Building the Dish - BenningtonCS/Telescope-2014 GitHub Wiki

We bolted together the central plates, trying to make sure they are parallel to each other.

Then we bolted on half of the dish arms which confirmed the accuracy of our central plate construction. This is as much of the dish as will fit out the door to the roof we will be mounting the dish on. The rest of the assembly happened on site.

Once the ribs are put together and the support rings are in place, we are ready to put on the outer band.

To do this, a hammer and tap were used to make dents in the end of the rib and the band

Then, using a power drill, holes were cut in both so they could be lined up and riveted.

This process of tapping, drilling, and riveting was repeated for each of the 12 ribs of the dish. Once complete, we were ready to start putting the mesh on.

Make sure all the ends of the support rings are together. We did not crimp them, since they seemed secure enough so that they would not fall out.

Cutting the mesh!

Below are some pictures that detail the mesh cutting process.

We used electric tape as a guide for cutting the mesh with tin snips.

After the Mesh was cut to specifications, it was laid out on the skeleton of the dish, to make sure there was enough material and it would come together properly

After we were sure that we had enough material all cut to the right size to allow for some extra, all the sheets were removed except for one. One end of the sheet was secured to a rib using tape, while the other end was trimmed down to be flush with the next rib

Then, the next sheet is placed on top of the end of the first sheet so they are overlapping, and a strip with pre-drilled holes (which came with the kit) were lined up on top of the rib, and holes were drilled through the rib at the places where the holes in the strip were

The strip, with the overlapping pieces of mesh underneath, was then riveted to the rib.

This process was repeated for all 12 sections of the dish until it was complete.

Then, the edges were trimmed, leaving about 1/4 to 1/2 inch mesh past the outer band (enough to wrap around the band a bit)

It was then wrapped around the band

And secured using zipties (~ 4 zipties per section * 12 sections = ~ 48 zipties)

A wild Chernoh appeared!