Shim for Helios Apollo 15x70's restricted surface area tripod bush, with larger / heavy duty Paragon Plus L adapter

[chops]

Dear all

I wonder if anyone else can suggest what they use to mate up their Apollo 15x70, or any other binos, with a wider L adapter when access to the tripod bush on the bino is smaller or slightly obscured by, for example, rubber armour.

Obviously I can just shim it with washers or a nut but, as you can see in the attached image, the heavy duty L adapter, supplied with the Orion Paragon Plus parallelogram mount, has a detachable face and there must be a more elegant solution than this?

The images show the tripod bush on the Apollo, with the Paragon's heavy duty L adapter and detachable face (via 3 grub screws) which is obviously too large to fit over the bush, without fouling the rubber armour. Also shown is the smaller L adapter, supplied with the Apollos, which has a smaller face. Unfortunately, I can't just swap this smaller l adapter with the heavy duty, without needing to drill or tap the base.

Close up of bush & face:

I described it with more pictures in the post linked below.. I keep using the Opticrons as they mate on the paragon in stock config, which is less hassle ... But it's a good excuse to test them further

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/114120-what-binoculars-do-you-own/?p=2501309

[chops]

This attached photo may be more self-explanatory.

Obviously it's easy to add a shim with washers, but it's neither elegant not as simple, or solid, as it could be...

[mce]

I have the same problem with my Oberwerks. What you could do is unscrew the 2 hex bolts and remove the Paragon adapter. Then find an adapter that actually fits the bins properly and connect it to the block with some kind of plate. In my case, I have used a Manfrotto quick release camera plate. It is held on by just one of the hex bolts and a washer, but is solid as a rock.

[chops]

Fantastic, thanks MCE, great to see what your solution is.

[BinocularSky]

Not as elegant as MCE's: my Virgo (which is the precursor of the Paragon) came with a really rubbish adaptor, so I just fitted an L-bracket I already had, using the original bolt through one of the holes in the adaptor's foot and, becuse the oles didn't line up, a thumbscrew through the other that bears directly onto the mounting block and prevents any rotational movement. I can photograph it if you like, but I think MCE's solution is probably a lot more versatile.

[chops]

Thanks Steve and MCE.

I decided to cut down the L bracket's plate, which is detachable.

The advantage of this is that it has a rubber washer built in to mate the surfaces; the disadvantage is that the shape of the cut needs to accommodate the IPD of anyone using the bino, but it works fine:

By the way Steve: when I used two L adapters, the apollos were further forward (too far to use) and balanced better on the parallelogram. I tried mounting the L bracket back to front , to bring the binos forward a little, but it made only very minor improvement, so it's mounted the normal way around and yes, still needs a bit of tension on the paragon's arm knobs to balance it. ... Wasn't a problem with the Opticrons, which are wrapped up now anyway.