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Roger's Optics and Restoration

Name: Roger's Optics and Restoration
Address: PO Box 224, Sydney, NSW, 2211, AU
Telephone: +61425709508

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Roger's Optics and Restoration

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Even though I have now retired, if you have any questions, feel free to message me.

Repairs and restoration of optical equipment, binoculars, telescopes, microscopes, magnifiers etc.

01/11/2026

So the B&L binocs have come up nicely. All collimated, but still showing some signs of age (aren’t we all!). The case is also reasonable. The two images are through the left and right barrels respectively.
The PALCO scope EQ head and the mount are also finished. Just a couple of minor carpentry repairs to be done to the carry case. A new saddle for the eyepiece end of the scope and some rotating wooden tabs to hold things in place. But that can wait for another day.

01/11/2026

So all cleaned, reassembled with no parts left over 🙂. The RA scale is chromed solid brass as is the RA gear. The DEC is tangential with a super fine thread (0.25mm). Polished all enameled surfaces and sealed with Renaissance Wax to avoid fingerprints. All chromed parts polished with Autosol and also sealed with Renaissance Wax. I used losoid greases for lubrication.

31/10/2026

Something different for the day. Took the old 1960’s PALCO EQ mount and stripped it down for a thorough clean and polish. Needed something other than prisms for the day 🙂. The quality of the build is incredible!

31/10/2026

The prisms were quite mould bound, the cleaning was somewhat successful, but the coatings were still slightly scarred. Hard to see in the images, but easily seen with a 4X loupe.

26/10/2026

Ok, so the cleaning of the objectives worked out reasonably well… considering the amount of mould. So here’s the left hand OG before and after cleaning. Time: ultrasonic tank in acetone 10 min; time in US tank IPA 15 min; cleaning with microfibre lens cloths 15 minutes. It is what it is…

25/10/2026

Nothing better than a binocular swap meet to make you want to get stuck into doing something… When I sold off all my stock upon retiring I did keep back a couple of binocs that I thought would fill in time (from time to time and now’s a good a time as any). While waiting on matching paint for the scope restoration I needed a quick project so I grabbed the 10X50 Bausch & Lomb that I knew had a bad mould problem, but were otherwise reasonable. So today was a partial strip down prior to a full service. I also managed to get the paint off the case which was relatively easy, I will leave the leather case lid that someone has tried to glue down with something like QuickGrip, but didn’t really succeed. Here’s a few images.

23/10/2026

Back from the city of Bruhl, not far from Cologne, Germany, where the Binocular Historical Society had their conference. Never have I wished to have had excess luggage volume to bring home at least something!! Here’s a few images from the swap meet.

26/09/2026

Here’s some “before” images of the mount and the wooden case in which it came. There are a few internal wooden blocks that have to be reglued to the case. I haven’t seen a mount like this one before, so if anyone reading this has, please let me know if you know of the manufacturer. The only DIY that was done to this mount was by the previous owner and that is the hinge pin for the tube mount, which is now a somewhat rusted nail. I will be away until the 22nd of next month. A bit of a holiday and attending the Binocular Historical Society meeting in Cologne.

26/09/2026

Today I decided to see what I could do to the mount for the modified 80mm scope. Two of the three tripod legs were in reasonable condition, but the third was somewhat rusted, so it was pulled apart. The worst of the rust was wire brushed off, then I hit it with 240 grit for a better surface. I then used a rust converter to stabilize the remainder before giving the parts a coat of primer. I have painted the inside of the parts a battleship grey as those areas are not seen. I have yet to source the correct paint colour which seems to be a blue-grey. The timbers were all cleaned with a damp cloth and allowed to sit out in full Sun (today is 34.5°C). After an hour I waxed all of them and they look reasonably fine. I’m looking to restore these to a “well used” look, not pristine/brand new condition.

21/09/2026

About 6 years ago this scope was “gifted” to me by the owner who decided that it would be too expensive to repair. The 78mm OG was “frosted” (best way I can think to describe it) from too many years of a bad storage technique. Since I didn’t have a replacement OG of 900mm fl I thought that the obvious thing to do was to use what I had, an 80mm 525mm fl lens that was in my odds drawer. This meant cutting down the tube and modifying the front OG cell. This you may think would be straight forward, but because of the aforementioned storage technique, the threads of the OG cell were totally seized and no amount of heating, lubricant and sweat would shift it. So out came the jewelers saw and an hour of careful sawing separated the lens and its portion of the cell from the tube portion. The remaining tube side of the cell I modified to take the 80mm lens & a new retaining ring (one I thankfully had in my scrap bin!). The next thing was to convert the 1” focuser to 1.25” which was a fun exercise as I wanted to make a compression ring to retain the eyepiece (the original 1” had one as well and it was made in the early 1960’s!). So again I raided my scrap bins. Some 40mm Al rod and a chunk of 50mm Teflon rod were utilized. I put a 60° end onto the Teflon and a matching 60° female slope into the Al housing. When the cap is screwed on the pressure created is more than enough to hold a star diagonal and eyepiece. Next I tackle the mount!

Address

PO Box 224
Sydney, NSW
2211

Telephone

+61425709508

Website

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