Saturday night was first light for the scope.
A few things became apparent as the evening progressed.
This is not a scope for beginners.
The field of view is somewhat narrow meaning objects pass through the field rather faster than expected.
Being a manual telescope the slow motion controls are very important.
The clutch on the azimuth control is very good but the altitude left a bit to be desired as it slipped no matter how tight I screwed up the adjuster so I replaced the two plastic plates with aluminium.
This is most of the parts involved. The top plastic disk is replaced with the aluminium next to it and sits in the gear wheel, its then sandwiched between that disk and the bottom disk.
Then the tabbed stainless washer is slid on.
Then the assembly is squeezed up with the brass nut and fancy cast pressure plate with all its inclusions.
Now it works, slack and the scope can be manually moved, tighten with the brass nut and the slo-mo control works.