Astrokev

Haha. Thanks!

Bit of a mixed day today. Busy doing other things this morning (but can't remember what exactly). Eventually made it outside mid afternoon. The plan was to paint the barge boards and then fix a length of EPDM along the inside face of the rolling roof north side. The hope is that this will form an effective barrier to stop wind blowing under the roof and into the scope room when the ROR is closed. So, painting the barge boards went to plan (only the inside face, I'll paint the outer faces once they're up). Then I rolled back the roof to get access to the north side so I could attach some EPDM. This is when things went off-piste, and I was greeted with a loud crunch and the roof came to an abrupt halt. Inspection soon revealed the problem. The guttering I'd installed a few days ago was sticking out too far at both ends (see picture a couple of posts above). The wrap-around sides of the roof clearly didn't like this! Why I didn't test this after installing the guttering escapes me - what's that phrase about measuring twice and cutting once? With hindsight it was blindingly obvious. Fortunately, no great damage was done, but it took me the rest of the daylight hours to remove, modify the re-attach the guttering. This time I tested it and can report that the roof rolls back all the way without problem. Phew. By this time it was too dark to play with the EPDM so that was the end of the observatory build for today. So, instead of a nice pic of the new wind seal on the roof, here's another pic of some paint drying...

I know how that feels - Great!

Cut the barge boards but then started raining so packed up again. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

As hoped, after doing some unexpected proof-reading of some of my daughters uni essays and the like (which needed to be handed in by 2PM today!), although brain-dead I managed to get the last of the guttering and down-pipes fitted. Hooray, another tick off the never ending list! Next job is to cut and fit barge boards on the east and west edges of the ROR. Hopefully over the weekend if the weather holds up.

A not very exciting photo of more gutter brackets (just to show that I did do something today!), drying on the dining table after giving them a coat of paint just now. Tomorrow, I'll attach these to the north edge of the warm room roof and put up the last length of guttering

Yes I think roof flexure would certainly help. Accuracy when working with timber is difficult to preserve since it's such a dynamic material, subject to change with time.

In theory maybe. In practice there are probably only 2 or 3 per side actually in contact with the rail.

Wow, you turn your back for a minute and your thread gets swamped with replies and feedback! During my design phase I did briefly consider putting the wheels on the bottom but ruled this out - can't remember exactly why. Thinking about it again, I still prefer the wheels on top approach (not just because that's what I ended up doing). Apart from the cleaning and water ingress issues, the rail on the top would have to "engage" with each new wheel it encounters as it's rolled off. Probably not a major challenge but maybe a small risk of the rail not mating with the wheel correctly which potentially could be problematic. I cant remember seeing any builds using this approach on the forum, which may tell us something. Agree with other comments though that there are many ways of building a ROR. There's no right or wrong; minor design variations to combat the various risks usually mean the end result is a success. It's also fantastic to see people use different approaches.

? Interesting idea

That's not including minor landscape work to tidy things up - chipping, a path to the door, a stone step.... (but they don't count ?). I'm sure to have forgotten something though! Oh, and digging a trench for electrics. Actually, it seems I've got loads to do still ?

Strange bright thing in the sky today. Googled it and it turns out it was the sun. Well there's a thing. Finished off the guttering on the south side of the ROR. As many folks have done, I made-up a hopper attached to the main structure, with a down-pipe flowing into this from the ROR. The clearance between the downpipe and hopper is about 1mm. Haven't tried it out yet to make sure it doesn't overflow, but hopefully will work OK. Also reinstated the short guttering and cladding pieces around the rails on the north side of the ROR. The sealant I used to finish off the "dams" was butyl rubber guttering sealant which is as sticky as heck, but has made a good job of sealing the dams. I also went round other exposed edges on the rails where the EPDM ends and sealed the edges inside the obsy. EDIT - Forgot - I also put clear sealant along the top edges of the drip bars above and below the door. Before packing up, I went out to my second home and bought guttering for the north side of the warm room - the last edge I need to install guttering on. I also still need to put up barge boards, which will be the last outside job on the building.

Not much work done today - other routine chores took priority. That said, I did manage to get the ROR guttering up.... and then took it down again so I could take the brackets off for painting. These are looking pretty on my dining table at the moment! I realised this afternoon that the single downpipe I bought isn't quite long enough, which is annoying. I'll have to get another one tomorrow to finish the job.

Look forward to seeing that project James! ? The more recent EQ6 models have improved altitude adjustment as far as I recall.

That adapter looks really smart. A question though - the clearance between the south altitude knob and the adapter looks very small. Will this make it difficult to adjust? That said, the quality of the bolts looks far superior to those on the Skywatcher EQ6 that I have. The altitude bolts on mine are absolutely hopeless. I've bought the "upgraded" bolts but these are not much better . In fact they're so bad that I may consider upgrading my mount at some point. Pleased you have power now up and running. This is something I wish I'd done early on in my build. As it is I think I'll be running off an extension cable for quite a while yet.

I was lucky in getting the EPDM glued down in the last decent warmish spell before the rot set in. Having said that, today has been quite mild. Hopefully this will continue so you can finish the rubber work soonest. I love the brewery by the way

Looking great James. Good luck for tomorrow.

Well, I thought I had a completely clear day today, with plans for lots of observatory action. But... I'm taking my daughter back to Cornwall tomorrow, so really needed to plan a bit for that. Being on the other side of the planet it always seems to be a bit of an expedition. And then I thought I really ought to put the Christmas decorations away. So, that took me most of the morning. All in all I finally got out in the garden at 2PM ?. I hate working in fading light. Anyway, I put sealant on the water barrier/dam things, and then started to make brackets for some more guttering. No pics taken, mainly because there was nothing worth taking pics of, but work will resume on Monday now. Still a few exterior jobs to finish but getting closer to being able to spend all my time inside ?

Bloomin' freezing this afternoon, but braved the elements in the short time I had available to make another "dam" on the east rail. Just need to give both dams a coat of sealant to make sure they're water tight. Weather and real-life permitting, hoping to get some more guttering up tomorrow. Well that's the plan anyway.

So I'm finding !

Don't know how I missed your last few posts. You've made some great progress and it's looking excellent. The vertical cladding is not something you see very often and looks good. Your comment about water tracking back along the rails was interesting. Sounds similar to the problem I've had. It's a fundamental flaw with the ROR design, although there are ways of combatting it, as you describe. I've made small "dams" , to use your terminology, using EPDM which will serve the same function as your silicon sealant, although I haven't tested them out in anger yet.

Yes I hope so. In my case I think the problem was exacerbated by the rain running off the rolling roof directly into the channel. A back of the envelope calc suggests this was more than doubling the amount of water in the channel, with most of it being dumped exactly where I don't need it - ie, right next to the transition from the outside into the scope room. The guttering has sorted that one out. The only water that will now be in the channel is that which directly falls into it from the heavens, and it will be evenly distributed all the way along the channel. On the assumption that the channel is fairly level (or at least doesn't have an end to end slope of more than ~10mm), then any pooled water should run out of the north end of the channel before it overflows my mini-dam. Well, that's the theory! If I'm feeling brave, I may test it with a hosepipe or watering can.

Should've made better use of the decent weather today, but for some reason just couldn't get into gear. Rather than fit the guttering I bought yesterday, I thought I ought to try and work on making a small water barrier on the rail beam while it was dry, to try and stop water running along the beam under the ROR and into the scope room. Here's a rubbish close-up of what I came up with. Having considered a few different approaches, I ended up using contact adhesive to stick a stack of EPDM layers onto the beam between the rail and the warm room roof, to form a barrier about 10mm high. I couldn't make it any higher otherwise it would foul the wheel. I then glued another piece on the outer face of the stack. This looks a bit messy in the picture, but it's formed a solid block of rubber which I think should be effective. Although the adhesive has formed a good seal, I'll also add exterior silicone sealant to make sure this is fully water tight once I've made a similar barrier on the other rail. The barrier sits just behind the cladding, which is removed in the pic to give me access, and won't be visible once the cladding is reinstated. Even without the cladding it was really fiddly to get under the beam which holds the roof wheels. I really wish I'd considered this before I built the ROR when it would have been easy to make and fit a much better arrangement! Anyway, one side nearly done and I'm pretty confident this will do the trick, in addition to the guttering above the rail. I'm also considering adding a short section of brush on the outside of the cladding to sweep the rail and rail beam every time the ROR is opened. With the pine trees in next door's garden I get loads of needles on the roof, and this will help keep the track clear, as well as reduce wind blowing needles under the ROR.

what a convenient coincidence ?

No work on the observatory today, but did buy a load more plastic ware for the south side of the ROR. Blimey, can't believe how how much it costs when you add up all the little bits ?. All being well, I'll be back out there tomorrow ?.