Where Have All the HomeBrewers Gone?

[The Slab Bacon]

I remember visiting a ham in MO about 20 years ago.  I was impressed by the neat job he had done with his homebrew rig, especially the nice heavy gauge aluminium front and side panels, the way they were all stamped out in neat perfect rectangles.  When I  looked inside the back of the transmitter, I could see that all the panels had strange lettering (for a transmitter) painted on them:  "Speed Limit 55", "No Parking", "Do Not Pass", "S.R. (number)", etc.

they also used to be great for patching rotted out floor pans in old cars and trucks 

[KB2WIG]

I think the long rectangular ones, are best for floor pans. Easy to bend.   They have the arrow and One Way  ( so you know which end to 'break' ) printed on the reverse side.


klc

[w1vtp]

              "ALUMINUM ANGLE IRON"    ? ? ?

That's similar to "8 pin Octal."  I have lots of them.  At ESS, a local surplus store in Manchester NH, they have 11 pin Octals

Al

[W9GT]

(data dump)

Probably more accurately referred to as 8 pin "octal-style" plugs and sockets.  Made by Amphenol...they made 9 and 11 pin, and even up to 20 pin versions of these connectors.  Primarily described as octal-style for the phenolic center pin with indexing ridge similar to that on the octal series of vacuum tubes.  The 9 pin versions were used as accessory connectors on Johnson transmitters.  The matching 9 pin plugs are somewhat hard to find.

There ya go...even more than you even wanted to know.

73,  Jack, W9GT

[steve_qix]

I was pretty much unable to do any metal work at all, except for drilling a few holes, until very recently.  So, over my 38 years of being a ham, and homebrewing the whole time, I used old previously-built equipment for my "foundations" when building a rig.

This continued with the transition to class E - I used the chassis, cabinetry, etc. from my previous tube rigs to build the class E rigs.  Only VERY recently did I actually build, from scratch, a cabinet for one of my class E rigs.  This cabinet consisted of angle aluminum, and sheet aluminum screwed together with sheet metal screws.  I got the front panel at a local ham flea market.

I have also used numerous old TV chassis and old radio chassis as foundations for transmitters, but that was a long, long time ago      I worked at the dump back then, so the supply was very plentiful (and everything was still tubes, so one could get lots of good parts out of an old TV or radio).

Regards,

Steve

[Opcom]

I've home brewed a few things. A screen grid voltage regulator using a thyratron, another one using transistors inside a bridge rectifier in series with a transformer primary (blew alot of them up too), a dual 813 amplifier and power supply, two 3-1000Z amplifiers, a dual 6146 amplifier, a few audio amps, and some test gear that is otherwise unavailable or too costly. It used to be about saving money or making somethig that isn't sold, but now it is for the pleasure.

Mostly I like to find really old HB wrecks and restore/rework them to correct performance. This activity is pleasant because I get a feel for what the OM was thinking when he built it. Sometimes I wonder "what the heck was that guy thinking!" If someone made it, and it's become decrepit, there is alot of fun to putting it back together, especially with no schematic. That's the best part, the challenge of understanding what someone else did and what their design philosophy and problems were, without ever having the advantage of meeting them.

And then there is always the smell of old electronics. If I could bottle that..

[N3DRB The Derb]

Mostly I like to find really old HB wrecks and restore/rework them to correct performance.

yep. rescuing old homebrew is teh greatest evar. 

[steve_qix]

Mostly I like to find really old HB wrecks and restore/rework them to correct performance.

yep. rescuing old homebrew is teh greatest evar. 

Well, maybe     In my experience, most [amateur] equipment is designed (and often implemented) wrong to start with.  I figure - use the previously built equipment as a base, but fix all of the design and implementation problems, and end up with something that really works well (and sounds good) 

Regards,

Steve

[W3RSW]

Opcom...

Great pix.

... an 807 on Extenzee...(tm)
-all five dimensions, er..was that "senses". 

[Opcom]

Thank you.. I almost put two spray nozzles on the oil cap spray can.. Should I? Those are the thoughts at 3:30 AM.

It could be an ad in the "Stogies, Skirts, and Shortwave" radio magazine.

[WB2YGF]

Where's the battery powered push pull vibrator supply? 

[Opcom]

I guess it got covered up by the ad copy. I enhanced it since and improved the container/capacitor.

Ok so now we have a cover and an advertisement. We could compete with QST with content like this. Hams would say to the XYL,"I only read it for teh technical articles.."

I'm sure some of the odd stories here would make good articles to match the cover. - then have it put on cafepress.com as a special issue. I'm willing to work on it. People would have to consent.. You could do the article on the battery powered push pull vibrator supply. (well you thought of it!)

[W3RSW]

..and you have my permission to 'push' a well known enhancement product in a full- pager. 

Oh and I think the hair and cosmetic products people will be good advert prospects.

e.g., "For that extra emission and heavy scrot,"

"Shine your tube with GoJo,
   Push the envelope today,
"Place your trust in GoJo
   Wash your worries away."

[w1vtp]

<snip>....
This continued with the transition to class E - I used the chassis, cabinetry, etc. from my previous tube rigs to build the class E rigs.  Only VERY recently did I actually build, from scratch, a cabinet for one of my class E rigs.  This cabinet consisted of angle aluminum, and sheet aluminum screwed together with sheet metal screws.  I got the front panel at a local ham flea market.<snip>

Steve (and others) -- this is how I did it on my first 813 rig.  I used key stock with cane metal.  The key stock was drilled and tapped for the screws holding the panels.  Where can one find cane metal panels these days?  Yes, the chassis was made from recycled stuff.

Al

[steve_qix]

Al,

I found cane metel (or something very close to it) at Home Depot.  I think it's used for a radiator cover or something like that.  I found it in sheets about 3 x 3 (feet).  The price was reasonable.

They also have plain aluminum.

It is not of heavy gauge.

Regards,

Steve

[K9ACT]

So why is sheet metal with patterned holes called "cane metal"?

js

[KX5JT]

So that's cane metal! The perforated holy stuff.  I tried a google search on "cane metal" can kept coming up with somekind of magic trick.

[WA9UDW]

No matter how carefully I mark the spot for a screw hole and make sure the tip of the dinging punch is precisely placed at the central point, even if I use a magnifying glass and start off with a tiny pilot drill, I can expect at least one finished hole to still be off by about half the diameter of the hole, and I have to take a small rat-tail file to elongate the hole so that it ends up shaped like a toilet hole.

I mark an x and y axis to define the center of the desired hole, and to use as references while drilling. After drilling a carefully positioned 1/16" pilot hole, I finish the job with a step drill bit, working toward the finished diameter. If I notice that the hole is drifting with reference to the two axes, application of side pressure to the bit usually corrects the error before reaching the final hole diameter.

http://www.northerntool.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/NTESearch?storeId=6970&N=0&Ntk=All&Ntt=stepdrill&Nty=1&D=stepdrill&Ntx=modematchallpartial&Dx=modematchallpartial

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=91616

Terry

[Ed/KB1HYS]

the pilot hole is the trick.  If a 1/16th hole is off half a diamerter, it's only a 1/32 error in position.  The pilot hole makes a much better guide for larger drills than a punch mark, though a good punch mark is FB for a small bit like 1/16th. Drillling holes slightly oversized can help you "cheat" the last screw in position with out filing metal sometimes.

[steve_qix]

So that's cane metal! The perforated holy stuff.  I tried a google search on "cane metal" can kept coming up with somekind of magic trick.

My understand of the origin of the term is the material's resemblance to a caned chair (the material found on the bottom and often back of such chairs).

[w1vtp]

So why is sheet metal with patterned holes called "cane metal"?

js

Because it's pattern is similar to that old practice of making chairs with holes in them and putting in strips of cane --

http://www.popularmechanics.com/home_journal/woodworking/1273441.html

"...There are two kinds of cane seats--those woven by hand with long strands of thin cane and those made of a machine-woven cane sheet. Even if all the original cane is gone from your chair, it's still easy to tell which type of seat it had. If you find a narrow groove around the seat frame, your chair had machine-woven cane...."

Thanks Steve for the tip -- yep, it wasn't very heavy gage -- just to make covers that are attractive.

Al

[k4kyv]

the pilot hole is the trick.  If a 1/16th hole is off half a diameter, it's only a 1/32 error in position.  The pilot hole makes a much better guide for larger drills than a punch mark, though a good punch mark is FB for a small bit like 1/16th. Drillling holes slightly oversized can help you "cheat" the last screw in position with out filing metal sometimes.

I find even the pilot hole drill will drift out of position if there is no punch mark.  I sometimes use a light tap with a large (about 1/8" diameter), freshly sharpened sewing needle (think it was used for stitching parachutes) to make a perceptible punch mark, then use something like a #50 drill to make the pilot hole.  If the hole to be drilled is very large, I sometimes go in two steps, with a  second pilot hole somewhat larger, #36 or so.  Whenever possible, I use the drill press to actually drill the hole.  If I'm careful, I can usually get the hole pretty much exact, but sometimes one of the holes will still end up far enough out of kilter that I have to resort to the rat-tail file to correct the error.  As long as the head of the screw completely covers the oval shaped hole I don't worry too much about it. If I just mark, punch and drill, some of the holes will inevitably be 1/2 diameter off or even more.

Something else I have figured out over the years is to always use the actual piece that fits over the holes as a template whenever possible, rather than measuring and marking distances.  Inevitably, enough error accumulates during the measuring process to make some of the holes way off.

[W2DU]

Don, yer pic says it all!!!

Was a pleasure to meet and talk with you Saturday night. As I said in a post on the 'Dayton' thread, I wanted to kill myself for not remembering to get a pic of you with sons and me before it became too late and we we gone. Mebbe next year?

Walt, W2DU

[k4kyv]

I enjoyed meeting you guys, too.  Wish we all could have hung around longer before they kicked us out.  Looking forward to next year.