26.07.2024 First frame brought down.

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   Friday 26th. After a wet day the sun came out. I managed to get one frame down from the observatory. It will be mostly dry for the next two days. So I can continue the search for the 150mm/6" screws holding the frames together. It feels rather unsafe standing up there now. With only the few remaining boards left over from the original veranda. With nothing outboard. The frames and noggings provided a sturdy handrail.

 I had a sudden inspiration for a new pier. If I am to invest in a Ioptron CEM120 mount. The old pier from the Fullerscopes MkIV is still standing in the garden. I welded it together at work many years ago. The original "smelly" Hammerite paint has protected it quite well.

 The high hedges drove me to invest in trailer guide wheels for a little mobility. Not helped by the top heavy nature of the contraption. While the uneven ground made it very unsafe. Particularly with a 7" f/12 refractor aboard!

 I could lose the wheels and use the sturdy tubular feet. To provide underfloor leveling via 16mm studs. [Screwed rods.] Failing that I can cut off the legs and pour concrete around the 7" thick wall pipe. It has a strongly welded top plate. Which can be adapted to the CEM120 base plate. 

 I'll make an intermediary adapter, with suitable bolt spacing, from thick aluminium plate. Commercial adapter plates cost a king's ransom! As do the simplest pretensions of a telescope pier. Most of which are far too low, as standard, for a refractor. A thousand quid just to hold up a mounting? £1500 for a heavy, tripod-pier? Which isn't even mobile without crane hire! Ridiculous! They are just playing to the vanity of wealthy amateurs.  

I am doing it all wrong! There is no need to drop the frames as units. Just because that was how I raised them. I can use a bayonet saw to sever the uprights near the ground. Just above the steel work will do. Then I climb up to the veranda level and cut through the cross pieces. Drop the uprights as single units. That way I don't have to search for the screws. The uprights are no less useful for being only slightly shorter.

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