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Hi Larry
Thanks for an excellent “how to” – the mount looks well designed, smooth to operate and very strong, especially given they are supporting 25x100’s which are substantial binoculars!
I’m more used to working with wood (I’m lousy at metal work!) so all my parallelogram mounts have been wooden models – all suffer from binding or jerky movement in spite of using Laminex inlays to assist with controlling friction. Your use of bushes seems to overcome the binding very neatly.
I’ve just completed one from timber and it had 1st light over the weekend, bird watching in the garden due to lousy astronomy weather. I note your design has four degrees of movement:
1 – Where the mount joins the tripod.
2 - The Up-Down vertical movement of the parallelogram
3 – Rotational movement of binocular support arm on parallelogram
4 – Rotational movement of binocular on the binocular support arm.
After lying on the lounger watching the birds, I added a 5th degree of movement so I could sweep a larger area of the sky/trees without having to either move the lounger or contort my neck.
The extra 5th degree was an arm that pivots on the bino support arm, but comes out directly to the observer. The bino alt-az bracket is then mounted on this arm. This allows the binos to be swiveled L-R across the front of the observers face. I reckon by doing this, it would be feasible to lie in a lounger, or remain seated, and sweep approx ¼ of the heavens without having to move the mount or chair, yet still feel quite comfortable.
I had better add that my binos are much lighter 12x50’s so the added pivot arm doesn’t have to support too much weight.
Cheers
Dennis
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