MEADE IMPROVEMENTS: HISTORY
Yes, I too bought a Meade (10" Starfinder Equatorial). Here you find a description of what I did to bring it up to shape.
The thing which set this in motion was a mistake made by me. I bought an Equatorial mount even though I do not have a permanent location. I soon discovered that it was a pain to set up. Especially the straps that attach the tube to the mount where almost impossible to use. Thus I set out to solve this.
While fixing this, I found the (paper) tube not 'nice' enough, besides it was white and got abused a bit by my modifications. So I also 'improved' the tube.
During collimation I noticed that the primary was not centered in the tube. I decided to check the cell to see if this could be fixed easily. This was indeed the case. However I now discovered that the 10" mirror was 1" thick, and supported on six cork pads that were glued to the aluminum cell frame. Not only that, but the mirror was also held in place by three nylon screws on the side, and three retainers on the top. The screws were OK, but the top retainers were way to tight. The cork in between the retainer and the mirror was actually squashed. Since this mirror needs at least a 9 point floating support (according to the "old" beliefs), I went ahead and modified the original cell.
I was alerted by someone on the ATM mailing list that his (also a 10" Meade) secondary was too small, and subsequently only 9" from the 10" diameter was used. I checked mine,... and sure enough the same problem. Fortunately the Meade focuser is a very high model and I did not like it at all. I had a (low) profile NFG-2 lying around that I decided to make use of. I therefore relocated the focuser and the spider. Making at least for visual observations full use of the 10" aperture. For imaging (photo) I still need to stop down the aperture in order to achieve an even illumination.
The backend of the scope was open, you could see through it when looking into the focuser (using the secondary). This is not good, so I fixed it as well.
And last but not least I lined the inside of the tube with black velvet. I also extended the tube because the new position of the focusser is very close to the top of the original tube. The extension is detachable.
Not to forget, I also had to fix the drive, which was not working most of the time.
The finder with its fixed focus did not meet my expectations, so it was replaced.
And to make polar alignment easier, I made a triangular platform on which the scope is placed. This platform has adjustment screws that allow me to do the alignment without touching the mount or scope itself.