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Make Your Own Alt And Az Bolt Set


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Hi Everyone,

Just an heads up really, if you are thinking of making your own set please make sure the adjustable handle

is a low profile design otherwise if like me your alt is 51 deg you will not be able to fit the cover onto your

polarscope at that angle other than cranking it down to say 40 deg each time you pack away.

Hope this helps someone BigBlueOne.

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Just out of curiosity what grade of steel are the oem alt-az bolts on the HEQ5/EQ6/NEQ6 type of mount?

I have seen upgrade sets available on fleabay (£51!) but they just say they are "specially selected stainless steel" so unsure if they actually be an upgrade at all

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Hi,

I used to work in the fastener trade making nuts and bolts from stainless and super alloys (hastelloy, titanium, ferralium etc), one thing to remember with stainless is the name its stainless it doesnt say bendless or breakless you still get some stainless steel which is only as strong as normal carbon steel, A good heat treated 10.9 or 8.8 bolt (these are the numbers on the head of the bolt) is as strong as you should need, lets face it you should only need to turn them a tiny bit each time you use them, If you want to just look in yellow pages for fastener suppliers and you should get them cheaper from there.

Kev.

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I don't have access to a thread gauge atm but am I right in assuming they are M10 coarse thread?

I might look around the web for alternatives but need to know if its a random imperial or some crazy Whitworth thread

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omg went to take the alt bolts out and one was stiff

this is what came out eventually...

not happy as the mount is only two weeks old.

You have to be really carefull with the original bolts to work the pair together in a push/pull type mode, as soon as you place any force on to one or other they bend readily and it can be a scary job extracting the bent ones without causing damage to the mount, particularly if bent as badly as the one in the photo

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This alt bolt has bent despite careful adjustment slackening one prior to tightening the other and never applying undue force.

I have contacted the supplier and they will be chasing it up first thing in the morning. They have been extremely helpful (Harper Photographic) and will source a replacement asap. I will still upgrade these bolts as the replacement will not remove the issue.

I have tried the one remaining straight bolt on both alt threads with the mount head removed and thankfully there does not seem to be any stiffness or damage to the thread :grin:

Watch the clouds part now lol

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Hi Pardor - You're lucky the bolt wasn't bent slightly more - if it was it would have been pretty difficult to get out (I know from experience).

The SW blots are of clown grade steel and I would definitely recommend the Astro Developments as relpacements. Others have used roofing bolts (see pic) but I think the custom made ones are worth the extra £!

(couldn't see how to upload photo!)

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And heres one I made earlier.....this is what can happen with the standard ones. This is an EQ6 head with a less than careful owner that just shows what can happen. Believe me getting these out was no deep joy.

Believe me its worth just spending out on the astro development ones. They are the right length, dont have any issues like some of the home made jobbies - you know it makes sense.

post-2158-0-66372800-1339094764_thumb.jp

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wow that is some mad bend in that bolt Astro_baby. I consider myself very lucky now.

Astro developments will be getting an order soon for the improved version.

Cheers for your help and advice :)

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Both bolts were knacked on that EQ6. The one in the pic was so mashed up it wouldnt turn in any direction. The mount head had to be removed to get at the bolt and then I had to carefully needle file the end of the bolt off. It took a fair bit of time and to be honest thats why I always tell peeps to get em changed. My time is pretty precious. Luckily the mount casing was ok but I have seen people with bent bolts where the mount thread had stripped as well which is a real headache to fix. Yeah I know you can helicoil them but its all time and cash and generally a pain in the nether regions....£30 to swap them out and not have the worry and headaches is good value in my book.

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I've ordered some for mine as one started to bend almost instantly, & not due to my hamfistedness either. That happened the night I unboxed it & put it together.

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I didnt realise until now how many people have had this issue. A quick google search reveals hundreds of posts/threads/horror stories about these inadequate bolts. I am very suprised Synta/Skywatcher have not addressed this problem themselves especially when people are dropping anything up to £1000 on a mount.

An extra £25-£30 is money well spent. I will endevour to pass this advice on to others to save costly/time consuming repairs

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The two most commonly used grades of stainless steel is A2 for standard use and A4 for marine use (and much more expensive), grade A2 will be fine to replace the Chinese bendy bolts. For those who are handy you can purchase short lengths of M10 metric A2 course studding from such as DSstainless@hotmail.co.uk, about £4 for 3X100mm lengths free post if I remember correctly. A couple of knobs of your choice, epoxied on the end and the jobs done. You can, of course, use steel bolts, but unless you keep them oiled you are likely to suffer from rust in the long run :)

John.

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Forgot to mention, the astro developments bolts also have a rounded tip on them. You really need this because the square end of a standard bolt will rip the tongue inside the mount up very badly.

The mounts material is only a relatively soft pot metal and the sharp end of a bolt will gouge out bits of the tongue. You can strengten the tongue by epoxying a piece of steel over it, and somewle have done this, which is a good mod irrespective of the bolts.

If you do use normal bolts they need their ends ronding off. If you look at the bolts supplied with the mount you can see the ends are like bullets.

Thats why I used the astro developments ones, couldnt stand the hassle of filing steel bolts in a power drill.

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