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Allen bolts for fixing down the pier adapters arrived today, so this evening I got on with fitting those to the tops of the piers and putting the mounts back in place. There’s probably no reason why I couldn’t go for an initial alignment on the next clear night now, assuming I can find a 12V supply for them.

The floor tiles didn’t arrive today however, so once again I hoovered the floor and then finished up my first tin of varnish giving the floor that I sealed last night a second coat. Hopefully the tiles will arrive tomorrow and I can start laying them.

Nothing too exciting today. I swept the observatory floor, then hoovered, then hoovered again, and then worked barefoot to get about 80% of the scope room floor sealed with a coat of varnish this evening. It actually went very quickly. I was planning on doing the rest of the scope room and the warm room tomorrow, but I’m half-tempted to give what I’ve done a second coat instead, then lay the tiles for about half the floor (assuming they arrive by Saturday) and seal the rest after that’s done. Whilst more complicated it would allow me to move more stuff out of the house sooner. I’ll see what I think of the first coat tomorrow morning. I might even be able to sneak out during the day and get some done if work goes well.

In other news, carpet tiles for the warm room have arrived, as has a second, used EQ6 pier adapter that happened to come up for sale earlier this week. Seemed too good an opportunity to miss, that. So I didn’t 🙂

I also have some stainless M8 Allen bolts (with washers and nyloc nuts) on order for fixing the pier adapters to the top of the piers and a couple of fixings for the posts to support the ends of the roof rails. I still need the posts, but at least I can out sort out the bases.

Like yesterday, not a huge amount of progress today — spent much of the day mowing grass and visiting some of my bees at a local farm.

I did however manage to get the final piece of cladding onto the last pier (woohoo!), completed the scope room cupboard and had a sweep up. Probably need to get the vacuum cleaner in to get rid of the last of the dust.

So, now I can order the flooring. I can’t decide whether it’s worth sealing the ply with a coat of varnish before I lay the floor tiles. I don’t think it should slow things down much (if at all) as even if I order the tiles tonight I don’t think I’ll be in a position to fit them until the weekend. Need to have a quick scan through my list of things to do to make sure there’s nothing else I absolutely must do before the floor goes down, too.

Didn’t get much done today as I had other things to be doing, but had an hour or so this afternoon that allowed me to get the cladding on three sides of the last pier. I’ll be very pleased if I can finish it off tomorrow. I still have to drill holes in the tops for the pier adaptors, but I don’t think that should be as messy.

Another three day weekend, so soon! Just like buses…

As the poet said, “the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley” and despite good intentions I’ve achieved very little on the observatory this week. Work has been sufficiently stressful that were it not for having bills to pay and suchlike I might well have decided to throw in the towel and get a job as a postman. Or as a swim teacher. Hints are regularly dropped by the teachers and staff at the pool where I swim and this week it has started to look very tempting.

Anyhow, I decided this morning to sort out the warm room lighting. Perhaps it was just as well I’d left it until the weekend given my previous comments. A certain amount of calm was required as the right-angle joins are not the simplest of things to get to work. They snap open and closed and have four raised contacts inside that are supposed to fit against the contacts on the ends of the LED strips where they have been cut, but they’re actually quite awkward to get seated correctly. Initially I made up the full run of LEDs and tested them to find that only the first strip worked. From there it was actually easier to work with the strips “live” so I could see when I had the strips positioned in the joining pieces correctly and snap them closed with a pair of pliers whilst holding everything in position with the other hand.

I also discovered that the joining pieces don’t sit far enough back in the aluminium section to allow the diffuser strip to go over the top of them which was a bit disappointing, but I guess I can live with that.

Once the lights were working I trimmed down the ply for cladding t?he second pier. I used a dustbin bag to cover up the NEQ6 that I already have in place whilst working to stop any dust getting on it. The process actually seemed to go much more quickly today than last time, and for a change I didn’t kill any drill bits. I ran out of time on the last side (the one with the access hole to get to the bolt that secures the mount), but nipped out again after dinner and fitted it whilst waiting for the chickens to decide it was bedtime.

So, one more pier to go and I think that should be all the really messy work done. I do plan to paint the pier cladding, but I think I might leave that for now as I can always lift the tiles around the piers to paint later, and instead think about flooring and finishing the storage so I can properly start on moving kit from the house.

The other thing I have at the back of my mind at the moment are the additional pier adapters that I need. I think I have some round aluminium bar that is big enough to make one for the HEQ5, but it is quite tempting to sidestep the problem and look at using a brake disc.