Hi Phill,
Groovey, mate,
. I dig the string spider. Niiiiicccce.
You can stick with your Baader's, but it does limit your eyepiece useability. Should you want to try out another EP, you might not be able to.
Before you chop the poles, have you been able to achieve focus in another scope with both you Baaders & your Skywatcher EPs? Does your focuser have enough travel to cope with this range of travel?
When I worked out the location of the focuser for my rebuild, I did so knowing that I had EPs that positioned the draw tube at both ends of its travel, and fixed it with the tube positioned to accomodate the most in-travel and pulled out only 5mm. Even so, I have one EP that still needs to be pulled out of the focuser 2mm to achieve focus with the draw tube pulled out all the way! Pulling out the EP is much easier than cutting the tubes.
Hind site is a wonderful thing!
I agree with Mark about looking at supporting the altitude bearings across their free end. You will find with the scope pointing down low that they will flex in or out, so much that they could run off the Teflon pads. I too had to brace them in mine. Mine flexed in, so I just cut a length of dowel to hold them out to their correct position. No glue, no nuts, just compression from the bearings holds the dowel in place. The bearings in mine are also an enclosed semicircles and they still flexed. I hadn't planned or expected that.
Thinking of fitting light baffles for urban site use?