Now I’ve been “machining” aluminum in my wood shop for years. Mostly small parts, brackets and the such so I’m somewhat comfortable doing this. Not so much that I don’t take every precaution to avoid injury or damage to my tools.
After a stop at our local machine shop to buy some aluminum stock to make a custom dovetail adapter I set up my tablesaw with guides, anti-kickback devices and chip deflection. The stock that was available to me was a 3/4 thick by 2-1/2 wide bar. I bought a 24″ length to make two dovetails for various setup options. I set the blade tilt to 15 degs and put a bevel on the outside edge of the bar.
First cut complete. Feed rate is a comfortable 6-7 seconds per inch. The cut is reasonably smooth. A steady feed rate helps eliminate gouges caused by the saw blade being in one place too long.
Nest I set up for the second cut which will be close to finish width and be at 15 deg. I have the chip guard up for clarity on the one photo. Again, plenty of clamps, guides and attention to personal safety. The block of paraffin wax is to ease some of the metal on metal friction against the table and fence. I should also mention I wore leather gloves, hearing and eye protection for this procedure. No sense in being completely stupid about it.
And the finished cut. Yup..it’s a dovetail. You can see the saw scoring marks in this cut but not to worry I have a way to clean that up.
Oh my gosh!! Is that a jointer? Why yes it is and what a fine job it does on aluminum. About 30 passes at a depth of cut that barely shaved anything off I was able to remove the worst of the rough saw cuts. Aluminum tends to chatter and roll in this process so a final hand polishing will be needed to finish this up. Because I sharpen my own jointer knives I don’t have an issue with this dulling them. Actually, there’s less wear and tear working aluminum than when I was making cribbage boards out of manzanita and iron wood.
Next step…cut to length and drill mounting holes.
Okay, drilled and tapped, cut to length and polished up a little and it’s ready to go. The D-Style mounting system is bolted on and ready to receive a telescope.
This is my simple answer to mounting a D-Series or Style telescope system to a Vixen Style EQ mount like my little CG-5. It’s strong and long enough to allow it to slide back and forth to aid the balancing process. Now I just need a couple of clear nights to get set up and start imaging.