Yeah - the aim being to have the damping material cover a range of proximity to apply a suitable amount of air damping to give a good range of reverb time control - it never actually comes into contact with the reverberation plate. The effectiveness of the damper will be governed by the sound absorption material used as a face. Asbestos used in the EMT obviously not a great plan these days and also unavailable.It churns in the stomach when I see that mechanical damper ...
Thereis compressed glass fibre board that has cloth facing which is extremely effective - it can be glued to a thin sheet of MDF for additional stability - this compressed glass fibre board is rigid and easily cut with a box cutter. This can be mounted in U section aluminium channel framing. It comes in various thicknesses and densities. I use the 96Kg/cuM compressed glass fibre boards as sound absorption material inside studio wall construction - this is available in 13mm and 25mm with cloth facing on one side - the 13mm then sandwiched to 6mm MDF backing with the cloth side facing out. You can glue this with spray contact adhesive and seal the cut edges of the glass board with spray contact adhesive as well. These combined would slot into 19mm aluminium channel framing or you could use L section angle aluminium screwed to the MDF. You need to seal the glass fibre edges so fibres don’t fly around and get into everything.
The mechanical traveller assembly brackets would need to be fastened to the plate framework to mount and control the position of the damper.