The Meade corporation has broken a cardinal rule of machine design as far as their (my) LXD75 mount goes.

The rule is this:

Screws should be made of a softer material than that into which the threads for said screw have been tapped.

Why? Beacause if anything gets stripped, it is the easily-replaceable screw, NOT the body of the device.

What am I talking about?

The LXD75 mount is cast from rather soft aluminum (or something too soft...). The "secondary lock knob", on the other hand, is made of a much harder metal. The result is that the threads in the mount are stripping-out rather than the screw threads.

I will now learn how to tap threads.

I need to drill-out and tap some larger threads into the mount, then replace the secondary lock knob w/ a larger, matching SOFTER screw.

Am I the only one out here finding new ways to break things?