6.10.2021 Fixing the base ring brackets.

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Wednesday 6th 52F, heavy overcast. 

I can now make rapid progress drilling and fixing the base ring brackets. First I need to open out all the small screw holes to 10mm in the longer leg of 29 brackets. More brackets will follow beside the shutters. Those can wait until I have some structure to attach them to.  

The dome is already drilled with 2mm pilot holes at 34cm centers on the 360° horizontal laser line. Only the lower holes in the brackets are pre-drilled. I shall fix all the brackets with 10mm bolts through the lower holes first. Only when I am satisfied with these I can move onto the upper holes. Passing the 10mm drill through the upper holes to be sure of alignment. 

I must source more 10mm x 40mm coach bolts. I will need to turn the square shoulders away in the lathe. The supplied dome bolts look like normal dome-headed coach bolts but have no square shoulders under the large 20mm heads. I may struggle to find something suitable which matches all the other bolt heads. 

A tour in the car produced a box of M10 x 40mm coach bolts, washers and nuts. I also bought a cheap LED work light to see if it is an improvement on the three CFLs. It was.

I drilled a lot of brackets to 10mm. Then spent some time removing the square shoulders from the new, longer coach bolts in the lathe. I held the bolt threads in a length of hard, plumbing hose in the 3-jaw chuck. Which worked perfectly. Then I started bolting the brackets to the dome. Eight fixed so far. 

Afternoon imaging session went well. Total mush + Storage full+ Solid overcast = 0. Null points.

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