I decided that drilling a 13+ mm hole through the 10mm thickness of the lower pier plate would be just too much work, so I took the over-long threaded bar I mentioned in my last post to the local hardware store to see if I could find the diameter and tap of the thread used on the bar. As I mentioned previously, this bar is used to bolt the EQ6 mount to its tripod and at its lower end, to affix the eyepiece tray. It’s just too long to use on my pier setup and I had to come up with an alternative.

My local hardware store is not one of the big outlets where everything is pre-packaged in nice little plastic bags and where you pay through the nose for what you want. No, this hardware store is choc-a-bloc with cubby holes. No matter how esoteric an item I’ve looked for, this shop has always had it. Big stores only carry popular items.

What I wanted to do was see if I could find a nut that would thread onto the bar. Big shops don’t like you tearing their little plastic baggies open to test the contents. No such problems here. I was waved down to Nuts & Bolts section to find what I was looking for. It didn’t take long. An M12 nut fit the bar.

Naturally, the shop also stocked M12 threaded bars so I bought one, a couple of nuts and washers for pocket change.

Measuring the clearance between the upper and lower plates on my pier and adding the recess depth of the hole in the mount head that takes the threaded bar told me how much I needed to cut off the threaded bar I bought. A hacksaw and some judicious elbow grease gave me the length I needed.

I unthreaded the knurled knob from the bottom half of the EQ6 threaded bar and threaded it onto my cutoff piece. A washer and nut threaded from the opposite end secured the knob in place. another nut and washer were added as a stop to prevent my threaded bar from going too deep into the mount head.

So here’s a picture of my Heath Robinson bolt to fasten the EQ6 mount to my pier:

Works a treat!

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