I have made the master pattern for my tube clamp rings and will begin laying-up the mold on Monday. It will take about a week to finish the mold, after which I will let it cure for another few days before separating the pattern and mold. A couple days of post-forming cure, and it will be prepped for production of the 4 assemblies I need for the scope. Each half-circle ring piece will then need the hinge knuckles relieved and 2 holes drilled, one on each end. See 2 new photos on my Gallery page, numbers 44 & 45: http://www.utahastronomy.com/Chuck?page=5 Clicking on the photos will give you an enlargement and expanded descriptions. This is the same cradle design as my smaller "Woodshop" scopes, but scaled-up. See the photos of Roger's 8", and my 6". Besides balance and ergonomics, another advantage of a tube cradle like this is mount interchangability. I will have this telescope on a Dob-style mount this year, and hope to have it on a true equatorial by next year. The cradle gives me a lot of flexibility in declination/altitude bearing design. Comments welcome, as always. ____________________________________________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta. http://new.mail.yahoo.com