The AM Forum

There is definitely no heat buildup with this construction style.

Looks pretty cool for small projects!

I remember seeing that article many years ago.  I'm wondering what would motivate the use of hardware cloth / screen for a chassis?  Seems like you might as well use a breadboard or even cake pans.  You could even bend your own chassis from sheet metal salvaged from furnace pipe or similar material.  It seems that the author was really concerned about using tools to construct a "real" chassis.  As for the bending...a simple bending jig made from boards clamped in a vice works fine for thin sheet metal.  I guess the hardware cloth would be cheap anyway.  Can't say much for the appearance, but as you said...provides good ventilation.

We used to be able to buy aluminum "cane metal" sheets at the hardware store for real reasonable price.  Also aluminum or galvanized sheet metal sheets used to be pretty cheap and made great stock for panels and chassis boxes.  A lot of that stuff has really gone up in price and down in availability.  I always look for chassis boxes and rack panels, etc. at hamfests.  Never know if you might need them for projects.

I have seen home brew projects built in all sorts of housings...from cigar boxes to refrigerators...depending on the size of the project.  I guess innovation takes all sorts of routes and ya gotta use what you got sometimes to git r done.

73,  Jack, W9GT

Ah, hardware cloth.   Then there is the joy of looking like you lost a fight with with an alley cat!

Second only to a fight with expanded metal mesh! It's like razor wire in sheet form.

Expanded metal mesh would probably not be bad for making a chassis, but ouch!  I have found the stuff that has holes stamped in it to resemble a wicker basket pretty easy to work with.  Also the stuff with round holes drilled in a lattice pattern.  Not a bad idea for ventilation where there are power resistors beneath the chassis.

This would be a good idea fpr prototyping. No holes to drill and cheaper too. Then when the layout and operation is OK, transfer directly to aloonium.

Neat Idea. you could whip up an experimental chassis with a pair of side cutters in a few minutes. 

the local Home Despot stocks some sheet metal, cane metal aluminum included.  Any sheet large enough to be really usefull is too thin to be sturdy, if I recal we are talking .020 or so thick sheets for anything over 12x12.   :(    Too flimsy for even a front panel, let alone a chassis.

The mom & pop hardware store they forced out of business had a good selection of sheetmetal, fittings, etc.  You could have built ANYTHING from their stock.   Alas...  all that's left are memories, and cheap chinese crap in HD orange.