Realistic Costs

I am starting to think again about starting the project to make my own scope using "The Dobsonian Telescope: A Practical Manual for Building Large Aperture Telescopes", by David Kriege and Richard Berry as my primary source material. There is a member of my local club who is excellent at helping new ATMers along the way with their mirrors and other advice. I have played with grinding a mirror before from scratch, just never got it all put together into a scope.

But the big question I have right now is cost. I would be interested in finding out what the average cost of building one of these beasts would be before I commit any resources. I would be looking at a mirror in the 16-18" range, aluminium tubing, probably go with the birch ply.

Thanks,

Bill

Well the mirror alone of Major quality would be $1800+.
Another $240-340 for a quality diag mirror. Then you have to have everything else.
The quality issue will make a price difference all the way though the list.
Here a local scope maker has a 16" Swayze mirror based DOB ,well made with good but not the most expensive parts, for $2800. This is a new construction. I would have to guess that the cost was less than this, but not too much as he is just trying to sell it to recoupe his money I think. Originally it was offered for $3,700, but the market is flat here and there have been no takers.
Understand I am not offering this scope for sale, this is just for information as requested on cost.
Floyd

Hi Bill, I'm working out a similar project. I have two 10" blanks and one 12". My goal is to grind a 10" f6-8 first and then using the used 10" tool for grinding the 12" to f6 or so. I payed (in Europe) about 625 for all three blanks which isn't that cheap but prices are somewhat different here. I hope to make two all-wood OTA's with baffles calculated by NEWT. In case the mirrors turn out to be of good quality I would purchase a high-quality secondary to match. I think my final cost will be around 650 for the 10" and 800 for the 12". Of course, US-prices for the raw materials are more reasonable.
Nico

Hi Bill,

It's not an Obsession clone, but I made this budget truss scope for a friend for a total cost of less than $250 excluding optics. The mirrors were taken from a crumbling 16" Meade dob at a cost of around another $800'ish.

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Lee,

Nice scope! All black really looks wonderful. While stain shows wood grain and gives the fine furniture vibe, I like solid finishes. Also, you can hide "deviations from the blueprint" behind a few coats of enamel.

It is so great to get a look at everyone's work. It gives me ideas, ideas, ideas . . .

Keep 'em coming, everybody!

Matt