chassis chop

[DonMoose]

I shortened a Hammond chassis. It is steel and some of the hardest crap I have ever cut. I did it with tin snips and then bent the end up with these pliers like a hand brake.

Dude! You must have 'Popeye' forearms!

[Structo]

I'm strong to the finich because I eats me spinach.

[Baxtercat]

I shortened a Hammond chassis. It is steel and some of the hardest crap I have ever cut. I did it with tin snips and then bent the end up with these pliers like a hand brake.

Dude! You must have 'Popeye' forearms!

Har!

I once rescued a rusted out Showman [from a neighbor's backyard]. Had a friend saw off a few inches from the left end [I don't know what tool he and his Dad used, but they have a bunch!]. I screwed the end cap back on and made this narrow width EVM-s 1-12 piggyback.

[NickC]

^^^ Howdy Guitar Bob

That's nice!

What is the front meter monitoring?

[cbass]

^^^ Howdy Guitar Bob

That's nice!

What is the front meter monitoring?

BAC?

[Baxtercat]

Velocity! [Don't wanna get a ticket playing the rest home gigs].

I got the ammeter from Weber Speakers, hooked up to one of the 6L6s, just for fun. Helps you set the bias too.

[telentubes]

Now that Dirty Dawg chassis are unavailable for the custom sizes I like, I decided to chop a 17 1/2 inch Watts chassis down to 15 inches to fit in a cab I have.

I cut one end off the chassis (with a $10 table saw blade designed to cut aluminum, to save the bends and threaded inserts), which would be soldered back on after cutting the chassis to the desired length.
I milled a scarf joint in each side of the cut, a step that is ridiculous given the strength of the solder, but I didn't know that at the time (it only took about 20 minutes to cut to size and cut the joint). I then spent a couple of hours on YouTube researching soldering and brazing aluminum and opted for the Harbor Freight fluxless low temp system, because it was cheap and close by.

I practiced soldering a but joint on some scrap, which I tried to break after it cooled, and couldn't. It was very easy to do, and only needs a propane torch to get the temp needed.

I now think it would be pretty easy to make your own chassis.
You could use the table saw scoring technique that some have used, to make the bends easily, then run a bead of solder in the joints for strength.

Here are some pretty bad out of focus pics, but they will give you an idea of what I did to shorten this chassis. Making one from scratch would be easier.

[Structo]

Nice job on that mod!

Corner weld looks like heli-arc.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Happened to find this non digital photo whilst poking thru some old files. This beauty crossed my workbench @ 1997. Somebody made a nice clean slice with a big bandsaw.