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Saturday 13th 39F, heavy overcast and all day rain.
I am trying hard to avoid a trip to the builder's merchants. So I placed some very large roofing washers under the nuts holding the jockey wheel clamps in place. This stiffened everything up quite nicely. The jacks no longer twisted away from the offset wheels. Without supporting washers the nuts had pulled into the softwood timber. Making the fixings loose.
There are some some odd, long lengths of board in my stock. Sadly they aren't thick enough to usefully reinforce the 4m rails. I might screw these across the trolley bed to spread the loads on the segment edges more evenly. Scraps of cladding plywood could be used to much the same effect. I'll have to see what else was hidden away in dark corners of the shed during the last observatory build. A few odds and ends will all help.
11.00 I have just emptied the rain collection trays in the dome. The rain is pouring down indie and outside now!
Afternoon: I decided to sacrifice two long lengths of larch flooring [125x32mm] to reinforce the lengthways trolley rails. There was a struggle to find suitable bolts to hold the wheel clamps in place. Most of my stock of coach bolts were too long or too short. Then I had to open up the holes in the clamps to 12mm. The trolley feels much more solid now. As do the wheel jacks in their clamps. I have moved the clamps to the inside of the frame to reduce the track.
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