A local contractor made this wedge for me for about half the price of one from Meade. He gave me a means of course adjustment in altitude but hopefully that will not be needed as he told me he had set it as near as he could to 28° and what I need is 28° 6'. Fine adjustment in both altitude and azimuth will be done by tilting the whole plate.
The assembly is in two parts. The lower part consists of a plate with threaded bolts sticking up and this part will be bedded into the concrete pillar and metal lugs come out of the bottom to secure it. The upper part carries the wedge itself, and the lower plate has oversized holes for the threaded bolts. Pairs of nuts on these bolts enable the slope in both directions to be adjusted and locked in place. (If I was having another one made I would get longer bolts fitted. The amount of adjustment without removing lower nuts will be very small, so adjustment may be more tiresome than it might have been. We will see....)
1st July 2009
And here it is mounted on its pillar. I have painted most of it. I don't know if this was strictly necessary as the contractor had put some sort of coating on it (he told me what it was but I forget; it looks like zinc) but this had scratched off very easily and the plate in the concrete had corroded somewhat during its period in the open*, so I decided that that part, at least, needed a clean and some paint. Then there were parts that I would not be able to reach when the telescope is mounted, so I painted those too and eventually did all of it except the sides where the coarse-adjustment screws are, just in case I have to adjust them.
20th October 2009
* I kept it covered most of the time, but I think a bird managed to bomb it whilst it was uncovered.