Home made, wooden parallelogram mount for bino’s

[Dennis]

Hello,

Well, I finally got the last coat of varnish on the wood for my binocular mount and assembled it today – here it is! It was originally designed for the Vixen 30x125’s so in terms of size of timber used, it is a little over engineered for our 12x50’s which it will now be used for.

The bino head is an old alt-az head I obtained a long time ago, to be used with a small telescope, but its movement were too jerky for the higher magnifications used with even an 80mm refractor. For the x12 bino’s the motions are smooth enough due to the wider field.

I built the tripod (an old project from a few years ago) for my Vixen GP mount so I modified the head and will now use it for the bino mount.

Cheers

Dennis

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

An "A" in wood shop Dennis Very nice mate.

[stringscope (Ian)]

Really nice Dennis I assume its build from tassie Oak??

Cheers,

[Dennis]

Thanks Paul & Ian

The tripod was built from “Meranti” and the parallelogram is from oak (so I am told), scavenged from scrap left over from a neighbour's recent renovation.

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

...and here is the bino mount configured for the Vixen 30x125's pointing at the zenith.

Cheers

Dennis

[astroron (Ron)]

Very nice Dennis, by the way did you catch any flies?

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by astroron

Very nice Dennis, by the way did you catch any flies?

Ha ha Ron…I was in the middle of murmuring, through clenched teeth, “take the photo quickly darling, there are 16kgs of bino hanging like the sword of Damocles over my head”…..

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman (Mike)]

lol that looks great Dennis, very well done! I assume there's a how-to in the works?

[DobDobDob (Ron)]

Originally Posted by Dennis

...and here is the bino mount configured for the Vixen 30x125's pointing at the zenith.

Cheers

Dennis

Doesn't get much better than that Dennis, life is okay huh

[h0ughy (David)]

very nice work Big D!! you are the superstar of wood mate! very nice

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by iceman

lol that looks great Dennis, very well done! I assume there's a how-to in the works?

As if I would miss an opportunity to take photos when building something - that is half the fun of these projects.....

So, the answer is yes, a DIY article will soon be on its way.

Cheers

Dennis

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by tailwag

Doesn't get much better than that Dennis, life is okay huh

Hi Ron

The photo is for show really, to demonstrate the over engineering of the mount and how we can easily configure it for different bino's. We will mainly use the mount for our 12x50’s and will continue to use our heavy tripod and the Vixen fork mount for the Vixen giant bino’s.

With the giant bino’s mounted on the parallelogram, it takes over 5 seconds for vibrations to damp down whenever you touch the bino’s. They would probably not be very useable in a moderate wind? It is also quite intimidating sitting underneath 16kgs of heavy metal and glass, praying that they don’t slip and smack you in the head.

Although we can handle the Vixen’s on the mount, I would not use these for public viewing, as it would be far too nerve racking to unleash this cantilevered weight on anyone who is unfamiliar with the operation and limitations of the design.

Cheers

Dennis

[DobDobDob (Ron)]

Originally Posted by Dennis

They would probably not be very useable in a moderate wind? It is also quite intimidating sitting underneath 16kgs of heavy metal and glass, praying that they don’t slip and smack you in the head.

On the other hand it could be a fast track method of entry into the television show, "Most Amazing Medical Stories", I saw a bloke the other day with a long steel rod through his head