. You can
use coins
to approximate the size you want, or use a spark
plug gap gauge. To figure out what
you want the sagitta to be check this link.
3)
Use a spherometer. A sperometer is a simple device that
stands on three legs in the shape of an equilateral triangle. A gauge in the middle of the triangle moves
up and down, measuring distance to a very high accuracy. You have to zero the device by placing it
on a known surface that is very flat.
The Wikipedia linked article describes the formula for calculating the
focal length from the gauge measurement, but if you remember your high school
geometry, it is easy to figure out.
This is the most accurate way to determine the focal length, however it
has it's limitations. The surface of
mirror is still #60 grit rough. You
have to adjust the gauge in a consistent manner in order to get a good
reading. The grinding is still not
complete. These factors make it hard
to get the focal length closer than a few inches. For this reason, it is best not to cut your tube until the
mirror is in the polishing phase.
Note
that a spherometer does not measure the sagitta.