I do like the heavy feel and stiffness of Astro-Physics stainless steel counterweight shafts. They are heavy but this reduces the amount of counterweights needed.

All was fine until I stared critical phase of preparing for one of my astrophotography expeditions and weighting the needed gear. The stock counterweight shaft is essentially a neat "dead weight", especially if one can count on counterweights available at destination or another inventive solutions (see my other pages).

At the same time, I have noticed on Astromart people selling their Mach-1 standard 1,125" counterweight shafts while upgrading to AP900/1200 compatible ones.

I got one of these shafts and with a help of a machinist friend, got manufactured a lightweigh "travel" counterweight shaft.

The mount end of the original shaft is used for the threads. A section of 30mm dia, 3mm wall thickness aluminum pipe is press fitted at this end and - just in case - secured with M6 bolt. On the other end, an aluminum plug is also press fitted into the pipe and additionally secured with few M4 machine bolts. An M8 hole is threaded in the plug and a matting safety knob is machined from aluminum and fitted with a section of brass rod. The 30mm pipe is turned down on a lathe to 28,55mm which is just slightly less than the original shaft.

The entire shaft now weights some 400g which is roughly 1/4 of the original weight, and still it is few cm longer to allow to balance the scope with less counterweight.

This shaft was tested on a couple of expeditions and proved to work perfectly, no major flexure or vibrations were experienced.