Thanks for the warm note and complement.? Bearings are a science but I thought of the technique and wanted to share it.? I should have indicated 7 microns is at the lower end of what I can reasonably measure, I am quite sure the declination shaft uneven diameter was in excess of this, but less than 0.0006 as a shaft "high point".? The 4,000 silicon carbide with a bit of WD-40 works great.? I also used 3000 then 4000 to polish the face of the thrust bearings, using a new sheet taped to granite surface plate for improving the condition of the received bearing surface into a "polished flat mirror".? Total material removed from the race face was ~0.0003+/-.? Overall, over the years multiple elements of the mount had been receiving successive upgrades by the prior owner, it does have a "precision" ground worm, and a "black anodized" worm gears, revolving around a brass sleeve into which the roller bearing was tightly inserted.? It is interesting that the right ascension axis has a shaft that measures about 0.0021 to 0.0299 less in diameter.? It revolves good and has no detectable play, but I am holding final judgement when I mount my home-brew 5" refractor and run the magnification up to several hundred to assess if any excess shaft to bearing play exists on this axis.? If this exists, another set of solutions will be needed, but that is another story...? I am impressed with the overall design and machining of the entire package.?? I have added some small 0.010 and 0.030 brass washers to fit onto the 6-32 screws to help optimize the precise mounting of drive reduction gear hardware to obtain a precise offset for two new oldham couplers.? Also, upon arrival one of the rear plastic cases of one of the gear drives was loose so after considering the options, I drilled out the remaining 2 metal rivets and drilled and tapped using three 3-48 screws to secure the plastic case to the aluminum base plate with a spot of 5 minute epoxy on the screw heads to prevent them from getting loose. Big next steps include completing integration of adapter for mounting /aligning optical center of the scope to mount, and becoming fluent in operating the Gemini version 3.? Thanks again for your response.
