It’s always nice to work with a friend. C_ is in town for the weekend, and came out to help me get the truss poles cut to length.

As an aside, always remember that the proper way to set up for the Dremel saw is to make a fence for it; it makes life a lot easier.

It took several iterations of clamping stop blocks down in various ways before we got it settled, but once the jig was in place, the cut proceeded quickly, and with a high level of accuracy — all in a day’s work here at Ad Astra Observatory.

It was getting dark as we were setting up, so I didn’t get a chance to deburr the poles after cutting, but they are *exactly* the same length, which is always a good thing.

The end of this build is so close, I can taste it.

Deburr, reconstruct the truss, and then I’m ready to install!

I’ve decided that I’m going to use the middle ring (which is of 1/2″ ply) as the lower ring of the UTA (it’s ever-so-slightly lighter weight than the 3/4″one), and move the 3/4″ ring to the middle. It’ll mean a little more fidgety work, getting the mount plate reinstalled, but in the long run, I feel like it’s the right thing to do.

So, uninstall the old pole seats, uninstall the middle ring, remount the new middle ring, drill the clamp holes in the new pole seats, install the new pole seats… Nope, that’s it. At that point, it’s recollimate and roll.

I may decide that moving the rings around is too much stress, which will knock a few items off the to-do list. And of course, once I’ve determined that the build is solid, I’ll re-cut the MDF pieces from a nice piece of 3/4″ ply. It remains to be seen whether I get super-excited and re-cut *everything* out of 3/4″ ply… that’s for the next iteration, I think.

The punch list looks long, but it shouldn’t take a lot of time. I might be back up and running in an evening or two, or one good, long weekend afternoon.

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