DESIGN CHANGE....
I Hate ugly designs, which is what I created. Aside from the fact that the antenna performed exceedingly well (DX contacts into Belgium (2) and Ireland, and domestic contacts into FL, MI, AZ & TN yesterday on 5 watts), it's basically an ugly, open to the weather, ugly design. Plus, the antenna wire was THHN, and a real bitch to try to roll up.
Sooooo, I stopped at the surplus place and bought 100' of 20ga with with a more supple insulation coating that rolled up nicely. Wire problem solved. Then it was back to the bench where I wound a new 4:1 balun, and manipulated the wires to fit inside of 1/2" PVC pipe with 6-32 x 1/2" screws to attach the antenna wires to. Nice clean design that is easy on the eyes, and provides a weathertite, protective housing for the balun and feedline connections. Both end caps were filled with silicone to seal the eyebolt and coax holes before sealing the caps to the pipe.
I took it outside and ran it up into a tree at 30', and made a few local contacts to confirm the connections were all solid and there were no shorts. Now I'm a happy camper with a better looking balun/center support unit.
Here is the balun before soldering on the feedline and packing it all in the pipe...
Here is the test setup to check out the balun with the MFJ-259B antenna analyzer, using a 200 ohm resistor to simulate the antenna impedance...
And the redesigned product...