You surely have some Tech schools nearby with shops.
They used to take on small projects for a fee which gave the students
some experience & resume's and brought a little extra money into the
shop budget.
No idea what the bureaucrats and lawyers may have done to that in
recent years.
I think what Dick had in mind was a company similar to the one Charles
Byers owned and ran. That is, a small metal shop where one could have a
thick chassis built to your dimensions. Charles offered such a service,
produced the product promptly, charged a modest price and did good
work. Charles was not put out to do just one special chassis. (He
didn't make complex cabinets). He bent metal. This was a cottage
industry for him and he was a ham. Both WA5VGO and I used him for
projects from time to time. WA5VGO used him to build a bunch of chassis
for his complex double conversion receivers and also for some nice 100
watt type transmitters. I used him for some Paraset boxes as well as
for my Philmore NT-200 clone projects. Charles was always eager to help
by building the chassis you wanted. He was not into machined and milled
cabinets.
With so much small lot production done off shore these days, it seems
most small lot machine shops have gone extinct. They sure have dried up
around here in Houston, Texas. I too would like to find a replacement
small company who could generate needed small metal work for single ham
radio projects. I also have a friend here in Houston who constantly
builds tube HI-Fi Amplifiers and he has a hard time getting chassis
too. I know he uses someone in Florida, but he needs to buy 50 at a
time of any he wants built. If you try and build an amp, transmitter, or
receiver today containing a few transformers, you may as well forget Bud
or Hammond as the metal is so thin it can't handle the weight unless you
put in a lot of time "beefing" up the thin chassis. TenTec does a great
job in a big way with nice cabinets at reasonable prices but there
product line is fixed and their line is mostly cabinets and not chassis.
Anyone out there know of a replacement company for Charles Byers?
Lee, w0vt
Houston
--
Thanks! & 73, KD4E.com
David Colburn nevils-station.com
I don't google I SEARCH! duckduckgo.com
Network: groups.yahoo.com/group/qrv
Restored to design-spec at Heaven's gate 1Cor15:22
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