Al,
Are you the one who has the website that describes how to modify/improve the GP mounts? I saw such a site about a year ago but lost the bookmark. It was interesting and made a lot of sense. I guess you could say I'm one of the old timers that was brought up "bigger is better" as far as mounts are concerned. My mount had 2" cold rolled solid steel shafts and an 8" worm drive. I at one time had an 8" f/5 and an 8" f/8 both mounted to the mount. Talk about counterweights!!! With the advent of stepper motors, computer interfaces, an ccd auto guiders with automatic pec, I'm assuming a lot of the deficiencies of smaller, lighter weight mounts can be overcome.
BTW, I'm waiting to hear that your aluminizing set-up for enhanced coatings is ready to go. My 12.5" is waiting!!
Walt whamler@gdi.net