malc-c

It's been raining hard here for the past four hours so I thought I would check how water tight the observatory is, and to be honest I was expecting a leak around the door as I haven't had time to finish off the door frame, and sure enough there was a large wet patch around the door. A temporary fix has been made until the rain eases off, but I was also soaked and very cold to boot, but at least this should stop it getting any worse. The good news is that its only the warm room that's affected, and the obsy is dry as a bone, so the seals are working well.

Obviously until the warm room is 100% dry the fitting out will have to wait, so in a way I'm thankful the rain has come down as hard as it has as it pointed out where further work is required. I much rather discover a small leak now, than once all the ply lining has been fitted !

Thanks guys for your continued support and praise.. When I set out to start this project I had no intention of making this "better" than anyone else's build, and in fact it was Waynes build thread that I've really followed and inspired me to seriously contemplate such a project. Fortunately I arranged the funding and the time off work (combined with the bank holidays) to get the build this far in around six weeks, but then I'm impatient so doing the project over six months as and when funds came available was not an option

Wayne, yes I'm looking forward to doing the fitting out... whilst the construction has been fun, it's been tiring, especially given that I picked some of the hottest days of the year to do it in !

Steve, sorry.... I'm sure that when it gets commissioned the weather will improve - I'm jammy like that

I'm so envious... This is my favourite built so far (putting Wayne's obsy at number 2)

I am honoured (sorry Wayne )

Well we've had a fair bit of rain this morning and I called home for the wife to do an inspection report for me..

Pleased to say that other than one small area around the door (which is expected as the door has no shuts fitted yet) the observatory is bone dry and rain water is running off the back of the warm room, so the slope seems OK - To say I'm chuffed to bits is an understatement !!

I can now start cabling the warm room, insulating the walls and roof and then line it out in 4mm ply this weekend

Beautiful job - something to be proud of :)I wondered that too, but it's not a very big flap. All the same, mine will be opening outwards.

Thank you, and I am

I to be honest, there is no perfect design... for every advantage there will be a dis-advantage, so every build is a compromise.

In Malcom's design one side of the roof seems to rest completely on the fold-down panel. It would have to be rather strong to support that weight and still be foldable. Also, you need to make absolutely sure the panel cannot fold down when the roof is closed.

Trust me the panel is well built and quite capable of supporting the estimated weight of the roof, which is around 40kg (the felt alone is 18KG !). This weight is spread over ten rollers giving approx 4kg per roller.

At the moment there is no locking systems in place, but the intention is to have a sliding bolt like that used to retain the drop down side panel to lock the ROR in place.

Looks like a marvellous observatory.

I noticed that your south facing flap folds inwards - just playing devil's advocate here: is there sufficient room so that when you fold it down it won't hit any part of the scope/mount?

Some other flaps that I've seen on observatories fold outwards to prevent that kind of incident but I guess they're short on space and your observatory looks quite spacious so I'm guessing yours will be okay? If it were me (and one day I hope it will be), I'd also prefer the flap to fold inwards, so that the hinges are not visible externally (i.e. better security).

Yes, originally I had it hinged on the outside so the flap fell outwards, but then this was changed for several reasons, mainly that of security for the reasons you have stated...the trade off being clearance inside the observatory. I think with a careful choice of parking position I should be OK

Great pictures but is it possible to also show a few pics of the join/seal between obsy and warm room please? I can't quite make out how you've done this. Thanks.

Hope the attached helps

I'll try and get some more pictures (close ups) when I'm home after work

Oh and the roof track folds down with the drop down panel?

As mentioned in a previous post, I removed the tracking from the front due to binding as the tolerances were too tight, so the front wheels just roll on top of the studwork, with the back rollers running in the tracking. This also helps with getting the drop down panel to work properly

I have two batteries.. both were flat (I keep forgetting to turn the thing off when connected to the PB

OK guys you wanted some pictures.... well having baked in 25c heat, and suffered with hay fever which made things take twice as long the structure is now externally complete

This image below shows the drop down side to allow good viewing to the south

And in the viewing mode, with the roof rolled back

Note that at the time I took these pictures I still had to get a coat of creocote on the wood, hence the un-treated look ! Below is a shot from inside the warm room looking towards the observatory

Standing in the observatory, side up, looking in an Easterly direction

The warm room roof section

Rolling the roof back so I could then apply the creocote

And the finished result

Then spent a good hour tidying up the garden !!!!!

Just need to see if it's water tight before moving on to running the internal electrics and insulating the warm room.... More to follow, but right now I need to take a rest from it - I'm knackered !!

Well I managed to get the warm room roof felted tonight, and fit the rollers to the roof. I've used 5 x 50mm rubber casters per side, and pleased to say that it rolls rather nice. I did fit two ali channels for the wheels to run in, but the tolerances between the width of the wheel and the track was so tight, that it caused a bit of binding. Also as I have a drop side, it meant that alignment of that section became a problem, so it was removed and so I use just the one channel to form a guide which is working very well.

As the forecast is for fine weather tomorrow I've booked the day off work so I can get this thing water tight and secure... all being well I hope to have the observatory cleared from tools and off-cuts of wood and the scope temporary mounted for Wednesday nights lunar eclipse.

Then comes the fun part of wiring, comms, insulating the warm room and then lining the walls... and turning this into a working observatory

More photos tomorrow (note to self - need to charge the camera battery )

What a day... ruddy rain hasn't let up all day...I could cope with that, but then the wind picked up this afternoon which made things interesting ! - even so I was able to fabricate the pent roof section and clad the last wall in ship-lap. The roof has a fall of 1.75" over it's 80" length, almost a 1:40 gradient, either way water has been running off it (tarp still in place) so that should be fine. The roof also takes my weight so should hold up to the snow. It still needs felting, but there was no way I was going to try that under the tarp !!

In order to get the height of the roof I had to temporarily fit the tracks and put the Apex roof on its wheels. I've only fitted 4 (one to each corner) just to get the clearance needed for the overlap between the Apex and pent roofs in the middle... but it's amazingly easy to move. Just need to drill and screw the two tracks down properly and fit the end stops, which is a job for when it's not ruddy raining !!!!

Anyway, here's a sketch of how it looks.. I'll take some photos when the roof sections are all finished

You're making real progress there. Looks excellent.

Looks a bit taller than expected. But then, your floor is raised quite a bit...

That's partly due to the bottom layer of cladding covering the sole plate and floor, plus the ground slopes. At the rear the ground is almost level with the patio, which is more or less the floor height. The walls of my obs are 1.8m, which are about the standard for ROR home builds, just that it's floor is 300mm above the ground level where the laws is

Yeah, you only need a couple of inches higher at one end for the seven or eight feet span that we're working to to get between 1:40 and 1:80, so long as the water runs off that's all that matters.

Thanks for the info

You're welcome. I had little choice as there was no other way of fitting the obs in the garden and still making it look right...

Gina,

I've used 38mm x 63mm studwork for the apex and will be using the same for the pent roof. The pent roof will have framework spaced at 16" centres with noggins through to brace them. 12mm OSB sheeting forms the covering on the outside, and will be using 3.6mm ply for lining on the inside once insulation has been fitted.

Hi Malc,

Got a question - sorry if its here on the thread somewhere, just cant see it. Which way does your roof slide off i.e. E-W or S-N? Im developing my second design based on a ROR and just wondered what you did.

Cheers

Hi, The roof rolls off (or will roll when I fit the wheels ) towards NNE more or less.

Yes, the real good old fashion creosote is now banned from sale (use?) in the UK. Mind you this creocote stuff still gives off a smell...

Anyway, it's done now so there is no going back now !

Been a busy day, was up at 3.30am due to that ruddy rain keeping me awake, and down to B&Q at 7.00 to pick up a few things, and started working at 8.00am as the rain had left off and it actually became a nice day. Set too on the rest of the cladding, but then decided to get the roof covered. I got as far as fitting the 12mm OSB boards (which by chance didn't need cutting ) and covering it with good quality felt (15 years G'tee which for two 8M rolls cost me £60 ! ) before the wind picked up and some threatening rain clouds came on the scene. Armed with as many hands as we could muster the roof was placed back up on the frame before we covered the building with the tarp.

So that just leaves the last side to clad, warm roof to build and fit, make the door to fit the opening and then finish off the trimmings of the roof, fitting the rails and rollers and getting the thing water tight. Then the fun begins in fitting out the electrics, lining the warm room walls and ceiling and... and... the list of tasks go on and on, but I'm having fun

Arrrr ! ruddy weather !!

It's been sunny spells with broken white clouds for best part of the day (whilst I've been at work !)... fantastic, should be able to make a start on the roof when I get home I thought !

Arrived home to find all the timber in the hallway so after something to eat, with nice clear sky (only the odd white cloud) I removed the tarp and started to fix the shiplap to the studwork with my new toy - a nail gun

Everything was going well until we had reached the height of the drop side on the south wall... the sky was getting very dark and there were menacing clouds approaching... it was all hands on deck as we rigged up the tarp to provide some cover whilst I continued to fix the last few short lengths and then give it all a coat of creosote just in case the wind changes and the rain drives on from the south.. I've also miss-calculated the number of lengths I need, I worked it out to be 16 lengths to cover the height, its actually 18... so I'm back to the merchants in the morning to get another half dozen lengths before continuing under the covers !!

Gina, from memory I think they were M10 x 60mm, and as I'm going to line the inside walls wasn't bothered about washers or the heads biting into the wood. I pre-drilled the studs so as not to split them, and then used a socket wrench to wind them in. I used two per joint, backed up with 60mm dry lining screws every 8". If you are planning on buying any metalwork like threaded studs, nuts washers etc then screwfix is cheaper.

Ali U channel arrived today, and the wheels from screwfix are a nice fit. I'm hoping the rain will stay away long enough at the weekend for me to get this sorted... can't wait to see how well the roof rolls

I've also contacted our insurance company to see if the scope will be covered under our current household policy, and was pleased to find out that I am and covered up to £2000

You just need to get all the OTA screws,bolts,dovetail done now to match......

Wayne

LOL - now you've given me some ideas.. screws and bolts would be hard (unless they're painted) but a purple dovetail... yum

Thanks for the comments guys.

Sy,

Yes there's a hole in the centre, so the mount is secured in exactly the same way as with the tripod. I could use a normal 10mm stanless steel bolt, but I'll be ordering one of those knob upgrade kits soon. I also have a 25mm M6 hex spacer coming that screws into a tapped hole to allow the fine azimuth polar adjustment.

Great. look forward to seeing more pics. I have the sick-bag at the ready, just in case, for when you reveal the psychodelic purple adapter!

OK Sickbag at the ready

I've just finished painting the pier...... so here it is

And as I have said before in my own thread.....

Everyday I look at it or I am inside,

I can say

"I BUILT THAT"

:D:D:D:D:D

Wayne

It's funny because I've been doing the same every day since I had the footings dug