[codemonkey (Lee)]

I was originally going to lash out and get a shiny new pre-fab steel pier, but I've caught the DIY bug and considering I'll probably save about $900, I figure it's worth a crack ;-)

Having seen some builds on SGL with people using besser bricks and adhesives I decided it was too simple and inexpensive not to try.

The pier will stand a mere 58x19x19cm and will be glad in gold aluminium composite panel left over from my "micro-obs" box that houses my gear currently. The "micro-obs" only stands about 120cm tall, and I'm trying to keep the pier as short as I can so that I can park the mount in the standard home position..

It will sit on the pier footing I had done many months ago now; from memory it's 110x110x60cm deep.

So today I made a trip down to Bunnings to get started. I purchased:

1x 39x19x19 besser brick
1x 19x19x19 besser brick
1x 19mm V-groove router bit for the composite panel
1x arbor
1x 64mm hole saw, again for the composite panel
1x M12 bolt with wing-nut
1x file
1x tube of construction adhesive
1x caulking gun

Total cost about $125.

Work began tonight by gluing the small besser brick onto the large one.

I pulled out the trusty ol' router to do a practice run on the composite panel. If you're not familiar with aluminium composite panel, it's basically some plastic sandwiched between two thin sheets of aluminium.

Using a v-groove router bit you can route through one layer of aluminium, the plastic, but leave the other layer of aluminium intact, at which point you can bend the sheet, rather than cutting it, giving a nicer finish. Or so I've heard, I've never tried it myself.

So, I pulled out the trusty ol' router, and it wouldn't start... checked power etc, no good. So day one came to a rather abrupt end.

To be continued...