Morning and Happy New Year to everyone.
I'm attempting to make some No11- 19 Radio mounts which have quite a few pressings and hole recesses but! I just started with a couple of 16mm thick plates and squared them up to the same size which just makes them easy to line up. Marked exactly where the side pressings are and milled out the unwanted material to a depth of 3mm then repeated the opposite side with a match.

I gave both pieces a clean up with a flap disc in my 5" grinder and file then did a test piece and it did turn out really nice. I just need to cut my pieces to shape and nd then make some more parts possibly today.
Colin. :)

Nice work Colin. Best wishes for 2016.

Nice work Colin. That press is getting a good work out of recent.......

All the best for the new year mate.

Thankyou Michael and yes Jack is has been getting a bit of use. As soon as this machine is done I'll get on to that project for you :thup2:

Being Sunday I managed some good shed time :giveup so I cut enough ends for 6 mounts (12 Plates) gave them a sand blast and got them ready for pressing. I tried my vertical press first but it struggled realy hard so I had to use my cropper which is a 160ton machine and had no trouble getting the plates totally flat and they pressed out very nice.

I got all the corners rounded and the 90deg bends done and now working on the doubler plates. These certainly are fairly tricky components to make.

Nice looking results Colin. What is the material thickness of the mount plates?

Thankyou Wayne and the thickness is 16G. I wasn't going to put any pics up tonight as I haven't done a lot but I just thought I'd share one way of riveting 2 pieces of material together without buying premade rivets which can be expensive for what they are and the hassle of getting the correct dia and length. I have used a piece of mild steel rod, in this case it is 1/4" cut at the width of material plus about the dia. I drilled the appropriate hole dia and in this case I used my hole punch as a press but you can easily use a standard old garage press. I normally have a shallow hole underneath so when you press the top you can turn it over and have a bit of meat left to flatten that down as well and it works a treat. You could use any old weld mesh, Racking mesh old bolts or even heavy fencing wire for small jobs and flatten with a hammer.
Anyway for what it was worth it was my 2 bobs worth.
Colin.

I just thought I would add a couple of pics of the top brackets I made that bolt on top of the radio set. Also I made a new clutch lever as I only had standart truck ones. In this case I cut the bottom part off that has the tapered pin and just made a new top for it as it is considerably longer and a larger pin at the top. That's all ready to go back in :thup:

I'm now up to making the channels for the mount and I can't believe how complicated they made these things. I'm sure they could have done it a lot simpler but anyway that's what it is.
I'm trying to cut as much on the flat then fold as possible and there is some doubler plates that are spot welded as well. I'm so glad I have my old 1943 spot welder.

There is so many different channels some on the outside and then ones that fit on the inside, not to mention the amount of holes with countersink points as well. Some things may not make a lot of sense but I'm just showing some of my methods of construction and fabrication.

I should have done a few more pics but what I did was make a hole jig out of 16mm thick plate and milled it to fit inside the channels. I marked the plate as accurate as I could where the holes go and drilled a 3.5mm hole at those points. I used thick plate so I could drill buy hand and the thickness kept the drill bit vertical. With so many to do it was much quicker to do by hand rather than the drill press.
I also made a countersink tool to fit my cropper.

After fitting the tooling to my cropper I set the depth to the exact countersink I wanted so it was automatic otherwise they wouldn't be uniform and they turned out Ok. I'll have to do other types as there are some that have a flat section on the base. I probably shouldn't have tackled this as it is a lot more than I realized.

Mine was also made in Australia but doesn't have the pressings in the side panels. There was a discussion on here somewhere which I can't remember fully now. But the conclusion was that there were differences between the UK, Oz and Canadian variants which indicated that some didn't have that pressing.

It would certainly make life easier for someone like yourself Colin without that feature. Great job :thup2: Ron

Ron, that would make it a lot easier without the pressings. I notice that there is also a difference in the amount of notches that are not in the bracket that is bolted on top of your set or perhaps that particular part might be a repro.
It does make you wonder why there had to be so many variants of anything when the goal was the same at the end. It just seemed to create work that wasn't really necessary.
After considerable time thinking how and what I could use to rivet the end parts on, I ended up using bullet head nails cut down and pressed into place and they did work very well and have the same appearance and does the same job as the original. I guess I'm about half way now.

Yes indeed Colin, my whole frame is repro and made by a countryman of yours although I don't know him as it was all arranged years ago by another forum member.

I can see the missing notches you refer to, and I guess he just cut some corners to keep the price within reason. Ron

I have just made the earth straps and there is 4 for each unit. I have cut some 1/2" copper pipe and used that as the ferrule on the ends and that gave me about 3/4" as per the original once flattened.

It can be a bit tricky drilling a large "ish" hole in thin copper without distorting it so the best way I have found is to drill multiple pieces in between two pieces of angle or flat plate that is bolted together. You do end up with nice clean holes and the copper has nil distortion. Job done :thup:

As always - great job!

Nice, Thanks for the tech tip.

Colin, What is the source of your roll of braided copper (make and description)
Once again, very nicely done! :salute:

Thankyou all, and Lynn sorry I can't help you there as it was one of those things to buy at an auction for next to nothing then start looking when you get home only to find you have a roll of braided wire. In fact I bought a floor polisher and that was just part of it for a grand total of $28AU :) :thup2:
Colin

Hi Colin.

The copper looks quite dull but clean now, did you blast them? Are you going to tin the ends now? If do, can you share that process too? Thanks for sharing re the drilling of holes, that is a great way!

Lynn, this might help.
Tubular, tinned copper braid is all over ebay, you just need to use the right search terms (and avoid the wrong ones!).

Copper braid got me 3870 listings! Too many. I saw most were bracelets and 1 cent coins.

But then: copper braid -cent -wrist -bracelet got me 450 listings.
(note the minus or - in front of a word deletes it from a search which is very handy in removing the unwanted things once you see them clogging up a search)
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1m-3-3ft-6mm...cAAOSwMmBV0wrJ

http://www.ebay.com/itm/bgb07-1m-3-3...EAAOSwv0tVVMfs

Ive also used tinned braid, earth strap, copper strap other similar words which all yield different (or the same!) results.


Cheers,
Ian.

Ian, I did blast the ends after I finished the earth straps and I probably won't tin them but if I do I'll post some pics.
I found a source of mounts but they are in 300mm lengths and I'm sure they think they are gold plated. I guess there's not much call for these. Anyway so be it and they were blank lengths and too wide so I carefully cut them to strips and then trimmed each side. Very awkward in the bandsaw as the rubber bends and distorts so I had to put strategic packers with each cut as I had no spares left after cutting. (24 required)
A top hole, 2 slot holes then a sand blast and another part completed.
Colin

Hello Colin, Do you mind sharing where you got them as I need to make a set for my carrier radio as well. Again love seeing your talents displayed :thup:

It's a Mackay brand mount isn't it Colin? An Australian company.
They are available in 150mm and 300mm lengths and I think two densities?
Go on the Mackay rubber web site and have a look.

Repros on EBay
 

Hi Colin

I have seen repros of these shock mounts on EBay shortly after Xmas at $45 US for 4 of them and they did not sell..... I wondered why??

Can you share the price from your Australian source??

Cheers

PS relisted at same price.....http://www.ebay.com/itm/221994988535...%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

Hi All, yes they are from Mackay rubber .com and I bought 2 x 300mm lengths of the lighter ones and they cost me just under $300AU which I thought was right up there but looking at what Bob linked to Ebay they're about the same. That equates them to about $15AU each. I did consider making some after seeing Richards Arial bases but this was much quicker and they are the same as the originals.
Hope this helps.
Colin. :)