Pelican Case Mods

You'd have to experiment with the adhesive, if Pelican recommends it , it probably will bond to the plastic case. It most likely has a nasty smell to it ;)

You could also mount a plastic sheet under the foam and mount your clamps to that. Thus not gluing to the case at all.

Cheers

Do any of the panel mount kits from pelican look useful for what you're doing? Maybe a panel with a large cutout for your sextant might work.

I'd cut an intermediate enclosure out of something like a denser, more rugged foam (but not crumbly stuff, like Styrofoam) or make an instant cavity out of that expanding foam stuff like

and an appropriately sized cardboard box. Mount the result in the Pelican case. The expanding foam method may be easier/quicker than carving out a sextant-shaped hole; its bound to be more fun.

IIRC, the canonical sextant cases were wooden boxes with standoff pegs and clamps. If you can find one of those, while perhaps reinforcing the hold-downs with tie-wraps, that may be even better.

Please don't tell me that you're doing manual sight reduction. Those were the days, and may they never return...

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

PVC plumbing adhesives work if the item you are affixing is also compliant to that type of joinery.

Fiberglass overlays work around the joins, if the items being affixed needs higher stability. You have to be good at doing fiberglass through. A local spa maker house or even a boat marina could help you on fiberglass lay-up techniques. If heavy physical stability is not needed, then the PVC glue should 'weld' it on pretty good. You could, of course, also use heat on the item being affixed, as in melt it, and attach it that way. The PVC glue does the same thing chemically and a bit less mechanically distorting.

[snip]

That's what I've got now. A Navy Mark II in excellent condition, but the box is beat up. and not waterproof (never was).

OK. I won't tell you that. I still take pictures with my Ikonta

and I drive stick shift cars. There's something to be said for 'old school'.

--
Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Is this for a product or a one-off? We have foam custom cut for our Pelican cases. You can specify the foam with all sorts of properties (to damp acceleration customized to your object's mass). The thing I'd worry about when clamping to the case is that any shock will be directly transmitted to your widget, worse than the stiffest foam.

We've seen no need for this, but just as an idea, you might want to cement a mounting plate to the case and bolt to it. The plate could be a common piece for several products with an adapter to the specific widget. Perhaps someone already makes a standard case with a mounting bracket.

One-off. I've got a nice sextant that came in a crappy wood box.

It can't be any worse than the old wood box. The Pelican case will be waterproof.

--
Paul Hovnanian     mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Telemark:  If it was easy, they'd call it snowboarding.

Yeah, I read your response later.

In that case (NPI), I'd use the glue that Pelican recommends. Use a plate compatible with the case and glue, with either studs or PEM nuts and build a (replaceable) mount from there.

Fabric lining the instrument cutout seems to be the most seen answer. I have seen hard cradle and clamp for something like that also; but isolating the cradle properly becomes a challenge. I suppose you could build the cradle first in a full 6-sided frame and then adhesively mount that.