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Sirius dome wall repairs
Hi Pete,
I purchased a very old, neglected Sirius dome 5 years ago. Perhaps because the dome had been left for years without being rotated, the top of each wall section had sagged in the middle up to 10 mm! This made it very difficult to rotate the dome. I had spent ages making sure the dome and walls were close to perfectly concentric and rusted wheel bolts replaced etc before I noticed the sagging. It might be worth measuring your wall sections to see if this has happened to yours. If so, then the following may be of use.
I contacted Owen at Sirius and he helpfully suggested I add triangle blocks of wood under the inside wall tops and fibreglass them in. So I raised the middle of each wall section with two 1200 mm reversible quick-grip bar clamps (reinforced by placing the bar in a rebated piece of pine - otherwise they bent under weight), liquid nailed the timber blocks in, covered them and the top 100 mm of wall in fibreglass, removed clamps, fibreglassed where clamps had been, and then added a layer of gel coat. I had never used fibre glass before, but it was not a difficult job, albeit the finish improved by wall section 6!
End result is fantastic - I could rotate with one finger as manual suggests, so added automation and it has been running seamlessly for a few years now. The dome is remote, but I've added a pic from the dome webcam.
Hope that helps you or others with a similar issue, J.
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