After buying a Losmandy G11 universal dovetail plate to attach my Tak TOA-130 OTA, I was disappointed by the aesthetic appearance of the set up as well as the difficulty of sliding the OTA back and forth in the relatively small dovetail so I decided to machine up a simple adaptor plate made from aircraft grade aluminium. It is 5" in diameter and 1" thick, stepped as shown and recessed to accept the Tak cradle. It is attached with two 5/16" UNC cap screws, the same ones which attach the original dovetail plate. Losmandy actually provide six equally spaced tapped holes in the mounting flange but only two holes need to be used for the Tak. I suppose if you were mounting a very large and heavy OTA then all six screws may be needed. I thought of having the adaptor anodised in black to match the mount but in my opinion looks fine the way it is.
The first two pics show the adaptor for the G11 and Tak OTA. The third pic shows the G11 universal plate with a simple adaptor to accept the stepped flange of the Tak cradle as well an adaptor I made for the TOA-130 to mount on an EQ6. The fourth pic shows in more detail the adaptor for the EQ6 which was time consuming to make. The last pic shows the Tak/EQ6 adaptor in place.
Hope this little thread is of interest to some members.
