MrGreen

Resin lens + mirror progress

Added 2024-02-02 10:17:06 +0000 UTC

Hello everyone! I've been testing many different variables for creating resin plastic mirrors/lenses with mixed results. So far I can get a really smooth resin flat plate, but the main drawback I've experienced, has been finding a suitably smooth turntable to spin cast the resin into a parabolic shape. If successful, then it can be aluminized to turn into a telescope mirror. I did manage to make a UV resin lens, but I think it was way too thick and so it hardened unevenly. Apologies for my simple looking setup lol, it was a very messy test because some parts never arrived.

I've attached the papers (If anyone want's to check them out) that I want to roughly follow for both the parabolic lenses, and the magnifying lens. The UV resin lens seems really simple, and the parabolic one isn't too much harder, except they used a really expensive air-bearing donated by NASA lol. I've contacted companies for their price and the lowest offer was above $10,000 for a super tiny version😅

So instead, I'm going to follow a tutorial made by Ben from applied science where he shows how to make air-bearings for surprisingly cheap. All that's basically needed is some Graphite blocks which I've bought from eBay and Amazon (Because they're porous and allow air through), some precision smooth parts to rotate or move on the bearing, and an air compressor I bought for this project thanks to all your support :)
I still have other methods to test, but I'm hoping the home-made air-bearing works out

Here's the link to Ben's video for those curious: https://youtu.be/K_N_h_mKf-4?si=Gdg9ZLiesulqNo9n