Re: [ATM] Wooden Truss "Tubes"

[Guy Brandenburg <gfbrandenburg@yahoo.com>]

I hear ya.

I still have a wooden tennis racket from the early
1960's. It does work, and I can play with it, and have
done so rather recently, but the new carbon-fiber
racket I finally broke down and bought last year for
probably less in constant dollars than the original
cost is SOO much better it's amazing.

That being said, a cheap wooden telescope is easy to
make and they really don't take that much stress. They
also don't spend a whole lot of their lives out in the
rain. Or at least they shouldn't.

Guy

--- matt <electro_optic@bellsouth.net> wrote:
> there was a time when sailboats were made of wood.
> Hollow wooden spars, etc.
> Airplanes made of wood, remember WW1 and some WW2 ?
> Even motorcycles and bikes were at one time made
> with wooden frames. Tennis
> racquets too and snow skis. I have used most of the
> above wooden objects,
> and am happy now they're made of composites,
> aluminum etc. I hated wooden
> snow skis, hated wooden racquets, not to mention
> wooden sailboats which are
> a beauty but not if you're the owner .
> 
> On a more serious note, there's a reason why wood
> was displaced from all the
> above products. Although some modern composites
> could be even more labor
> intensive than wood (so mass production is NOT the
> reason) mechanical
> characteristics are so much better and more
> controllable that there's no
> incentive to use wood . Want absolute lightweight
> and easy to patch ? Use
> carbon fiber or cored composites in general (if
> designed/made right)  . Want
> it tough , use aluminum . It's also cheap.
> Want furniture you'd have to sand and varnish twice
> every year, watch out
> for humidity changes, etc, use wood .
> 
> best regards,
> matt tudor
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mel Bartels <mbartels@bbastrodesigns.com>
> To: atm@atmlist.net <atm@atmlist.net>
> Date: Sunday, April 10, 2005 8:32 PM
> Subject: Re: [ATM] Wooden Truss "Tubes"
> 
> 
> >> answer is no. But just in case: has anyone built
> a 16 - 24" scope using
> >> wooden truss tubes?
> >
> >Yes, in the old days we used solid wood closet rods
> and the like.  I used 1
> >1/2 inch diameter truss rods for my 24 inch.
> >
> >> that reduced it's weight about 1/2 would weigh
> less than  a 1 1/2" OD
> >> .049 aluminum tube. Or it could be 3/8" thick  on
> 2 sides and 1/8 on the
> >> other two, for better glue surfaces. It would
> still be tremendously
> stiff,
> >> vibration free?, and being square or rectangular
> attaching to
> >
> >I like to think of it as a continium all the way to
> elaborate truss tubes
> >that themselves are built of truss tubes.  The more
> elaborate the fewer the
> >larger trusses you need, all the way down to a
> single truss.
> >
> >Mel Bartels
> >
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> >
> 
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Guy  Brandenburg
Washington, DC
My home page:
http://home.earthlink.net/~gfbranden/GFB_Home_Page.html
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