My friend and neighbor Mel is going to help me make my first Dob. He’s a retired tool-and-die guy, and knows how metal works. I’ve been studying David Kriege and Richard Berry’s excellent book on the topic, The Dobsonian Telescope. Per their recommendations, we are beginning with the mirror cell, and between the odds and ends Mel has in his shop and a few items ordered from a surprisingly local metal shop, we may be about to begin. Mel has cutters and welders, drills and taps and all manner of metal working tools, and the expertise born of 50 odd years of doing it. If, between Mel’s place and my place, we can find a flat surface large enough to get stuff laid out. Both of us seem to have problems with too-much-stuff.
Mel at least has found a way of organizing the myriad of wired dinguses we all seem to accumulate.