Vega Sky Center

North Star Tripod - Construction Overview - Pan-Head in the Raw

Once the Pan-Head template was created, I used it to trace four identical pieces onto a section of ľ” inch cabinet-grade birch plywood. To accommodate Gary’s CG-5 mount, I cut out a center of one of the layers. This layer will be the top of the Pan-Head. After doing a dry fit of all the layers, I began gluing them together using Polyurethane adhesive.

(NOTE: When joining porous surfaces with Polyurethane adhesives, it is required that you moisten the surfaces to be glued with water before applying.)

In the image above, we have the multi-layer Pan-Head along with one of the three clamps used to hold the four layers together. Upon closer inspection of the Pan-Head (click image above to enlarge), you can see a bit of excess Polyurethane glue, which oozed from between the layers. When the stuff is exposed to the air during the drying process, it foams up. Moistening of porous surfaces reduces this effect. The excess Polyurethane adhesive will be removed and the sides of the Pan-Head smoothed using a drill press fitted with a 60-grit drum sander cylinder. Then, the entire Pan-Head along with the rest of the tripod wood components will be sanded smooth using an orbital sander with a 220-grit sanding disk.