ArmyAirForce

Once the floor was sorted, I started work on the observatory roof runners. I needed to know the height of the roof so I could work out the maximum telescope height when in the stowed position, and as a result, calculate the pier height. I need to sort this to cut the plastic tube before I can pour concrete.

The new play house floor was assembled this morning, and then using two decking planks screwed to the size of the play house as levers, the old floor was unscrewed and the house lifted up. With the levers supported on two stools, the old floor was pulled out and the new one lifted into place. The house was then lowered onto the floor and the walls screwed down again. The whole exercise went a lot smoother than I expected.

Here's my hole! Ten inches of hard core, followed by lots of very wet and sticky clay soil. It was actually quite easy to dig. The mini pick axe broke up the hard core and a little gardening trowel was used to scoop it all out. Once I got to the clay, the digging was easy, but every scoop stuck fast to the shovel! The spoil from the digging seemed to be much more than should have come from a hole that size!

Everything was going quite well until this morning, when I noticed a big patch of the play house floor was completely rotten. It was only treated chip board, and I should have had the sense to replace it five years ago when I was building the house kit. So I've spent the morning pulling nails and cutting six of the decking planks in half, into twelve, seven feet long sections to replace the whole floor. I've scrubbed the worst of the old paint etc off the planks, and they are drying in the workshop before they get a coat of bitumen paint. On the brighter side, I had a go at the hardcore with a mini pick axe earlier, and it is breaking up quite easily, so shouldn't be too hard to dig out.

With all the supporting planks fitted, the wooden blocks were removed, and the play house lowered onto the foundations. Two more paving slabs were lifted around the pier position and the bedding sand cleared away. Below the sand was the weed barrier, and this was then cut and folded back out of the way, revealing the packed hardcore below. This will take some effort to dig out. After that, it was time for the school run and my day was over! It does feel good though, to have finally made a start on the outdoor part of the build.

Feb 29th - The play house was jacked up on some scraps of wood to reduce friction on the ground. The first of the bitumen painted foundation planks was fitted across the patio, just in front of the play house, and then I was ready for the move. I fitted straps around the play house, and attached a ratchet winch to the straps and to a fence post, then started cranking away on the lever! Slowly the tension was increased until the house moved forwards, and at the same time, it was shoved to the right, close to the sleepers around the edge of the patio. The front edge of the play house was lined up with the decking plank, while the back of the house was lifted a bit higher. This allowed the fitting of the rear and centre decking planks that support the play house floor joists.

Feb 28th - The next step in the build was to clean the patio, prior to moving the play house. All around the front and sides was jet washed ( with a little help from my daughter ), leaving the patio flooded in about an inch of water. It drains well under normal heavy rain, but the sheer quantiy of water from the jet washer, flooded it to about 1 inch depth. Since the patio has been built, it has never flooded, even under very heavy rain, so I don't need to worry about the observatory flooding. Two paving slabs were lifted to help the water drain faster. Once the water was gone, the patio was swept of weeds and dirt left by the water.

A little more progress today. I pulled the nails from three planks and gave them a good scrub with a stiff scrubbing brush to get the loose paint and dirt off. From these, four of the foundation planks were cut which will form the footprint for the play house and observatory, to keep them up off the paving a little, allowing air to circulate underneath, and hopefully reduce damp. There were one or two 'shakes' along the grain, so they were painted with dilute waterproof PVA glue to seal these cracks first. After that, the edges and tops of these four planks had two coats of bitumen paint to seal them. Once dry tomorrow, the other sides can be done. The basic outline will be fastened down to the patio to give one rigid foundation for the playhouse and observatory to fasten to. This outline will then allow me to plot the best position for the pier, so that with the scope on, it will clear the side walls. With that done, I can start digging the pier foundation.

It took three days to get the roof of the play house Warm Room watertight. With the plywood fitted on Wednesday, and a 4 inch wide strip of fabric glued down over the joints, the main fabric layer was applied Thursday. The roof was painted in slightly dilute waterproof PVA and then the cotton sheets in 1 metre wide strips were spread and smoothed out over the lower parts of the roof to start with. They were then painted over with more slightly dilute PVA glue to seal and attach the fabric to the ply. Unfortunately I picked the coldest week to do the work, despite the Sun being out, but had decided it couldn't be left any longer without fixing. I had an electric convection heater inside, warming the roof, trying to speed the drying process, and by the end of the day, the whole roof was covered in fabric and glued, and was touch dry, if not fully cured. I swapped the convection heater for a 700W oil filled radiator which I left on all night, and covered the roof over with a large plasticised fabric tent ground sheet to keep the predicted frost away. All looked well the following morning, and as the Sun began to shine over the house roof into the back garden, I began to paint the roof with an exterior gloss grey paint. Due to the cold and slow cure time, I only got one coat on by the end of Friday, but it was enough to seal and fully waterproof the roof for Saturday which was forecast to chuck it down with heavy rain all day. This then turned to sleet and snow on Saturday night into Sunday, but it all just beaded up on the gloss paint and rolled off. The next warmish, dry day, I will give the roof at least one more coat of grey gloss. The design of the plastic windows is also letting some rain in, so I need to deal with that too, to keep my warm room dry. For now though, it is fairly waterproof, and will allow me to get started on cleaning up and preparing the decking planks, and fix those down to form the obsy/warm room footprint in the new location. That will give me my pier position so I can start digging a big hole!

Today didn't go as I had planned out the day. The play house ( which will be my observatory warm room ), has been leaking. I had planned to give the roof a coat of waterproof PVA to tide it over until spring, and then start pulling nails out of the decking and cleaning that up. As I looked at the playhouse more closely, it turned out the felt was splitting after five years, allowing water through to the chipboard roof. This had got wet and sagged, but was currently dry and still structurally ok; not mushy. I think the chipboard had been treated in some way. So I spent the day ripping off the felt, then buying some 1/2 inch exterior ply to fit over the existing roof. I gave the sheets several coats of waterproof PVA glue, before screwing it in place. I then added fabric tapes PVA'd over the joins in the roof panels to seal the joints. Tomorrow, the whole roof needs skinning in fabric, glued in place with more waterproof PVA, and painted over with exterior paint, a similar finish to that of the WW2 Mosquito fighter/bomber. I used the same technique on the Dodge truck wooden roof, and that seems to be pretty weather proof.

Today I had a hard morning of lifting and carrying! 23 off 5 metre decking planks collected from the yard where I keep my WW2 Dodge. Loaded onto the roof rack, driven home, and unloaded in through the lounge window to get a straight run through to the back garden. ( the garage is too full of Jeeps to get past through there! ). Almost all must be hardwood as they are very dense, hard and heavy; there's just a couple of what feels like softwood planks, that are much lighter in weight and can be used for internal structure in the observatory. Fortunately, the Jeep chassis on the patio is on the way out the door shortly, having found a buyer about a week ago. The next job will be to pull out all the hammered over nails, and give the planks a wash and scrub to get the algae, dirt and flaky paint off.

I went over to the storage/scrapyard where I keep my 1944 Dodge truck this morning to give it a run and turn the wheels as it hasn't been out since the start of December. While there, I checked out a big pile of reclaimed timber for the observatory build. There's a huge stack, some of which should be useable for the basic frame, but I'll have to go digging for it on a less windy day. I also spotted a pile of reclaimed garden decking. There's around twenty, 5 metre planks, which will do for my floor and floor joists, and probably roof runners. I also want to use it as a foundation over the patio, so I can screw the obsy and play house together onto one footing. There's a load of hammered over nails to pull out, but I can't complain at £10.00 for the twenty planks. It will clean and paint up fine.

Last bit of the adapter done this afternoon. Having worked out the minimum height the plate can be, while allowing me to tighten the central NEQ6 fixing bolt, I made the spacers to hold the plates apart. These are tubes of about 1 1/4 inches diameter, trimmed on my lathe, and they drop over the levelling plate bolts. Of course, being an EQ mount, there's no real need for levelling, just pointing at Polaris, so perhaps attaching plate would be more appropriate. The bolts clamp the attaching plate down onto these tubes, giving a nice wide and firm footprint to sit on, while leaving about 40mm of clearance for the central fixing bolt and some anti-theft measures which I won't go into on-line. After this picture, it was taken apart again and the parts painted. A few days ago, the postman brought a metre long plastic tube for my pier. This and the pier adapter were put out on the patio for a picture. Not an easy task given the wind around here over the last few days.

I'm sure 10mm will be fine once the plate is lowered to its proper height and they are 7 inches apart. The bolts have been left over long for now, but that's not their finished height. The studs are also not just tightned in with nuts, but welded. EDIT - Just been out and dropped it to its proper height and levered it with two bars and it doesn't budge! My Evo 80ED and OAG isn't a huge weight on it anyway.

My adapter is all done and painted now, painted satin black with paint left over from my Jeep restoration. It is all ready for the Spring when the hard work starts, digging out the pier foundations! The finished and assembled parts.

The top and bottom plates joined with the levelling bolts. I've left plenty of length on these for now, but will lower the plate as much as possible to reduce the chance of flexing. Almost done! There's a couple of little jobs left to do, and then the plates can be sand blasted and painted along with the adapter. They will then be ready for installation when it comes time for the pier. I've also ordered some 6 inch plastic pipe which will form the mould for the concrete pier, and will remain in place giving a nice smooth surface finish.

A little more work on the pier parts today. The top disc was drilled for the levelling bolts. The bottom disc had eight nuts welded to it, four for the levelling bolts and four for the fixing bolts that will hold it to the pier.

The garden is nice and neat now, but when we got the house, it was just a big slope of freshly dumped clay soil, 6 feet high to where my wife is standing. Once it was wet, it took forever to dry out. The original lawns stayed so wet and soft, they often couldn't be walked on, which is why we gave the garden a big makeover resulting in an ideal observing patio, just before I got back into astronomy! The wood planks mark out the future position of the workshop.

Here's a wider view of the fence and workshop. The fence is just to stop my daughter from making the 6 foot plunge off the patio, down to the path around the workshop!

Yes, it's my workshop there.

Before the afternoon school run, there was time for a quick assemble. Next job will be drilling both steel discs for the levelling studding, and also for the studding that will attach the lower disc to the concrete pier.

A little more progress this afternoon while glue was drying on a work project. The mount adapter was drilled for the M6 bolts that attach it to the levelling plate. The top side of each hole was then recessed for a 'T' nut. The 'T' nuts will be epoxied in place eventually. Next, the steel plate was drilled for the large central bolt, and the four fixing bolts. I've only got a hobby sized pillar drill, so to reduce the strain on the drill, the central hole was drilled to 6mm to start with, and then I worked up the drill sizes until the bolt fitted. The fixing bolt holes were then drilled and the bolts test fitted. Right side up. The central bolt will probably have a steel plate welded to the head, with a hole for a padlock to pass through. It can then be screwed into the mount and padlocked in place to prevent easy removal.

The resin adapter will be drilled for bolts to attach it to the top steel levelling plate on the pier. I'll countersink 'T' Nuts into the top of the adapter, and bolt up through the steel and resin. A long central bolt will go through the steel disc and resin, holding the mount in place. The steel discs arrived a few days ago, but I am yet to do anything with them, other than getting some additional hardware for linking them and attaching them to the pier.

A little more progress over the last couple of weeks. I didn't have any large chucks of aluminium to hand, and don't really like working in metal if I can help it. I did however, have some big blocks of dense modelling resin. It is fairly strong, it turns very well, and can be drilled and tapped. My lathe isn't huge, just being a small hobby type, and the centre height and jaw size can be limiting. I had to use my bandsaw to cut the resin blank into a disc a little over 5 inches in diameter in order to clear the lathe bed, and drill a hole in the centre for a bolt which could be used to secure the blank in the chuck jaws. Once this recess had been machined for the bottom of the NEQ6 mount, the blank was turned around and the jaws used to grip inside this hole. That allowed me to bore all the way through for the main fixing bolt. The polar alignment peg for the azimuth screws to push against, was made from a machine screw and a piece of square steel bar. They were aligned in the lathe chuck and tool post to hold them still while I zapped them with the welder.

Looking back through some old pictures of the garden build, I found a picture of the corner where the pier will be. The heavy clay soil area was a rockery, and has been in place since late 1999 when we first got the house and did the garden first time around. The green line around the wall shows the current hardcore height, with two inches of sand and patio slabs on top of that. The white line shows the pier location. From the current ground level down to the old lawn is about ten inches, so I've got quite a bit of digging before I get down to the old ground height. Much of the gap against the wall was back filled with gravel to aid drainage, with hardcore over the top, so I'll need to dig far enough to reach something solid. The postman also brought the first package with parts this morning, the eight roof wheels. These nylon wheels are rated at 35Kg each, so should have ample strength for the roof panels. If the roof panels get any heavier than 280Kg, I'll be in trouble opening it anyway!