Hi Rolando,

I too was a bit confused, but let that slip. Now I am really confused.
I understand your method and the explanation is clear, but I don't get the "initial conditions".

Was the main OTA (with finder on top), already perfectly orthogonal to the mount, or is the finder physically attached to the AP-3200 mount, and therefore requires its own alignment? Even with the latter, adjusting the mount Alt-Az knobs for the finder, ruins the OTA derived mount alignment.
Saying:
*
******
The advantage of using the 8x50 finder was that i could quickly adjust it via
the thumbscrews to be perfectly orthogonal to the mount (unlike the Big Mak
which was off about 15 arc minutes).
******

... implies that this was an "initial installation", and the finder and OTA were not yet aligned to each other.
I would have started by aligning the finder to the OTA using an "illuminated cross hair eyepiece", until these two were parallel, and then go through your procedure to make the OTA/finder orthogonal with the mount, and then also polar aligned.

The way I read this, you are making the (OTA attached) finder orthogonal to the mount, and once completed, you then need to repeat for the main OTA - which now misaligns the finder.

The only way this explanation would seem right to me - is if you had said that the OTA was already previously orthogonal to the mount, and the procedure was merely to do the same for the finder.
But that is a harder way to do that than using a cross hair eyepiece in the first place. The only saving is the purchase of that special eyepiece, which I assume most of us already own.

Thanks for a further clarification.
Joe