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Hotwire
Senior Member
Username: Hotwire
Post Number: 1599
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 12:39 pm: | 
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Anyone use one of those 6x6 inch square antenna mounts you bolt to your roof? I would like to get some reviews. Pros and cons. Anything about the mount you did'nt like that could be improved? The ones I have found on the internet are made of a very exspensive industrial material called Delrin. Its made by DuPont is why it costs so much.
A friend of mine who is a pro fabricator has convinced me to design a mount of the same type. Right now we have built our first mount to see how it will compare to the competition. Our mount is built with the material Nylatron. Very durable and wear resistant and every bit as strong as Delrin if not stronger. Delrin and Nylatron are both industrial materials that were invented as alternatives to steel. Machinists mill many things from Delrin and Nylatron like bolts, gears, sprockets, wheels and even engine parts! The materials have there differences and are used depending on individual applications. We feel that Nylatron will be very reliable for a mount and choose it over Delrin because its a little cheaper. The name DuPont costs! A 2 foot by 4 foot half inch thick sheet goes for around 180 dollars. We only have a little bit to make prototypes just to see if they work well. When we are finished I plan to contact my radio buds with some samples to see how well we did. If all goes well we will probably start out at hamfests and hopefully blow away the competion! Who knows? Maybe the future has custom made antennas with the name HOTWIRE stamped on them! |
Tech808
Moderator
Username: Tech808
Post Number: 10656
Registered: 8-2002
| | Posted on Friday, July 28, 2006 - 1:15 pm: |
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Hotwire,
Around here in central Il. they just use a 12"x12" 1/8" thick or 14"x14" 1/8" piece of steel plate about 10 or 12 bucks at the steel shop's.
Moderator136 say's it is about the same price in IA.
And you can then have them powder coated to prevent rust and match the color of the vehicle. 
Lon
Tech808
CEF808
N9CEF
CVC#2 |
Hotwire
Senior Member
Username: Hotwire
Post Number: 1600
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, July 29, 2006 - 11:49 am: |
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The Nylatron mount is half inch thick and goes on top the roof and bolted to a steel plate underneath. Actually if the person did'nt want the plate they could just bolt it to the roof using large washers for support. Also the Nylatron has a really cool appearance. A grey black stripy pattern. Has kind a 3-D look when light reflects off it! My partner in this has also suggested that we countersink the bolts so that they don't stick up from the surface. The shiny stainless hex bolts look really good against the mount not to mention the Predator stud itself.
Lon I hear what your saying and that method works great. Anyone with a little ingenuity can save a lot of money buy doing things on their own.The way I look at it is that there are a lot of people out there with limited ingenuity and plenty of money to spend. Most people into the hobby have already put a lot of money into there setups. I want in on it. Hey guys like many of us here at the Copper forum know what they are doing and see something and say NO WAY thats to much money and I can do it myself. On the other side of the coin there are way more people who need it done for them.
Its just something we are doing for fun right now. We have these fabricating skills that we enjoy using and challenging. Just starting to dream now.
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