TheSkySearchers

Greetings!

I recently inherited a Tasco 9F 60mm refractor built in the early 1980's which I am restoring.
One of the pieces missing is the weird/cool "inline finder" which originally came with this scope (and, possibly, other Tasco's)
I'm including a picture of the unit I'm looking for - if you check the threads here, I have posted a picture of my scope - with a big hole in the main tube!

If anyone happens to have one, I'm interested...
Thanks

That is "interesting"...
Does it use a Pick-off Prism just inside the body of the Barrel??
The Optics in the Eyepiece must be "unique", too - in order to bring the Primary Optics to a Shorter Focus (and thus give a Wider FOV).

Interesting to see what Tasco did - back when it was an Innovative Optics producer rather than a Cheap Knock-off producer...

Hi Seigell,
So I have read that early models of this inline finder (and in particular for this 9F scope) are indeed pickoff prisms which drop down from a knob turn (and wind up being high quality, clever, and complicated) - later, cheesier models (made in China) use mirror pickoffs. Personally I can't picture dropdown prisms in my head!
If I find one I'll confirm everything and let you know...

So I found one! And, well, now I can't quite figure out how to put it together!
The puzzling item is the long, thin, plastic lens - I can't figure out where it inserts - thoughts?

One cool thing - as these pictures prove, it is clearly a flip down PRISM which intercepts the primary light and shunts it off at 45 degrees to the angled inline finder. Slick solution (if only I could figure it out!)

Also, strangely, the 10x finder eyepiece has a strange focus - a straight slide up and down of only 7mm, just plain weird.

I figured it out - Woohoo!
Sooo it turns out that the little black plastic tube with a single lens inside reminded me of something...
A Barlow! It turns out it's a 'baby Barlow' specifically to set the 10 magnification of the pickoff prism properly!

But it wouldn't sit inside the inline finder tube properly, apparently a spacer was missing to center it against the two adjustment screws... 10 minutes later, I had cut a 1" piece of an old bicycle tube and used that to pad/center the mini-barrow inside the barrel - now not only is it properly centered, but it is "finger adjustable" to move up and down - this is important because the height of the Barlow determines the location of focus in the eyepiece, and there are only 7mm of adjustment! It took some STE but I got the eyepiece to focus for me right in the center of travel.... slick!

Now the remaining problems are:
(1) one of the little brass wires that make up the crosshairs is broken (so it dangles a bit and isn't straight),
(2) I only have one of the three screws needed to hold the inline finder down, and
(3) the inside of the eyepiece itself is really dirty, so even when in focus the finder image is a bit fuzzy, but heck I can live with those.

Looks like we might be open for business soon!

[mention]DozerBolt[/mention] Fixed as requested.

Hi DozerBolt, nice scope! Glad you got it figured out too.
If you want, I probably have the screws you need for the finder; lotsa old Tasco/Towa parts here. If you take a pic of the one screw you have, I could dig up the other two, and mail them to you if you'd like.

Take care and all the best,

Gosh, thanks @Thefatkitty - much appreciated!
Interestingly, the two screws I am missing on the finder are "of unknown size" - there is one screw aft and two smaller screws forward on either size; I found a replacement for the aft screw, but am missing the two forward screws. You can see the bore on the included picture, as well as on #3 above - it looks about 3mm +-...

FYI here's the latest image of the almost restored 9F - Lookin' Good so far!
Only a few screws still missing (and let's face it, who doesn't fit that description?)....

Hey Dozerbolt, meant to get back to you sooner.... The picture above helped; I'm pretty sure I have what you need. I included a picture below, I'd be thinking it's the two screw in the middle. However I can send the three sets just to be sure. And the two in the left of the picture actually have a slightly smaller shank though it doesn't look like it in the photo. They all have the "countersink" head, and they're all from older Tasco's
Anyways, if you're still interested, send me a PM with your address and I can put them in an envelope and send it off; no idea how long it'll take. Usual time would be about a week, but these days..??!! And don't worry about postage; it'll be less than a cup of coffee. I've sent/received stuff from many folks on here, and I'm not keeping tabs...

Scope looks good, too!

All the best,

Me again... After a second cup of coffee and looking at the pic again, I'm now not 100% sure that the hole in the photo is tapered in or not. If it isn't, I'll dig up some appropriate screws without the countersink heads.

Wow! Thanks @Thefatkitty - I haven't had any luck finding them, so I'd appreciate the offer.
I'll PM you my address shortly - thanks so much!
And when the Grand Opening arrives, you'll be on the list of "VIP Guests"... ;-) I'll save you a seat in the Front Row...
p.s. I tried to PM you but it says you're not receiving messages - let me know 'Plan B'

Thanks so much Well, that's odd... Last one I got was April 21st, and my inbox is only 36% full. I know there's some issues with a few things on here at the moment, but life happens... If you want, send me an email at mark at my username.com Don't want to spell it out for the spam-bots...
Also, do you want the tapered heads or just flat? Either way is good.

TTYS,