1st Telescope-Making Project?

Folks-
I'm hoping to build a small (5" or 6" reflector) as my first scope making project. What have others done as their first & how did they turn out? What did you learn from it? TIA,
Regards,
Chas Argent

One of the best sources of information I have found is "All About Telescopes" from Edmund Scientific. It has a ton of information about telescopes and telescope making. It was first printed in 1975 and is now in it's fourteenth edition. For $12.95 you can't go wrong.

http://www.scientificsonline.com/ec/Products/Display.cfm?CategoryID=192375

My first project was a copyscope I built as a teenager. It was big and heavy and worked about as good as any $10 scope would, LOL!

My first 'real' project was a 4" f/15 refractor built with a nice research-grade Japanese lens and a galvanized aluminum vent pipe for the tube. Results were just dandy.

My first (and so far only) newt project is my 10" f/8 planet-killer dob which was buggy at first because of my poorly designd spider, mirror cell and secondary squeezed impractically small. With a few tweaks/improvements it's absolutely outstanding.

I learned that NEWT is a great tool, I also learned not to try to engineer things so tight with respect to secondary size and focuser position that you have almost no wiggle room.

My first was a 6" using an Orion f5 mirror. It is now on it's 3rd itteration. (And there are half a dozen things I still want to change once I get the time.) The first OTA was made in about 30 minutes using a single 8' piece of 1x8 pine. I won't go into details, but no matter how much you read about what to do, it has much more of an impact when you can see for yourself the problems you must overcome. This scope is now a two truss scope and has a secondary assembly that fits inside the mirror box. The whole thing is definitely a one hand grab and go. One of these days I'll get a picture I can post.

Charlie