Why are radar mounts so expensive?

EugeneR

EugeneR

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I paid £200 for a radar but seems that I will need another £200 to be able to mount it?!

People think you are rich when you have a boat. Clearly, when you have a radar, you must be super-rich!

Surely there's a cheaper alternative?
 
You think 200 is bad? We want to mount ours on a transom pole and it's closer to 800 - for a white anodised aluminium pole and a swivel mount that screws onto the transom!
 
pvb said:
The Scanstrut pole is a well-engineered solution, easy to fit, and it looks right.
Click to expand...

All true, but 800 quid is still a hell of a lot of money for a white anodised aluminium pole and a couple of cast brackets! Many, many years ago I served my time as junior fitter in a small engineering shop and we used to make things like that - long before CNC machines and all the modern gear they use today to churn these things out.
 
maby said:
All true, but 800 quid is still a hell of a lot of money for a white anodised aluminium pole and a couple of cast brackets! Many, many years ago I served my time as junior fitter in a small engineering shop
Click to expand...

Sounds like you need to dust off the calipers and make one more, then :)

Pete
 
prv said:
Sounds like you need to dust off the calipers and make one more, then :)

Pete
Click to expand...

If I still had access to a machine shop, I would. Used to make fr more complex things than that from scratch, carving them out of blocks of steel by hand the man's way! I really enjoyed it - pity it would not pay as much as bidding for large government IT systems!
 
maby said:
All true, but 800 quid is still a hell of a lot of money for a white anodised aluminium pole and a couple of cast brackets! Many, many years ago I served my time as junior fitter in a small engineering shop and we used to make things like that - long before CNC machines and all the modern gear they use today to churn these things out.
Click to expand...

It's a nicely engineered system - take a look at the detail next time you see one on a boat. And it's very solid, neat, a good mount for the GPS antenna, etc, and folds down quickly if you want to get at the radome easily. Here's mine...

scanstrut5.jpg
 
maby said:
If I still had access to a machine shop, I would.
Click to expand...

As a slightly more serious suggestion, could you not get some small (perhaps non-marine) workshop to make one for you? Presumably your prior experience would make it easier to design the thing and to effectively communicate what you have in mind. Thereby perhaps saving a few quid in the "being dicked about by the non-specialist public" fee that I suspect such places quite reasonably add on.

Pete
 
pvb said:
It's a nicely engineered system - take a look at the detail next time you see one on a boat. And it's very solid, neat, a good mount for the GPS antenna, etc, and folds down quickly if you want to get at the radome easily. Here's mine...

scanstrut5.jpg
Click to expand...

Very nice! But I would still have hand carved one in a couple of hours (probably less) on a decent lathe and a milling machine... We used to build small turbines by hand - I cut the main shaft out of a large steel ingot on a manual lathe. A machine shop of half a dozen men would turn out around ten turbines per day.
 
prv said:
As a slightly more serious suggestion, could you not get some small (perhaps non-marine) workshop to make one for you? Presumably your prior experience would make it easier to design the thing and to effectively communicate what you have in mind. Thereby perhaps saving a few quid in the "being dicked about by the non-specialist public" fee that I suspect such places quite reasonably add on.

Pete
Click to expand...

I have wondered - may get some quotes. The trouble I would anticipate is finding someone that will make it in ally - most of the custom built examples I've seen are made from stainless steel and, between the cost of the materials and the difficulty of working stainless, I'm not sure that I would save much money.
 
maby said:
You think 200 is bad? We want to mount ours on a transom pole and it's closer to 800 - for a white anodised aluminium pole and a swivel mount that screws onto the transom!
Click to expand...

Take some measurements, do a simple drawing and get a non marine fabricator to make one. Ours is in stainless 3 inch tube and cost £220.00 all in. PM me if you want the firms details.
 
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