This was just a very simple and basic project for me to come up with a floor cover for the pier which allows the floor to move without affecting the spacing to the pier but still nicely covering up the gap between the two.
As the floor should not be in contact with the pier to avoid any vibrations being transferred from the floor to the pier, to the mount and to the image I needed to find an elegant solution to cover up the gap between the floor and the pier.
With the first observatory I used several types of rubber bands normally used for isolation purposes to cover up the gap.
This however got dirty over time and because of the expansion and contraction of the wooden floor the rubbers got pushed out of the spacing. I was not happy with this solution and I wanted to do it differently with the new observatory.
As I have a router in my tool collection I decided to make a plywoord circle, cut this out with the router to the exact outer dimensions of the pier and paint it in the same color as the pier. I had some scrap plywood lying around (around 7 to 9 mm thick) which I used to make the wooden circle, this job was quickly done using the router.
The only thing that needs some additional attention is making sure the circle is attached to a second spare piece of wood lying underneath so the circle cannot move when cutting is finished, thus running the risk of damaging the finished (loose) circle with a router still running.
After sanding and painting the wooden circle is put over the pier and lies flat on the floor.
It is however not attached or fixed to the floor in any way allowing the wooden floor to expand and contract underneath.
The only thing to take into consideration are the exact inner and outer dimensions of the wooden ring, fixing the circle when being cut and inserting the ring over the pier before installing the mount.