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I have been watching YT videos on sliding gates. Hoping for inspiration and increasing my options. Very useful they were too. Most gates rely on a single pair of vertical rollers sandwiching the top of the gate. I can use this system at the top of the shutters. Support being only at the bottom of the shutters. The channel providing the steering. Much like grooved rollers on a rail.
This removes the need for fragile drawer slides altogether. They had been a worry. How would I work on the shutters once the dome was lifted well out of reach? While a ladder can be erected on the observatory floor I can't easily support the shutters. Not if needed to remove the drawer slides. Lots of tiny wood screws were completely hidden from view!
Adding more, inline skate wheels, to spread the load more evenly at the bottom, needs more thought. It really needs pairs of wheels mounted on pivoted "seesaw" bogies. This would ensure all wheels are in intimate contact with the bottom channels. Rather than only two of any four wheels taking all the loads.
There is a possible downside with bogies: The pivots are well inboard of the outer margins of the shutters. Which might allow them to tip if the shutters are pulled or pushed from higher up. This [potential] rotational force might be precluded by pulling on ropes at the very bottom of the shutters. It is difficult to reach much higher from the observatory floor anyway.
I have some scrap, 50x200mm [2x8"] aluminium box section. Which could provide deep channel, seesaw material. In sturdy cross sections once suitably sawn to size. The resulting, channel sections would support the skate wheels from both sides. Nesting the channels [see rough drawing] may provide enough clearance.
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