I wanted to build a wedge for my telescope's tripod. Why? So I can angle my scope at my latitude (45.4) degrees towards the north and the star Polaris. The reasons for this I will explain in another post time permitting. So I went out to Simmons & Cie Acier and bought a 10 inch wide 3/8th of an inch thick 6 foot long plate of aluminium.
1. This is the first cut I made by hand using a hack saw. It took so long to cut a straight cut across 10 inches of 3/8th inch aluminium that I quickly sought other means to cut the 3 other main cuts I needed to make. At galt there is a vocational education section where they teach machining amongst other things. So I brought my aluminium pieces to work all mesured and ready to cut and cut the pieces using plasma. With great patients I drilled all the holes at home with a small hand drill using 4-6 drill bits of increasing size to make the 3/8th, 5/16th and 1/4 inch holes that I requited. I also bought a tap and die set to thread the holes.
2. There are already some 5/16 inch holes in the mount, very carefully mesesuring and using a protractor to drill the holes at the correct locations was a challenge. After drilling and threading the holes in the base of the wedge I tested the fit.
3. I used a protractor to line up some holes to make slots on the 2 side panels. It took a lot of effort using a round bastard file to file through each hole to create the slots.
4. Drilling the holes for the first slot. You can also see I attached the side plate to the base using 1/4 inch bolts.
5. The slot after it has been filed. This will allow the angle to be adjustable.
6. Both sides attached.
7. What I call the angle plate. the telescope attaches to this. There are 3/8 inch threaded holes already in the base of the telescope's mounting so these holes are not threaded, just slightly larger than the 3/8th inch bolts. I slotted the hole at the top so I can attach one bolt to the telescope first to add some security when I am placing the scope on the wedge.
8. Test fit number 2. I also cleaned up the aluminium with some fine sand paper.
9. One of the professeurs at the machine shop was nice enough to donate some knobs that seem to come from some drafting tables. He really liked my project.
10. I added a fine tuning bolt to adjust the angle.
11. with the knobs on and the telescope mounted.
12. I had made some thumb screws seen in yellow above out of plastic juice caps filled with 2 part epoxy and topped off with a washer.