[Vermin (Tom)]

I pulled my finger out this weekend and got back into working on my scope after a long break.

I finished off the lower truss blocks by cutting some new bases and gluing them together.

I spent a while positioning and gluing the lower truss blocks and filling all voids and imperfections with wood putty ready for final sanding.

Tonight I did a dry assembly (no bearing surfaces) to determine the best focuser position.

The first thing I noticed was the size of the assembled scope. It's huge! See attached photo.

The second thing was how concentric the scope is. When positioned vertically and rotated through 360° the edge of the secondary cage did not deviate from a mark on the ceiling. and the gap between the mirror box and rocker was constant when moved in altitude (the boxes are square). YAY! The hours of careful attention to accuracy have paid off.

The third and final thing is that I prefer the focuser on the right side of the scope (looking from the front). I'm going to make a post surveying this preference for Dob owners, just out of interest.

Just a bit of assembly to go, but a lot of finishing sanding and varnishing/painting too.


I'm feeling much more happy about how this scope is going now.