In today's world, homebrew frequently uses pre-made circuit boards or that awful ugly unsightly approach with superglue and small copper squares.
When I started homebrewing in the 1950's the soup du jour was an aluminum chassis and the use of Greenlee punches for cutting the holes for the Tube sockets. This was frequently called "metal bashing".
If you want to do a bit of bash and mash start with the type 3003 or 5052 aluminum as these are the variants that are easy to mill, drill, hammer and beat. The type 6061 is not too good for working with simple hand tools.
I had a meeting with myself yesterday and decided to use a base plate of 12X8 inches as I found I had two pieces that were 1/8 inch thick. One piece will serve as the main chassis plate and the second piece will be the bottom plate. I also have a 12X12X1/16-inch piece of aluminum stock that I will cut in half so that the front and back panels will be two pieces 6X12 by 1/16 inch thick. Indeed, metal bashing.
Top Plate Layout
In an earlier post I mentioned the use of cardboard cutouts, and this is where they come in handy to allocate real estate on the mounting plate.
The bash part went pretty quickly but the measure 300 times and cut once took longer.
The use of 1/2 X 1/2-inch angle stock ties the front and back panels to the base mounting plate as well as the bottom plate. Angle stock at the very top of the front and back panels tied together with cross pieces rounds out a box like structure. Very rigid and solid!
Basically, we positioned the nine-tube chassis and located 4 holes where I installed the mounting pillars, so the tube chassis is elevated above the mounting plate. I also located, a 1.125 inch in diameter pass through hole so cabling can pass to the underside where the power distribution board and the audio amp board will be installed. Also on the underside is the Driver, the IRF510, and Low Pass Filter.
Other controls such as Power On/Off, MOX, mic input and mic gain, carrier balance and the audio output will be on the front panel at about .75 inches above the bottom plate reference.
The 12GE5 will be located along the right side of the chassis as will the Plate Tune and a RF Output Meter.
Reduce your digital footprint. Things are not looking good on the horizon. It seems like an important Republican operative was raided by the FBI. A coincidence? The signs are clear.
Them that know make things go.
73's
Pete N6QW