My brother-in-law Chris and I clad the walls with lapped boards bought from a shed manufacturer. They are screwed to the posts and have been painted with a few coats of dark brown timber treatment.. The walls are topped off with a ring of 18 mm plywood. This was cut with a router in eight sections.
The wooden block clamped on top of the pier provided the pivot for a radial arm on which the router
The steel pier is 250 mm diameter and just over 1 m high. The plates are 10 mm thick. I drew out the plans for this and had it cut and welded by local a steel fabricator. It is seen here in its red-oxide primer, but has now been finished in black gloss paint.
The pier height was chosen so that I could use either a refractor or a long-tubed Newtonian reflector with my G11 mount on a standard pier-top adapter. It is obviously a compromise between the two, but a fairly good one!
