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New Observatory build in Gosport


The storm fisherman

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A big HELLO 

To  followers of this build not much done last couple of weeks waiting for concrete to fully set and i was working last weekend at least i am on a weeks delayed holiday this week. I am still limited to what i can do, as i have a stuck kidney stone, but at least i am not in much pain at the moment. Anyway on today's work i cleaned  the outside of the pier and  trial mounted the telescope mount plates all ok had to re-drill one hole, removed the wood shuttering from the concrete block and 1/2 back filled hole around the concrete block. 

Tomorrows jobs finish filling hole, move the wood down to build site, lay weed fabric and start laying slabs and cement down.

 

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After quick shopping trip downtown i was rearing to go by 10:30 am and completed my jobs list for today. Filled hole around block and tamped down the earth packed down nice and solid, moved wood and shed to site area, laid weed fabric and then filled up flush  level to the top of the concrete block., this level will be my working level for the deck . I still have some more shingle to lay so that i can level the site and lay the paving slabs for the deck footings. 4:30 pm and Rain stopped play.

Here are the photos of  today's work

 

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All looking very neat Paul.

Can I ask why you chose to make a wooden form for the base, rather than just filling the hole with concrete?  Did you remove the form at the end or leave it in place?  Either way, wouldn't this leave a gap between base and surrounding soil which may increase the risk of movement? Even if you back-filled with soil, the surrounding ground wouldn't be as solid as pouring concrete straight into the hole.  With the mass of concrete you've used, I'm sure your base is really solid, I'm curious as to why you took this approach.

cheers

Kev

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Hi Kev 

The first sentence says it all, I am Electronics engineer by trade and a Aerospace one at that so i have been trained to do a job right the first time and i am bit Ocd. The wood form is for neatness and knowing how much material  to use, i removed the form afterwards. As for movement  this method is well used by radio hams to erect a 45 ft lattice mast's for an amateur radio hf aerial, and as i have  sandy soil i am not relying on the soil to be solid and not to move  but i tamped down the surrounding soil that i have put back to make it as solid as possible to leave nothing to chance. The depth is due to find solid earth but if you got firm soil you can probably get away with 1/2 the depth. the way to look at it is a sail boat with a tall mast needs a longer or broader keel to oppose the force being exerted on the top of the mast to stop the sail boat capsizing. i hope i have managed to answer some of the queries.

 

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i had a sense of groundhog day today as i was shovelling shingle from front to back of the house same day last holiday and the rain arrived at he same time as yesterday weird.  Anyway today I add the extra shingle and just levelled out before the rain came, started cut the wood for the deck frame and cross rafters i am going for an 8 in high deck to leave a 2 in gap between side boards and the surrounding ground to stop larger animals namely badgers  getting up under the deck. due to various appointments i will not get a lot done tomorrow. update and pictures Thursday. 

 

 

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2 hours ago, The storm fisherman said:

Hi Kev 

The first sentence says it all, I am Electronics engineer by trade and a Aerospace one at that so i have been trained to do a job right the first time and i am bit Ocd. The wood form is for neatness and knowing how much material  to use, i removed the form afterwards. As for movement  this method is well used by radio hams to erect a 45 ft lattice mast's for an amateur radio hf aerial, and as i have  sandy soil i am not relying on the soil to be solid and not to move  but i tamped down the surrounding soil that i have put back to make it as solid as possible to leave nothing to chance. The depth is due to find solid earth but if you got firm soil you can probably get away with 1/2 the depth. the way to look at it is a sail boat with a tall mast needs a longer or broader keel to oppose the force being exerted on the top of the mast to stop the sail boat capsizing. i hope i have managed to answer some of the queries.

 

Thanks Paul.  Yes, I'd considered that depth is probably more important than width to help give more lateral stability.

I'm currently trying to decide what dimensions to make my pier support. My tendency is to over-engineer most DIY projects (a good thing to a degree) so hopefully my support will be OK when I finally decide these, but reckon you only get one chance to get it right. If I get it wrong, any remedial action to correct a poor decision could be tricky!

My current plan is to use a 1.5m tube (280mm diameter) filled with concrete. This is a bit wider than yours, so wonder whether this will need more support in the base. Ahh, decisions, decisions....

As an engineer, is there any formulaic way of calculating these things???

Keep up the good work; I'm enjoying your build.

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Hi Kev and mike

 

Kev i decided on block size more by experience than any formula i normally go by "if it work's way change it",  but have seen most bottom block sizes around 500 mm square or twice the size diameter of the pier in your case a block size of 560 mm square and may be slim it down a bit to 500 mm and go with a bit more depth possibly 600 or 650 as a longer depth means any vibration has more earth to move hence the analogy of the sail boat. Even at that size you will be looking at a 1/2 metric tonne of concrete and that alone will take some really big hitting to make the pier vibrate, but the best thing you can do is put plenty of re-bar in the concrete and drive a 1/3rd of the re-bar in the under laying soil even more earth to shift  especially the pier give plenty of sideways strength. The concrete mix i used was 4:1= 4 lots of ballast to 1 of cement and enough water to hold shape on the spade or constancy of a fruit cake mix or porridge.

Hi Mike

yes i will be, i had plenty of time to plan it and this is design No:2 after gaining the conservatory as a workshop/warm room, i had a redesign and changed it from a roll off roof to a deck and roll off shed design as i did not require the warm room at the pier end.  As in the previous post i am stickler for detail and getting it right my farther was the same he was machine shop engineer working for a company called  Johnstone road sweepers who actually manufactured them in Dorking surrey. Mind you it took me 40 years to get to that point but and i am still learning, but on the minus side my DIY skills are still somewhat lacking. One of my many Astro jobs and projects for a cloudy wet weekend  is to service the mount and do the Rowan belt mod which will be right my street. My next outdoor enhancement to the observatory is to put a stone compass rose with a path to it, in the middle where all the rubble is at the moment so that i can use that for visual observing while the main setup is taking the astro photos on the pier. 

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Well today turned out to be different to what was planed. 2 appointments got  changed to a later date, so had time to get one job done today. i finished cutting the joist and frame and painted some end grain treatment to the cut ends of the planks. and started to level out the shingle ready for laying the slabs tomorrow and as a bonus here is the photos from today . picture 1 my wood cutting station picture 2 all the deck joist cut ready for treatment and picture 3 all the cut ends treated.

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Bit of a late start due to un-forcasted rain and a very leg aching day this is due to me unable to kneel down as i have to bend at the hips to get to the ground to do any work because of this the lactic acid builds up in leg muscles so i can only work short periods of time  then give it a rest . Anyway back to today's jobs laid all of the paving slabs and levelled out not a easy job as you have to work in various axis added more shingle to bring it up to the paving slab level and started cutting the wood for the shed mobile base frame. Here are photos for to today.

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End of another weeks holiday definetly a lot more tougher this time around, but the at least the sub frame  for the deck is now complete am going to pause the build on the deck here until the under carriage for the shed is complete as i can do this at waist level so giving  my back and legs a chance to recuperate as i will need it before i can lay the deck as i need to know where ally channel is going to go the i can screw down the decking . Here is today's picture

 

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Took a day off yesterday no work done on the observatory and only a couple hours today as i went to Littlehampton to collect a skywatcher max 90 muskatov-cass and tripod.

So this afternoon i cut all the wood for the roll off shed under carriage and then treated all cut ends to a couple of coats of end preserver ready for construction next weekend. Also next weekend i will put the legs on the decking and paint the pier.

Here is today's picture

 

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Today can be summed up as wet and dry, The showers where not too frequent but when we had them they were very heavy downpours which stopped all work outside until they passed with the wind being horizontal no chance of sheltering under the gazebo to keep in the dry. On today's jobs, I cut all the legs for the deck and cut the Damp course membrane to go under the feet placed the feet ready for screwing in place tomorrow Put the deck on spacers and checked for level all ok . placed the wood for the shed under carriage ready to screw a together if time i will try and lay out the deck and ally u channel to see how it spaces out . That's all for now pictures tomorrows update.

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weather today was very good sunny with passing clouds very pleasant in the sun but could fill the chill in the air in the shade. put the legs on the decking got brother to stand on one end so that i could put wedges at other end to give the desired 1:80 slope to help with water run off, that  took most of the day. Once that was finished i laid out the deck boards and ally u channel to see how it all fitted together, And to get my spacing between the deck boards. Glad to say i have no bounce in the deck at all only from the lose boards at the moment , and enough deck boards to go round the outside twice. A had some time to spare but not much so I laid out the under carriage for the shed, but I have made a error and two the support beams is too long by 100 mm, i.e. I forgot about the cross beam I am going to change it a bit to include the beam to fix the castors to. So on to the pictures for today in the last one i was losing the light fast .  I need some help  to make a decision leave the pier white or spray it matt black? 

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16 hours ago, JohnC64 said:

coming on in leaps and bounds. It looks very nice and well made

John 

thanks John , yes now the spade work part is over the rest is starting to come together rather nicely but not without odd problem from time to time like yesterday with the shed caster sub frame.:icon_scratch: 

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No pictures this week too dark when i finished, Also not very much progress this weekend due too not anticipating screw sizes, I also changed my mind on the deck screws and also the wood not being anywhere near the size it should be. This slowed me up no end and with anything and everything was fighting me even down to the last deck screw hole which I broke 2 drill bits in the countersink bit for that last deck screw before i could finish this evening. I lost a hour today just trying to get the right spacer size to space out the decking with. I worked out that it should be around 6-7 mm i was getting no where, As it was lunch i mulled over the problem and then had that eureka moment. I checked my supply of coax cables as being a radio amateur as well i knew that sat coax was about the right size, But i had none the right size but i had a couple of spare scart leads that was just the right diameter. i chopped them up to about 30  x 50 mm lengths  and went and spaced out the decking and that was just the right size, Thank god now it "all hands on deck"  so to speak to get that decking down .

      At least i got 10 of the 16 deck boards screwed down and the ally u channel for the casters screwed down. The weather again was good this weekend only 1 shower about 7.30 pm Saturday evening,  I had no showers down here today another sunny day but the warmth during the day is not high now although still warm enough with just a tee shirt on. I thought i was going to get wet at one time today i could see a shower coming but it just missed me so no soaking. I just hope this weather last for another 4-5 weeks enough time to get the observatory up and sealed against this coming winter .

i have managed to grab a quick photo this evening after i came home from work.

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Late start today partly due to the weather and out shopping stocking up on the expensive essentials by buying bulk at the local cash and carry . So on to today's work 60% of the under carriage done and had an inspiration on how to put the casters on so that they are straight and in the centre of the ally channel . Basically i can measure and mark out where the caster have to go and using a pillar drill to make sure the holes are straight and true. Then i will then put on the casters and mount the whole assembly in to the under carriage so that it sits in the ally channel and runs true , Then i can then screw the whole assembly down and  turn it over and mount the other castors that just run on ally strip on the deck. I have some spare decking and will add a second board below the first side board to close the gap up and then some large stone around the outside to stop animals getting under the deck and not stop the air. Here are today's pictures.

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Good evening all

There was a taste of winter in the air this weekend it was a bit cold on the fingers in the morning with strong gusty easterly wind but that didn't stop me. Anyway on to this weekends work the observatory under carriage is now complete what i thought was an easy quick job turned out to be not so. Although I paid particular attention the ally channel is not straight and needs to be moved a few mm one way to keep casters free moving. talking of casters i be adding a couple more to front ends of pier slot to give the under carriage some support  as it is a bit bouncy .  I will also be adding some ally right angle around the edge to protect the deck. I think today's pictures  will explain it better so here they are. 

 

 

   

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Hi All

Bonus 1/2 day yesterday having to pack up 3 pm today I have done quite a bit for me. i have fitted the extra casters and screwed down then ally strip. Put ally angle around the edge and screwed down just some gaps to fill around the edge still waiting for some more ally. cut out the slot and  framed out the floor and painted the floor and framing in wood preserver. made up my trap door for the pier and added some parliament hinges  and all fits nice and not too snug will putting a tight fitting plywood collar around the pier  to keep the air and any beasties out, now on to today's pictures.

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Hello All

What a contrast in weather from yesterday from dank and very gloomy to bright warm autumn sunshine but with the days getting shorter and clocks going back i could've easily worked another couple of hours today.  On to today's jobs, it was a bit of a tidy up day today, I sorted out the that pile of wood under the tarp masquerading as a shed. Started to paint wood preserver on the main panels, as the floor has already had 2 coats of preserver yesterday as per tin and the shed manufacturers instructions, Begun framing out the observatory walls, put the second row of decking around the side of the deck and then put down some more pea shingle to bring it up level to the surrounding garden and path edge, At least i shouldn't get any animals under the deck now and it really smartens the deck up along with the missing ally right angles still to be fitted for the corners. And then to finish the inevitable tool and parts tidy up. Here is todays picture.

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