The Changing Finish of Questar’s Star Map Dew Shield, Moon Map, and Other Navigation Aids

The Original Finish

In his 1954 Questar booklet, Lawrence Braymer described the process his suppliers used to finish his signature star map dew shield and moon map telescope barrel skin:

The gem-like depth of color in Questar’s patented star chart and moon map is due to the surface treatment of the metal. These maps, like the large circle, and name plates, are anodized by the electrolytic process which changes the surface of the polished metal into a layer of clear, hard, transparent aluminum oxide, a kind of corundum or sapphire. This protective coating has sub-microscopic pores which accept translucent dyes. The metal is engraved by etching through the anodized surface, and the sunken areas or lines are filled with colored enamels.^[1]

Similar to the way in which the company acquired other parts, Questar established a business relationship with an outside provider to satisfy its demand for these anodized and etched components. Braymer chose Metal Etching Corporation of New York, which became one of his company’s longtime parts supplier.^[2]

Founded in 1925 as The National Metal Etching Corporation, the company’s operations were located east of Brooklyn on Essex Street in Ozone Park.^[3] In 1966, the company started operations in Freeport, about fifteen miles further to the east. This second facility had previously housed Flores Manufacturing, a producer of handbags whose processes involved using nickel, chromium, and cadmium for decorative plating.^[4]

Although the exact finishing methods that Metal Etching Corporation used to produce Questar’s dew shield and other parts are not precisely known, whatever methods the company did utilize were probably typical for the era. In all likelihood, they were highly effective, highly toxic, and exceptionally harmful to the natural environment.

Many consider modern anodizing processes to be quite safe. Byproducts usually contain only small amounts of heavy metals or volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Aluminum hydroxide and aluminum sulfate, two of the most common anodizing effluents, are commonly recycled into other useful materials for a variety of purposes.^[5]

But older anodizing processes involved the use of chromic acid, a toxic and carcinogenic compound that carries the risk of fire or explosion if mixed with oxidizable organic substances. Other early methods required oxalic acid and sulfuric acid, two other anodizing electrolytes whose use demanded careful handling.^[6]

Early methods for chemically etching aluminum also involved the use of highly corrosive solvents. Well before the days of laser engraving, Questar’s supplier likely would have etched the aluminum surface of the dew shield, the telescope barrel skin, and other parts using either acids or alkalis that were caustic enough to do the work. A sampling of chemical etchants for aluminum—sodium hydroxide, hydrochloric acid, potassium hydroxide, ferric chloride, cupric chloride, hydrofluoric acid, and sulfuric acid, for example—reads like a manifest of hazardous materials that would have required a high level of cautious management.^[7]

The Change to Screen Printed Details

Before the days of robust environmental standards, companies like Metal Etching Corporation would probably have fallen short of handling and disposing hazardous materials in a completely safe and responsible manner. Practices began to change when awareness of environmental damage caused by decades of unchecked industrialism entered the popular mindset. Mounting pressure led a Democratic-controlled Congress and the Nixon administration to create the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970. One of many areas that this new watchdog bureau was charged with regulating included metal anodizing, etching, and coloring processes.^[8]

How did new standards affect Metal Etching Corporation’s anodizing business? Did more stringent regulations compel it to alter or discontinue its use of chemical etchants? Since the most conspicuous change to Questar’s dew shield was the disappearance of its wonderfully etched finish and its distinct “mystic purple” color—bygone characteristics that have become highly prized among collectors today—it may be safe for one to conclude that Metal Etching Corporation’s prior anodizing, chemical engraving, or coloring methods were in some way affected by new regulations. Perhaps all three changed.

From its supplier, Questar began receiving screen printed dew shields with a slightly different hue and a smooth, glossy finish with no engraved and enamel-filled markings at some point in the 1970s or perhaps even as late as the early 1980s.^[9]

The Change to a Matte Blue Finish

By the 1990s, Metal Etching Corporation had grown frustrated with Questar’s high standards. Longtime Questar manager Jim Perkins remembers that he and his colleagues often rejected a large number of the star and moon map graphics it received from its supplier.^[10]

If it was looking for a reason to cut ties with its longtime client in New Hope, Metal Etching Corporation ultimately did not have to use its exasperation with Questar’s fussiness as an excuse. In 1997, the company began unwinding several of its metal coating operations. First, it discontinued chromate conversion and chrome plating. The next year, it ended its anodizing services.^[11] At one point when Questar tried to place a new order, the supplier responded that it would no longer accept them from the company.^[12]

In 1999, Metal Etching Corporation ceased all operations and abandoned its buildings. In 2001, demolition crews razed the industrial buildings the company had occupied since the mid-1960s.^[13]

Whether it was due to new or existing environmental regulations,^[14] Metal Etching Corporation’s frustration with a customer who sought perfection, or the fact that the New York-based vendor simply went out of business, Questar was forced to adopt a new supplier. Soon, the company began receiving new star map dew shields with a matte finish and a lighter blue color around 1999 or a few years later.^[15]

The Environmental Legacy of Metal Etching Corporation

To be sure, many purchasers like Questar made use of suppliers whose practices were standard ways of doing business for the time. Later improvements in our understanding of those practices led to changes that ended production of one style of part and that resulted in healthier manufacturing processes.

But the damage was already done. Like many other operations of its kind, Metal Etching Corporation had bestowed a legacy of environmental harm by the time it closed up shop and abandoned its site at Freeport, New York. Years of doing business had only compounded the negative effects that the preceding business, Flores Manufacturing, had already left before Metal Etching Corporation took over the site in the mid-1960s. When the buildings that housed their operations were demolished, one 4000-gallon tank that had contained ferric chloride, a highly corrosive and harmful metal etchant, was removed. But crews performed little if any investigation and decontamination.^[16]

Between May 2004 and March 2005, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation conducted a remedial investigation of the site. It found that groundwater and soil was still contaminated with VOCs including tetrachloroethene and trichloroethene, which are frequently used as metal degreasers. Investigators also found 1,2-dichloroethene, a highly flammable organochloride, and vinyl chloride, an explosively volatile carcinogen. The agency estimated that a $2.2 million cleanup effort would be necessary to remove the contaminated soil down to the groundwater table. But mitigation efforts could only go so far. Some hazardous materials would remain at the site even after the cleanup. The parcel of land where Metal Etching Corporation operated for over three decades would require regular monitoring, and authorities would allow it to be used only for commercial activities moving forward.^[17]

Some Questar collectors have bemoaned the loss of the early etched and enamel-filled dew shield star maps. But considering the damage that resulted from the way that Metal Etching Corporation made their products, perhaps more recent styles were not such bad things in the final analysis.

Back to § 2.1. Characteristics of Early Questar Telescopes

Notes

¹ Questar Corporation, Questar booklet, May 1954, 10.

² “Early Production Questar 3-½ Telescopes: 1954 and 1955,” Company Seven, n.d., http://www.company7.com/library/questar/que54-55.html, accessed July 5, 2019; Jim Perkins, email message to author, September 4, 2020.

³ “Machinery Markets and News of the Works,” The Iron Age 116, no. 1 (July 2, 1925): 58, https://books.google.com/books?id=r05LAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed February 11, 2021; Federal Trade Commission Decisions 24 (1937): 1314, https://books.google.com/books?id=fxdGAcny0iEC&pg=PA1314&lpg=PA1314&dq=%22metal+etching+corporation%22, accessed February 11, 2021; NAB Reports (Washington, D.C.: National Association of Broadcasters, August 18, 1937), 2082, https://worldradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/NAB/IDX/NAB-Reports-1937-Q2-OCR-Page-0094.pdf, accessed February 11, 2021.

⁴ “Periodic Review Report No. 6, November 12, 2017-November 12, 2018, Metal Etching Co., Inc. Site (130110),” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany New York, January 2019, https://www.dec.ny.gov/data/DecDocs/130110/Report.HW.130110.2019-01-22.MetalEtching_PRRFINAL.pdf, accessed February 10, 2021.

⁵ “Anodizing,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anodizing, accessed February 11, 2021.

⁶ “Anodizing,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anodizing, accessed February 13, 2021; “Chromic acid,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromic_acid, accessed February 13, 2021; “Oxalic acid,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxalic_acid, accessed February 13, 2021; “Sulfuric acid,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid, accessed February 13, 2021.

⁷ Handbook of Metal Etchants, Perrin Walker and William H. Tarn, ed. (Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press, 1991), 85-106, https://vector.umd.edu/images/links/Handbook_of_Metal_Etchants.pdf, accessed February 12, 2021.

⁸ “40 CFR § 433.10 - Applicability; description of the metal finishing point source category,” Legal Information Institute, n.d., https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/433.10, accessed February 11, 2021.

⁹ Determining the exact timing of Questar’s move away from etched and enamel filled star map dew shields and moon map barrel skins represents a challenging undertaking. Company Seven indicated that the older manufacturing technique “would be discontinued by the late 1960’s when the charts became silk screened” (“Early Production Questar 3-½ Telescopes: 1954 and 1955,” Company Seven, n.d., http://www.company7.com/library/questar/que54-55.html, accessed July 5, 2019). Yet this estimated transition timeframe is likely too early, as several examples from the 1970s feature dew shields with etched and enamel-filled markings. A consideration of various Standard Questar examples does not clarify matters. On one hand, the emergence of silk-screened dew shield markings perhaps appeared in the early 1970s. As Cloudy Nights user “Darkskyaz” reported in May 2020, Jim Perkins revealed that the change to screen printed dew shields occurred in 1972 due to environmental regulations (Darkskyaz, online forum posting, Cloudy Nights, May 30, 2020, https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/580599-questar-design-change-history/?p=10227611, accessed February 10, 2021). In July 2020, the author also observed a 1972 Questar that featured a dew shield that was not etched and enamel filled. But this example could have been the recipient of a later retrofit. On the other one hand, Questar may have included etched and enamel filled dew shields with Standard Questars well into the 1970s and perhaps beyond. In April 2021, Cloudy Nights user “Opie Taylor” reported that a 1971 Questar in his possession has an etched and enamel filled dew shield (Opie Taylor, online forum posting, Cloudy Nights, April 20, 2021, https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/580599-questar-design-change-history/?p=11047499, accessed April 21, 2021). And in December 2021, Joe Bergeron also reported his 1976 Questar had the same marking type (Joe Bergeron, online forum posting, Cloudy Nights, December 14, 2021, https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/794835-questar-history/?p=11565136, accessed December 14, 2021). Etched and enamel filled dew shields may have persisted into the 1980s. Ralph Foss generally noted a discussion thread on Cloudy Nights where collectors identified 1982 as the year that Questar made the change (Ralph Foss, “Questar Timeline” (unpublished manuscript, September 22, 2007, revised September 19, 2009), typescript).

¹⁰ Jim Perkins, email message to author, September 4, 2020.

¹¹ “Periodic Review Report No. 6, November 12, 2017-November 12, 2018, Metal Etching Co., Inc. Site (130110),” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany New York, January 2019, https://www.dec.ny.gov/data/DecDocs/130110/Report.HW.130110.2019-01-22.MetalEtching_PRRFINAL.pdf, accessed February 10, 2021.

¹² Jim Perkins, email message to author, September 4, 2020.

¹³ “Periodic Review Report No. 6, November 12, 2017-November 12, 2018, Metal Etching Co., Inc. Site (130110),” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany New York, January 2019, https://www.dec.ny.gov/data/DecDocs/130110/Report.HW.130110.2019-01-22.MetalEtching_PRRFINAL.pdf, accessed February 10, 2021.

¹⁴ In July 1999, a participant of the Alt-Telescopes-Questar Majordomo email list wrote that Questar was in the process of dealing with environmental regulations that were compelling the company’s supplier to adopt new dew shield and telescope barrel skins. “One of the latest problems is the anodizing process of the Moon and Star skins that cover our barrels and dew shields. The EPA has stopped the supplier from producing them the old way. Jim Perkins is now trying to work around that problem” (Alt-Telescopes-Questar Majordomo list message, July 28, 1999, digest 398, https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/Questar/files/Alt-Telescopes-Questar%20Digests/, accessed October 14, 2019).

¹⁵ Ben Langlotz, online forum posting, Cloudy Nights, June 12, 2017, https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/580599-questar-design-change-history/?p=7935420, accessed July 11, 2019.

¹⁶ “Periodic Review Report No. 6, November 12, 2017-November 12, 2018, Metal Etching Co., Inc. Site (130110),” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Albany New York, January 2019, https://www.dec.ny.gov/data/DecDocs/130110/Report.HW.130110.2019-01-22.MetalEtching_PRRFINAL.pdf, accessed February 10, 2021.

¹⁷ Laura Schofer, “Cleaning Up Brownfields in Freeport,” The Leader (Freeport, NY), March 8, 2007, https://issuu.com/lmpublications/docs/2007-3-8, accessed February 11, 2011; “1,2-Dichloroethene,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1,2-Dichloroethene, accessed February 13, 2021; “Organochloride,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organochloride, accessed February 13, 2021; “Vinyl chloride,” Wikipedia, n.d., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_chloride, accessed February 13, 2021.