magnilux - Astronomy Technology Today

PROTOSTAR’S FLOCKBOARD
knife to cut out the focuser hole, and reinstall
the hardware. Collimate and enjoy the
contrast!
No stickiness! No carefully unpeeling
wax paper in terror of an air bubble. No
using a broomstick to reach the middle of
the tube. Cut, roll, spring, poke, cut, enjoy.
Is it that easy I ordered some to find out.
The scope I had in mind to flock was
the Vixen R150s, a 6-inch Newtonian with
a unique sliding focuser and very good optics.
Like most aluminum and steel tubes,
the R150s is painted with a flat(ish) black
paint inside. The scope is a bit short for
the focal length, so the tube doesn’t
serve as much of a baffle. In my light polluted
driveway, it could use all the help it
could get!
Working with the FlockBoard was indeed
as easy as Bryan promised, and it wasn’t
very tool intensive either. I needed a
large flat surface to cut on, a sharp utility
knife, a T-square to cut a perpendicular
line, and a screwdriver to remove the tube
hardware. You can see my workspace and
materials in Image 1.
FlockBoard comes in a standard width
of 24 inches; the length of course can be
custom cut. It turns out that the R150s’s
inner tube wall’s circumference was almost
exactly 24 inches, so I didn’t have to trim
the width and I could use it lengthwise.
Owners of larger-diameter tubes can
order a custom length equal to the inner
circumference and then flock the tube in
24-inch sections, trimming the last piece
to fit.
First, I prepared the tube. This involved
removing the primary mirror and
cell, and the focuser/secondary, which in
the R150s is a single unit. Then, I measured
the length of the tube and placed my
FlockBoard flat on my cutting surface as
shown in Image 2. I immediately noticed
that the cut edges were not square to the
sides…I had a big parallelogram. Bryan
sent me more than I requested, so this didn’t
hurt my plans, though it does mean a
few inches that ProtoStar could have sold
to someone else. So I trimmed the first end
Image 4
so it was square, measured the length from
there and made the final cut. I found that
going over the line twice lightly with the
knife made for a cleaner cut than trying to
cut it in one heavy pass.
Once cut, I rolled the board up and
dropped it into the tube as shown in Image
3. Yes, it’s easy enough that you can do it
one-handed and take a photograph with
the other hand! I had to reroll it a bit a few
times inside the tube to get both ends of it
square against the inner flange of the tube
rings but it was far less effort than any selfadhesive
material I’d tried to use and the
non-adhesive nature of it meant infinite
do-overs. A rarity in life in general.
Because I was flocking from the front
of the tube to just below the face of the primary
mirror, and because there is no separate
spider, I didn’t have to poke any holes
Astronomy TECHNOLOGY TODAY 69