Building my own refractor?

It has always been a project I have wanted to start someday. Now that I am retired and have some extra time on my hands, the job is at hand.. Can anyone recommend a quality book, or know of a good web site that can get me at least started or give me some ideas to what is practical/possible to do?
I have a Tele Vue 102. But like alot of people have aperture fever: 5" 6" 8" would like to find out what Objective lens I can afford, focuser, Diagonal, Tubing & materials needed, air spacing, and so forth. Would appreciate any help or suggestions you can furnish, regards, John Meiners in Astoria, OR. At the(Mouth of the Mighty Columbia River)

Hi John --

I'm not aware of a book on the subject though there might well be one. I built a 6" with a 1200mm focal length and am enjoying it a lot.
The objective came from the Netherlands, the objective cell from Canada, aluminum tubing via an Astromart ad, the focusser from AstroPhysics.
There are a lot of decisions to be made, all of which seem to be compromises between scope size, image quality (color on bright objects, magnification limits), cost and available mterials.
It took months for me to arrive at a configuration which really satisfied me though there will always be things to tweek. I enjoyed the project and would be happy to share more details if you're interested.

Bob Polcyn (rural South Dakota)

John, funny you should ask i am currently researching this very subject, read a few books and spent a lot of time searching the net,try burnettweb.com/ite/t2-intro.htm, then, atmsite.org/contrib/Ceragioli/refractor/, then mabe canon.com/technology/production/flourite_lens/content.html, just a little info there on florite lenses there,mabe optics-online.com/OOL/Material.asp,also sitek.se/section8.htm,one more for ya hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/geoopt/lenscon.html, you got to do a little work on this last one to find all the info in it, google has a lot of sites on it if you filter through it. mabe some help. john