Binocular Box For The Eyes of Texas

Ever since I built the Couch Potato Telescope chair, I have wanted to get a larger binocular. For a discussion on why, the patient reader may want to go back and read my blog titled “Binoculars” in June of 2009. I have looked at several different binoculars since that time and finally decided to get a medium priced 80mm binocular. Two weeks ago, I was quite pleased to see that the price of the Celestron 20x80 binoculars with braced mounting had gone from the mid $200 range to $130. At that price, the binocular was a steal!

The binocular arrived this week and a quick back-yard check of its optics was impressive. So I decided to give it a welcome home present. I should give it a name too – and what would be better than “The Eyes of Texas.”

The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
All the live long day.
The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
You cannot get away.
Do not think you can escape them,
At night, or early in the morn'.
The Eyes of Texas are upon you,
Till Gabriel blows his horn!

The binocular came in a cardboard box, with foam padding, not Styrofoam. That offered the possibility of building a good looking and practical wood instrument case for the binocular. The foam padding could be recycled as the instrument case padding.

In my building the eyepiece warming box the previous week, I had learned a couple lessons about plywood. The main learning point was that I needed a hollow ground blade for my circular saw instead of the all-purpose blade I had made the previous box with. I was tired of the badly frayed edges on some of the plywood cuts.


I wanted to dress the box up a little, so I went to the local hardware store (Home Depot) and picked up some brass colored hardware. I chose a pair of hinges of reasonable size, two bail latches, a handle, and a set of eight brass corners.

After measuring the foam block, I set about designing the box sides from ½ inch hardwood ply. I joined the sides with countersunk brass screws. Because I wanted the lid to be a little like a briefcase lid, I put a lip on the top 1-1/2 inches deep.

To the two rectangular box pieces, I screwed a top of ¼ inch Luan plywood. I varnished the wood components inside and out and set it out to dry for a couple hours. Unfortunately, there was a thunder storm at lunch time on Sunday and it took a little longer for the pieces to dry than I wanted. I was impatient to get the hardware on the box.


I put the hinges, latches, and handle on. Lastly, I screwed on the corners. This ended up being a very handsome box for The Eyes of Texas and she seemed to enjoy it.

Last night, Matt R and I went out to Hill Country State Natural Area and did some star gazing in a dark sky. Conditions were not perfect – there was a lot of moisture in the air – but I had a couple involuntary “Wow”s after I attached the binocular to the rotating binocular chair. I don’t believe I have ever seen M31 to the extent that I saw it through that binocular last night. M110 was easily visible in the same field along with M32. I scanned through the Messier objects in Sagittarius and the Milky Way above it and was quite pleased with my purchase and with first dark sky light on those Big Eyes.