What worked beautifully for a finder was - strip the paint, clean, use Rusto 2x gloss white, several coats, and then polish with cerium oxide. This works FAST and you can overdo it! Also works great brightening up weathered finish on classics.
-drl
I plan to do that on the Pentax 100's guide scope, where the thin paint was coming off as I tried to remove some glue. The 6"f9 is a much bigger area, and the tube isn't as smooth. So the hammer texture would help to hide the imperfections. If I knew how to get the spattered texture that the current AP scopes use, I'd do that instead.
My prior efforts on an 80mm f15 tube involved building plugs to go in the ends of the tube, with a hole for a dowel to go through, then spinning the tube as I sprayed it and while the paint setup, to prevent runs. I think the 4' long tube is going to need either a motor or an assistant to turn it while I spray it.
Powder coating would be nice, but our nearest place is about an hour away and I have yet to try anything with them. I'm not going to risk the AP scope on a first attempt.
Chip W.