Parallelogram - hears one I made earlier.

[ToxoLight]

With my intention of getting a pair of big bino’s in the not too distant future, (Helios 25x100 are top of the list) a mount is a must have and believing in ‘why buy if you can DIY’ and with plenty of recyclable material at hand I decided to build one myself, so for the encouragement of anyone considering such a project hear is a quick overview and a couple of pic’s.

My projects tend to ‘evolve’ more than conform to a plan and the planning of this build was a couple of sketches on an A4 piece of paper after a few visits to web sites to view other peoples builds. To arrive at the most important dimension on the mount, the length of the vertical support arms, I used the ratio of not less than 25% of the main beam pivot point distances,these are 30%, the only other criteria being my belief of mass equalling stability.

The materials I used were Mahogany (recycled from my living room fireplace rebuild) a small amount of Oak, a bit of 6mm laser ply for strategic reinforcement on the bino support arm, 5mm and 3mm M/S flat strip for the steelwork.

The Azimuth bearing is PTFE and the top 5mm surface layer of an ‘Encore’ kitchen work surface, (reconstituted marble) all other friction pads are also PTFE. I bushed all the load bearing pivot bolt holes to reduce unwanted friction and used domed head coach bolts so they don’t rotate during use.

Test run with my 10x50:- This proved much better than I expected, the Azimuth bearing rotated as smooth as silk and the operation of the other friction pads was extremely smooth with no sticking or jerking at all.

There was some vibration at the end of an Azimuth move, dying away in 2 or 3 seconds, this I discovered is due to a small amount of play in the tripod leg hinge points and the angle of the legs not being wide enough for adequate mass transfer. (a mod already underway)

Other than these two small issues the mount was rock steady and great to use, retaining the viewed object centrally in the field of view over the full travel of the mount.

Without balance weights or bino’s the mount is easy to carry in one piece.

I was most impressed with the improvement in viewing the mount gave over hand held viewing and the time spent in making the mount is a very good investment for my future viewing.

I have a few detailed pic’s of parts and partial build and will post if anyone is interested.

Clear skies all

Tox.

[ampleamp]

Hi Tox, that looks excellent, you should rightly be very pleased with yourself

[WaveSoarer]

Tox,

That's a wonderful piece of engineering. It really looks the part too.

Dave

[JamesF]

That looks very neat.

James

[Chris]

Nice skills with the woodwork looks very nicely put together indeed:) making one of these is definately on my list of things to do:D

[JamesM]

Congratulations on a very tidy job!

James

[Scott]

very nice

[ToxoLight]

Hi Guy's

Thanks.

Trypod modded and seems much stiffer, second test run as soon as those grey things in the sky drift away.