Maintaince......

This one looks nice



Truck Mirror Mount / Side Rail Marine Antenna Bracket

 

I know where it cracked and know why, it is something I can see happening again with that mount made that way.

The bend weakened the area where it broke, it looks like it was bent in a brake press with no stress relief in the piece leading up to the bend, it became brittle at that point.

Thickness doesn't equate to strength.

AND it looks like the metal use was the wrong type. The bend needs to be made of a material which doesn't work harden or if it is, has to be heated and bent and then worked again to relieve the stress so not to become brittle and break.

 

My first thought looking at this mount, is if they were to make a small triangle piece and spot weld it at the 90 degree bend on both sides of the horizontal top that the antenna stud mounts on. It would really strengthen that mount.

 

Just putting a dimple or two in the 90 degree Bend would greatly strengthen it also

 

I really don't think there was anything wrong with the one that broke..."If" he didn't have the pvc pipe on it and it was just the antenna on that mount, we wouldn't be having this discussion...

 

Making it stiffer isn't going to fix it.

It is a design issue.

what is the length on the stud?

Can it go through a 1/2" thick piece of metal?

Putting in a relief dimple would be hard to do without stressing the area.

 

I guess what I'm looking at is the single piece mount has no way to distribute the load of the antenna and it moved just enough to induce a stress crack, pretty much half a mount to me - the reason why I asked about how long the stud is (I don't have one here, they are all down with my truck stuff and i haven't been there in week).

So I think a two piece mount where the stud goes through both pieces would work.

As I explained the folded metal fatigues faster because of the stress of the bend that extended to the point where it snapped off so putting dimples into it will make it fatigue quicker because of the stress.

Putting two pieces that overlap, drilled through where the stud goes and held together by the stud and the bolts that pull the mount tight to the shaft will make sure that the movement is limited while putting the stress of the load from the antenna onto both pieces, evenly distributing the load to prevent the fatiguing of the mount.

It is thicker but not the way you were thinking. The distribution of the load between the two pieces will be a bit better than if it is just a thicker piece on the front of the mount.

This will not break.

If the guy who makes the mount is any good with metal, then he can throw it together as I described it without an issue.

If you are worried about the stud part on the truck, the perch, then what can be done there is circular support that is welded to the plate and the shaft, this will allow no movement or twisting if the weld is done right. We've used these mounts which are made a little differently (it is not knurled at all) on the experimental antennas for our trucks.

Have not had one fail on us yet.