Its come to my attention that there are a lot of very ingenious people in this forum. And some that are not only ingenious but quick on their feet.
For the benefit of others that may find themselves in a sticky situation sometime and need a quick fix solution how about putting down here one or two emergency stopgap measures you have had to come up with to keep your viewing/imaging night a success.
Here's one I came up with last night.
After mounting my Orion and Celestron refractors on the Losmandy I found I didn't have quite enough weight to counterbalance it. I have new weights on order but William Ng is here and we wanted to have a bit of an imaging night (bad moon and all) I thought, "what could I use that would fit my 32mm counter weigth bar". Nothing
Then I spotted an old 4lb lump hammer with a broken handle, and this is what I came up with.
Knocked out the old broken handle, found a bolt with the right thread and was long enough and screwed it to the end of the counterweight bar.
Worked like a treat. Just slid the existing weight up and down til it balanced. Worked so well I might cancel the new weights.
I dont think it will balance the 8" meade and Orion together though.