De-fork a Meade 8" SCT

Hello,
I'm in the process of dovetail mounting an old 8" Meade SCT. From what I understood, there would be 3 screws on each fork bracket to remove. I have discovered that there is 1 on each side that has a nut on the inside of the OTA. I got it off the fork easily but still want to remove these side brackets from the tube because they are ugly and add a bit of weight.

What would be the quickest, safest method for removal? Should I remove the corrector plate and reach down or remove the rear cell completely?

Also, I'm a bit torn as to whos dovetail to purchase. Has anyone done this mod to an old LX6? If so, which setup did you purchase?

Any ideas appreciated.

Ron,

I did this to an orange tube C8 once. I wasn't quite sure about using radius blocks so I bought a pair of cheap orion rings and fastened then to a dovetail plate. A 8" SCT on a GEM is a nice set-up...very versatile.

Ron Domenici said:

Hello,
I'm in the process of dovetail mounting an old 8" Meade SCT. From what I understood, there would be 3 screws on each fork bracket to remove. I have discovered that there is 1 on each side that has a nut on the inside of the OTA. I got it off the fork easily but still want to remove these side brackets from the tube because they are ugly and add a bit of weight.

What would be the quickest, safest method for removal? Should I remove the corrector plate and reach down or remove the rear cell completely?

Also, I'm a bit torn as to whos dovetail to purchase. Has anyone done this mod to an old LX6? If so, which setup did you purchase?

Any ideas appreciated.

Yep. Remove the corrector. Leave everything else alone. Me? I used the Vixen compatible dovetail from Scopestuff.com

Deforking an SCT--almost sounds obscene. 8)