Replicating 17th century objective lenses
I am starting this topic regarding an important part of my activity that is to re-create the techniques and lenses form the 17th century basted on different source material and literature out there also in combination to modern methods of grinding and handwork is put into this. I have decided to make single plano convex lenses that i will polish on paper with Tripoli on the convex and plano side and then testing it using modern methods but also 17t century ones, glass used is a simple window float plate glass 8mm thick and also i will began work on thinner glass plates. This week has brought one of those rare convergences of practical insight and historical resonance that makes workshop-based optics so compelling. Like Campani retreating into his Roman rooms with nothing but glass, metal tools, and the unforgiving logic of abrasive mechanics, I have spent the better part of the week as a complete hermit, immersed in the grinding of two 52mm plano-convex singlets simultaneously on...
