making your own mobile mounting brackets?

[W4BOZ]

I've got a small piece of radio gear that I'd like to mount in my car but I don't have a bracket for it. Has anyone had any success constructing decent looking brackets (I'd rather not having something that looks really crappy) for their equipment out of easy to find parts that can be bought at a hardware store?

Any suggestions are helpful before I bust out the double sided tape.

Thanks!

 

[LarrySC]

Galls police supply may be a better idea.

 

[kf4lne]

yes, you can make a decent bracket from flat steel stock from Lowes or Home Depot. All you need is a good vise and a drill and a ruler of some sort, a hammer and a file. Measure the width of the device and the distance down from the mounting holes and bend the proper angles using the vice. use a hammer and block of wood to get nice, crisp bends. Drill your holes for the device screws and mounting screws, clean up the bits of metal in the holes you drilled using a chain saw file or similar and paint with a good spray paint, i use engine enamel on mine. Let it cure (you can bake it if you like) for at least 24 hours so you dont end up with a car full of paint fumes and mount it. Looks professionally made doesent it?

 

[W4BOZ]

Perfect. Thanks!

 

[CLB]

I apologize for no pics, but I made a really nice and very sturdy one to hold my Pro-95, IC-R3 and EFJ VHF 2-way, switched out of course. This project was for a 95 Dodge Dakota, where there is not a whole lot of room to mount radios.

All I did was go to the local Ace Hardware, pick up a package of 3 door hinge spacers and a 5" stainless steel 90 degree shelving bracket. I bent the bracket into a shape to fit into the seam between the dash and console (sort of an open "Z" shape), and bolted it to the lug that holds the cigarette lighter in place. Then I took 2 hinge spacers, bent one 90 degrees, bolted the straight one on the shelving bracket, then the 90 deg. one on the bottom. Ground the screws/ nuts on the back down to make it smooth and painted it with "Rhino Liner" type stuff in a can. Cleaned it off and glued some soft velcro backing on it to keep the radios from getting scratched.

Put it all in and the dash back together and it's sturdy as anything commercial made. All I have to do is put the belt clip over the top and it's held in place very snug. Best part is, it can hold the radio at a easilly viewable and operable place near the power outlet. Total cost was $5 and it was VERY well received by the old lady .

Oh, since I had an extra spacer left over, I bent it 45 degrees, bolted it into the place where the ashtray once was bolted under the dash, and it made a excellent mount for my XM receiver, next to a 3" speaker run to the 2 way VHF on the top of the dash.

 

[radio10-8]

I just did this install of an MR8100 with home depot flat iron, it was really easy, kinda ugly too. Oh well, little paint will fix it.

 

[mn2deep]

It is much easier to drill the holes before you bend the bracket, than after. Ask me how I know.

 

[Caesar]

look for someone with one of those computer controlled plasma cuters and a mig welder.... my friends dad recently got one, i will be visiting his soon with some drawings! hihi^^

 

[DPD1]

It is much easier to drill the holes before you bend the bracket, than after. Ask me how I know.

Yeah, unless you have a really good bending rig, it's very hard to bend stuff exactly where you want it. Aluminum would work well too, which you could just polish and use as-is. I would use maybe 1"x 1/8" stock. Bend it at 90 degrees at both ends for the width of the radio, then cut the ends even and drill the holes. They have small pieces of that stuff at hardware stores. The key to drilling in metal by hand, is having a good punch point... But the trick is, once you make the punch, you sand down the little edges around the hole that the punch creates. These are irregular and make the cutting edges of the bit skip erratically.


Dave
http://www.dpdproductions.com
- Custom Scanner, Aviation, MURS, GMRS, Marine & Ham Antennas -

 

[n4jri]

A quicker, but more expensive, solution might be universal brackets. They are two-piece affairs that slide wider/narrower as you need. Usually sold in the CB sections of truckstops.

I'm using one of these pretty successfully to add an additional radio to a transmission hump mount.

73/Allen (N4JRI)

 

[52to12]

I agree with n4jri. It seems that the truck stops offer the most variety of accessories for radios. Also, at many of the larger truck stops there are independant CB stores in or adjacent to the stops. By the time you buy the metal and hope you have the appropriate drill bit along with a can of spray paint, you will most likely be better paying the price for a ready made bracket.