[AstroApprentice (Jason)]

I thought I would share my first foray into making a mount adapter.
A couple of weeks ago I found myself without the tripod for my mount and unable to take advantage of a couple of cloudless nights. I had an old
Losmandy tripod available, but no means of adapting my mount to it.
So when I returned home, I figured I would have a go at making an adapter to avoid such frustration in the future. I bought an aluminium disc on eBay and set to work despite not having any metal working tools except a tap & die set from Bunnings. Fortunately I have a drill press and a router table with a down cut spiral bit that I had used for aluminium at slow speeds on a previous diy adventure.
Anyhow, the adapter came out surprisingly well and given my imaging setup is not very heavy, I’m confident it’s capable of holding the load. I even made a crude version of a captive nut to hold the centre bolt and found a threaded collar to use as the azimuth pin. Given how oversized the tripod is, I expect it to be nice and stable.