Scattered Thoughts . . .

I made a little more progress on my homemade telescope mounts this morning.  I decided to drill and tap each of the axes on each of these mounts so I can add a clutch of sorts to each axis.   In this first photo, you can see both locking clutches on the equatorial mount.  I drilled and tapped 1/4-20 holes on the edge of each axis.  I can now add some friction to each axis or I can even lock down an axis.   This next photo shows the three locking clutches on the dual telescope altitude-azimuth mount.  Now I can control how much friction is applied to each of the axes.   Although it appears as though the 1/4-20 locking clutch makes direct contact with the threads on the axis, it does not.  I have some heavy leather inside the hole I drilled so the leather is pressed down on the threads of the axis.  This will protect the threads while applying enough pressure to have a useful clutch.  If we had metal on metal, then the threads would quickly be ground down by the metal on meta

I started off my day yesterday doing some woodworking.  I had previously designed a microscope case and had assembled most of it already a few days ago.  I needed to add a door and some handles yesterday. Unfortunately, I'm a bit out of practice with my woodworking skills so I found cutting and assembling this wood was rough and a bit frustrating due to making some really stupid mistakes which cost me some good lumber.  In the end, the case is looking good assembled though.   I still need to add some medium density foam to three areas on the inside of this case to keep the microscope from touching hard wood surfaces.  I'm happy with the design of this case though.  I still need to add hardwood plugs to cover the screw holes and then stain and finish the outside of the case.  The interior will remain unfinished.   One area where I had some difficulty in the design of this case was how to fasten the door closed.  I opted for two of these basic buckle fasteners.