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How to Make an Eight Inch Reflector Telescope Part 2: The Cabinet Mount
This is a new type of telescope mount called "A Cabinet Mount" because it has a built in cabinet for you to store your eyepieces and other astronomy peripherals and parts.
This tutoria is complete and shows you step by step how to make the cabinet mount for a telescope.
I also have a video tutorial for this project at the bottom of the page.
Part 1 of this tutorial (Making the Tube Assembly) is here:
Make an 8 " Telescope
This is a large telescope. It has some really good light gathering power. I take you through the building of a telescope like this step by step. And I show you the fundamentals of how it is made so you can make any size newtonian reflector telescope. Make an Eight inch telescope (The Optical Tube Assembly)
Overview and About this telescope mount Build:
This is a unique little telescope mount of my own design. I call it a "Cabinet Mount" because it has a nice cabinet built in for you to store your various telescope and astronomy extra parts like eyepieces, barlow lenses, diagonals and more. You can store warm clothes and binoculars in it too. This makes it convenient and easy for you. Everything stays organized in one place with your telescope. You can make shelves and drawers to fit whatever size you need.
And this telescope mount is rather nice for storage in your home. Every telescope spends 300 days a year or more just sitting somewhere in your home. This one is on wheels and easily stores in a small space.
About the materials, parts and tools:
It uses some 1x12 pine, and two sheets of 1/2 inch plywood. The wheels have locks and are purchased at the home depot. the main bearing for rotating is a lazy susan and the white pivots for up and down are pvc parts you can buy off the shelf at home depot or lowes.
The way I show you how to build this telescope mount makes it easy for you to understand how it is built and why I build it this way. This way you can simply adjust any sizes to your telescope tube size and even your height.
About an Eight Inch Reflector Telescope - It's a good sized telescope. You will be able to see some amazing things in the night sky! And in this two installment series of videos/tutorials I show you how to make the whole thing from start to finish.
How it Works
This is how the telescope mount works. There is a pair of rotating pivots that the tube rotates on. This is how it smoothly moves up and down. There is a lazy susan bearing underneath the yoke. That is how it rotates 360 degrees. It is a simple yet effective build that works very well and is easy to make.
Parts List:
4 lengths of 1x12" pine wood that are 24 inches long
4 lengths of 1x12" pine wood that are about 12 inches long for the shelves
1 sheet of 1/2" plywood that is 2' x 2' in size - For the cradle part
1 sheet of 3/4" plywood that is 2' x 2' - This is thicker and for the wheel base
Various screws, nuts and bolts. Shoot me an email if you want a more specific list of this small hardware.
Paint colors as you desire. I used latex paints.
Would you consider a small donation to support my work? Paypal makes it very easy and safe. Click here to donate $1 - Every little bit helps This tutorial was an enormous amount of work and it is all free for you. Thanks!
