[DonRotolo]

Building on what minisimon and Cory have written, the side plates should touch in the middle (that is, fully enclosing the holding screws) and lock together, and then your tensioner would pull on that. Instead of machining the side plates out of huge chunks of aluminum, make a tube through which the holding screws would run, that are let into the side plates about half of the thickness. Maybe even make it a non-circular (outside) tube to allow the tensioner easy attachment and increase side load capacity.

Screws are great in tension, but less so in bending because the thread roots are huge stress concentrators. Also, imagine the screw does get bent - as squirrel wrote, how would you get it out?

If that doesn't make sense, PM me.

Very nice design! I think I'll be stealing it during build season!

Don