when you cross an LX-10 and an LX-3

So after tossing around the idea of making an GEM from my LX-10 mount (all credit for that idea goes to Keith Lawson - see his posts about his active cooled C9 in the 'pics of me + my scope' forum), I have finally begun construction on it. My only concern was about making the Dec axis strong enough to support the equipment I needed it to. In comes the old LX-3 mount. I figure if its strong enough to hold a 10" Schmidt Newt on forks, mount and all, it should be strong enough to handle this. I took the RA axis of the mount and am currently in the process of turning it into the Dec axis of this new mount. Well, so far, it is working like a charm, the only problem is that I am having trouble figuring how to create a counterweight setup for it, since the shaft is only long enough to reach from the scope to the drive gear--I can't just slide the weights onto it - and I can't couple onto the end because there isn't enough thread. I understand that this is probably very hard to understand without seeing, so as soon as I can borrow a digital camera (something on my list I didn't get ) I will show everyone what I am talking about. I have a few far fetched ideas that might work, but I'm not sure yet. Thanks for listening!

ER

If anyone is interested, I'll keep them posted with progress on this project. I actually just finished up getting the proper gear reduction so I can use the larger RA gear with the Meade Dec motor. I used an old fried 1/8 rpm motor gear box and did some tweaking and rearranging of the gears to get about the right gear ratio so I don't go zooming across the sky when trying to center an object...now the only problems left to overcome are that darned counterweight problem, building part where the scope actually mounts, and obtaining a wedge for this puppy when it's all complete (or building one). The rest is all just hacking, drilling, and tapping. Wish me luck!

ER