Having read Gary Seronik's article in AS&T this month, I decided to have a crack at building one. My handyman skills are dodgy at best but nothing ventured!!
Have put the basics of the OTA together so the mirror cell is made, side struts cut and prepared and the upper ring is cut and varnished. Assembled it looks as per photos attached.
The changes I have made from Gary's design are
1. I went with a f4 mirror rather than f4.2 as the f4 was size that Bintel sold.
2. The struts are 25mm square aluminium tubing. Gary used 1/4 T nuts to add to 4 wooden blocks that inserted in the ends of these. I could only find 5/16 T nuts and they are too big to fit inside the 1" tube so I went with 6mm threaded inserts instead.
Next step is installing the mirror, focuser and secondary spider, holder and mirror. I have ordered a nice new Moonlite and Astrosystems secondary holder and spider. The other major difference with my scope and Garys is I have gone with a tradition 4 vane spider rather than a curved one. I am used to setting up a 4 vane but if it turns out too weighty I can change it over later. The 8" mirror and the 2" secondary have arrived so I will probably install the primary tonight.
Malcolm