I have a feeling that the denser the wood, the more rigid and better able to absorb vibrations.
My tripod legs are a hardwood/softwood sandwich.
These legs on my el-cheapo eq3 copy gives better stability than Steves eq5 with 1 inch steel pipe legs. This I saw at the star camp side by side both carrying ed80's
This is one of the best bino mounts ive seen but every time I see it i think of the quitain(?) if you hit the binos and are not quick enough the the thing spins round and the weight whacks you on the back of the head.
I think any wood will be fine. With the OZ hardwoods, like redgum, bluegum, jarrah its best to put a lick of polyurethane when finished. They can also give your tools a good workout.
Softwoods such as pine are much easier to work with and cheaper. A coat of stain or paint and they will come up a treat.
it's nice and dense, but not too heavy. I'd avoid softwoods like pine though... they are too weak, absorb too much moisture, tend to warp etc.
Jarrah is hard but still easy to work and should come up a treat with a nice 2 pac or polyurethane UV clear exterior coating. Will last longer than me and looks a whole lot better.
Starkler is probably on the right track here - a sandwich of hardwood & softwood might be ideal. It's a good marriage between stability & flexibility.
It's probably no coincidence that that the biggest leap in technology for sword manufacture was when the Japanese realised the benefit of hard carbon steel exterior sandwiched around a flexible mild forged steel centre. Same might apply to your tripod.
Wooden tripods are what you want alright, I have a few of them.
As an aside though, and depending on where you observe etc, have you considered a pier?
Given your MK67 is a ripper to use seated, maybe think of a pier, with castors to roll out.
If you cannot roll it, or have to move it a significant distance then it becomes impractical.
Even a permenant pier somewhere within your property could be good. Just place the mount etc out each time you use it.
Pic attached is my rolling pier. If I use the mount away from home I use an AP/Baader wooden tripod.
I'm certainly not an expert, but I imagine you'd need a hardwood of some kind - has anybody tried 3 redgum sleepers? That'd be solid I reckon....
LOL to mount the Hubble on (after retirement)
I agree, this is one of my future projects and from what I heard hardwood is
the way to go. I'm going to go for Cooktown Ironbark. Only because I know
it's one of the hardests of hards out there.
Well I got my timber, nothing special. Not hardwood or Jarrah not even treated pine!!
I went to Bunning’s and just found some normal pine I think it is, but it was at the size I wanted. Everything else was too big or small.
Length didn’t matter of course as I could cut any size. But depth and width was something I wanted to get right.
I also wanted as Gary pointed out a size that I was comfortable using the scope sitting down. That length turned out to be 1.2M. I will re check this as 1M mite be a bit better. For portability anyway.
So pics of the timber after light sand then some oil based lacquer. Funny that there was some guy doing timber staining demonstrations. He helped me after he finished pick my timber and oil for the timber. Great service at Bunning’s.
Will be a week or two before it gets fitted to the mount.
Cracker Dave.
Make sure the attachment leg to mount is very firm, and build a decent spreader/accessory tray.
Some of the early Zeiss tripods had a second spreader or accessory tray at the bottom of the legs. I have considered making one of these (second trays) partly to stiffen what is already a very stiff tripod, but also to store all those little things that one needs at the scope at night, laptop, battery, eyepieces, you name it.
Hi Dave,
Appearance wise, the wood tripod gives the Intes a better presentation. Be interesting to hear your thoughts on any improvement in stability over the original aluminium legs. (Thanks Dave for encouraging me to make my first posting)
Mark
Hi Dave,
Appearance wise, the wood tripod gives the Intes a better presentation. Be interesting to hear your thoughts on any improvement in stability over the original aluminium legs. (Thanks Dave for encouraging me to make my first posting)
Mark
Wooden Tripod legs.
L.
