It's common knowledge that they were stickers on those Celestron/Vixen C80s and kin.
Powdercoating is not a problem if you find the right shop to do it... and or course you have to dissasemble the scope. Bomber Bob had the exact same scope powdercoated and it came out very good. He tried to save the original decals and reapply them but it did not work. If given the logo art, a sign company could do the decal that only says Celestron, but it would probably be each letter on a sheet that transfers to the tube instead of on a piece of clear with lettering on it. I did this for a motorcycle but ended up never using it, but have a friend that did it several times but he also clear coated them afterwards. It's been a long time since then so these days they might have other options and it also might cost more than most would want to spend, especially on top of the cost of powdercoat.
An alternate: I have two of these C80s and both had many chips and scratches and one had some very big ones. First I polished the tubes with polishing compound and then touched up the scratches.
(I used One-Shot Sign Painters enamel but Testors model paint would work)
Sure if you look very close you can see the touch ups but overall it really improved the look of them and some people might not notice until they were pointed out.
This photo is a bit small so you can't see all of the flaws, but can see some of the larger chips on the upper OTA
I found a photo of when I worked on them.
I've been meaning to do a thread on the work but never got around to it.
and here's the worst of the two when set up for the first time two days ago
Edited by Kasmos, 21 October 2024 - 09:30 PM.