[HBR] Chassis kits

[Martin Marris]

I buy aluminum sheet from Online Metals. They will cut it to size for you.

I have also bought perforated steel (for speaker grilles) from McMaster
Carr.

Harbor Freight sells metal brakes for bending, starting with an 18" model
for $40. I don't have one and haven't yet tried bending my own metal but if
you want relatively heavy-gauge chassis that is one way to go. The other
method of course is to join the sheets together with angle brackets -- I
have done this, but so far only for cabinets, not chassis. I've never
learned how to weld, so I join them together with screws and bolts, and
countersink the screws. It's a lot of work but fun, and extremely rigid.

Another trick is just to use a conventional Bud or Hammond chassis, and
strengthen it by bolting a flat aluminum sheet to the top, in effect
doubling the thickness. You can also bolt one chassis on top of the other,
upside-down, so that the two "top sheets" are clamped together. That trick
is used in one of the ARRL VFO projects from the 1960s -- I think they used
a steel chassis on the bottom and an aluminum one on top.

Coming back to the subject of chassis kits, like the ones available from LMB
Heeger. I agree that they are rather pricey. They do however have the
advantage that it you mess up, or if you later change your mind and alter
the design, you can usually just alter one part of the chassis (if necessary
replacing that part altogether with a new one: Heeger sells them "by the
piece," you don't have to buy a whole kit) without having to redo
everything.

Martin, KB1WSY