Yesterday I found that the bolt that the spring attaches to tore itself out of the particleboard dob base. See image below for the one i'm talking about.. obviously this is an older photo before it pulled out.
I'm guessing the best thing to replace it with, is to drill right through and put a bolt through from the inside, and screw a nut on snug up to the base, so the rest of the bolt sticking out can be used to attach the spring to.
Before drilling out and bolting it may be worth filling the damage with some epoxy then drilling out and installing one of those flat headed bolts with a large washer each side of the mount and a lock nut. That should hold it and leave enough room on the insede of the mount so your scope does not rub, or hit, the bolt head.
I installed those silver handles to help do the crab shuffle when moving the telescope short distances around my backyard. What built-in handles are you talking about?
I never used to have any of the springs connected, lately I'd been tending to connect one of them, and since installing the DSC's I can only use 1 spring anyway because the DSC encoder sits on the other side where the spring used to be.
I thought to fill the hole so the epoxy soaks into the broken chipboard and restrengthens it so it can handle the future stresses placed on it. Maybe a bit of overkill but very safe and doing it once is better than a nagging problem.
Originally posted by iceman I installed those silver handles to help do the crab shuffle when moving the telescope short distances around my backyard. What built-in handles are you talking about?
sorry heres an explanation... the base on myn, as you can see in the pic has sections cut out to use as handles. Its how i carry it around
look above the EP holder http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...b/Dsc03554.jpg
you could also screw in a metal (prolly aluminium) plate over the hole and drill a hole thru that to put the bolt thru. if you know what i mean. it'd be pretty strong.
pva a timber glue is good as well that soaks in really well but take a few hours to really set. i used it to put model aircraft kits ( radio control ones) together
Careful with PVA, it does soak in and would kind of work but is not really a gap filling glue. Epoxy stinks and is nasty but is made for things just like this.
AHHH, go the whole hog and use a 3/8" x 18" long threaded rod thru both sides with big washers & nuts on each side. That way you won't get the uprights spreading, with no danger of the tube falling off the bearings!
You won't be able to get much above about 50 degrees tho. but it's easier to reach the focuser whilst sitting!!!
This is one of the reasons I suggest making templates of base parts before assembly. Just make a brand new panel out of MDF, pine or marine ply (not chipboard).
Then place a 'Furniture leg' threaded female fitting' on the inside of the panel (not on the outside like you would under furniture).
Or make a complete copy of the whole base out of stronger material.
Has anyone else had the base handle come out? Mine was screwed into t-nuts (the spiked variety that gets hammered into wood, not the ones that go into metal t-slots) which pulled right out as soon as I screwed the handle on.
I replaced the crappy t nuts with a longer bolt that goes through the wood and into a nut and washer.
I can't believe someone thought the t-nuts were a good idea when inserted into crappy (very flaky) chipboard.
Spring bolt pulled out
