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Field Pack Build From the Garage of Scootch


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Back to our bottom trays now...........we can lay out our mounting holes!

The "Speed Bumps" are 8-1/4" long. We can measure end to center 4-1/8" and then from this center mark out each direction 3-1/2" for our 7" spread. This will center our tray with our frame for a perfect fit! :)

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Next we'll ensure our marks are also centered 2-1/4" from each adjacent speed bump (or ridge)!

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Once both trays are laid out we may drill our holes for the mounting screws.

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Now for the easy stuff.......Let's pre-drill some mounting holes in our lower tray. First the Bellows mount:

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We know this babey is 4-1/2" wide so we will want to be in from the edge of our tray about 2-1/4" in. We definately want this babey to mount on a ridge as well.

We'll drill a hole in about 5/8" to 3/4" from the edge of the lower right ridge.

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We know our radio box will have to mount on the extreme left of this tray so we just need to make sure we clear the siphon assembly and infrastructure of our radio box.

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Again we'll come in about 5/8" in for the first set of holes, and 2-3/4" for the second. Plenty of room to work! These holes should be 2-1/4" apart.

Now let's lay out the top box goodies! First the Bullet Box exhaust port.

This thing needs to be on the lower two ridges to the extreme right of the tray. Our bottle will mount at 6-1/4" to center measuring from the left, so we can double check that these will all fit nicely before proceeding.

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I could tell you I planned to have white primered parts for contrast so it would be easier to view the individual parts in the photos............ <_< fact is.....I ran out of Black Primer! :lol:

When we're sure we like where the box is sitting, we can make four marks with a sharpe through the feet, then drill small holes here with our pilot bit 1/16" bit. We will use small wood screws to attach this part later.

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Next we can lay out our Bottle.

Using a square we can get our 6-1/4" measurement from the left side of the tray. We'll drill a couple of 3/16" holes in the top two ridges. Please take note of how the square is utilized to achieve this measurement.......it will save a lot of trouble for you! :)

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We want the lip of our bottle to be even with the top of the tray so that the mushroom cap sits above the tray. Now we just transfer the 2-1/4" marks to our bottle and drill it. Using two #12 machine screws and nuts we can attach this bottle to our top box! :)

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Once the bottle and mushroom cap are in place it is easy to lay out the tool box mounting holes. Stick with the same idea we used for the radio box mounting holes and it will work out nicely.

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The Faucet Cover / Bee Stinger........ B)

As with all of our painted pack parts, we begin by first wet sanding with 600 grit sandpaper, then rubbing out, and finally waxing our faucet cover so that it will have that "used" look.

Next We will cut a few small pieces of our Oak and Hot glue them strategically inside our Bee stinger body.

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You will see that one goes in the bottom for our stinger mount, and the other four go at the mouth of the opening......two for the L brackets to attach, and two for our cover plate. Set the four pieces so that our cover plate has something to attach to, and center them respectively on the natural seams in the plastic.....

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Now we can trace out a cover plate on a piece of plastic......................

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Cut it out, sand it smooth, then drill a hole in one end. The hole is so we may hang it on a piece of wire for painting!

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We may now shoot our cover plate Black, and any other pieces we wish to recoat.

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Next we are ready to make our L bracket attachments for the stinger body. These are our connection to the seed tray on the pack. L brackets may be purchased at the hardware store or made from various materials. Since this is a "Budget build" we're going to use some surplus 3/4" by 1/8"Aluminum from the corner of the garage.

Begin by shaping a couple pieces into L's...... "Finally I get to wail on something!!!!! :D

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Next we'll cut them to about 2" in length for the stinger attachment ends. The Tray attachment ends may be whatever length you choose, these are roughly 3/4".

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Next we'll round the ends off so they look more "machined".

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With the L brackets cleaned up we can measure from tray end to stinger end and mark at 1-5/8". We measure this way so our finished product will hang level to the tray. (in case our cuts were a little off)

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Next we'll drill first with our 1-16" pilot bit, then again with the 3/16" bit. Safety Glasses First!!!

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Sand these brackets, hang them on wire and shoot em black! :)

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We may now lay out the mounting holes for our L bracket to Stinger body attachment. Measure down from the mouth of the stinger body 1/2" and mark it center of the seam as shown in the photo.

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Drill these holes with the 1/16" bit ONLY!!!!! We're going to attach this piece with wood screws later.

Go ahead and drill the stinger mount 1/16" too!

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Let's now grab a measurement for our next small job. We want to measure the width of our Stinger Body. This will be a good length for our reinforcing piece of Oak inside the seed tray.

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Let's now measure the width of the inside of the tray where we want to put the reinforcement. It looks like 2" but we will go with 1-3/4" so as not to interfere with final assembly of the tray halves.

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We may now cut our piece of Oak....7" long by 1-3/4" wide, then cut one corner off aproximately a 5/8" corner to fit around the contour of our seed tray.

Glue the piece in place as we've done on previous pieces but be sure to stay away from the edge!!! Now our tray is reinforced!

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Time for a cool change........ B) I'll do a little more on my Crashmann Pipe to get it looking really pretty!

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I started with wet sanding, rubbing, and waxing our frame. Same way we've done everything else except for tubes and pipes we sand with the radius of the piece and not the length. This gives it a "Machined" kind of look

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Mortar Tube:

We're digging into the plumbing surplus for some of our next parts! A piece of 2" PVC schedule 40 pipe, and a couple of 2" test caps. Ask a plumber, they will more than likely GIVE you this stuff! Mortar tube parts may also be purchased from your favorite armourer as well as folks like Crashmann.

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I've heard a couple different measurements for this "Mortar Tube" piece of pipe. 29" and 29-1/2". Sounds kinda like 29-1/4" will please most, so cut the pipe 29" nice and square! (our end caps will put us out another 1/4" to 1/2")

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Sand this piece of pipe pretty well and then we'll get ready to figure out where we'd like to mount it on our frame.

Of all the awesome ANH packs I've spent hours staring at....The Movie packs,TD-252's, TD-1536's, etc, I've come up with a mortar tube mounting scenario I think looks pretty good and keeps to the look of these others. I like to attach the mortar tube once at the bend in the right side of the pack frame, and once between the 90's at the bottom of the right side of the pack.

Let's begin by clamping our frame in the upright position on a table so that our mortar tube will hang naturally and we can establish where we want it to hang . Next wrap some tape around it in a couple spots to hold it where we like it.

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Somewhere between 1" and 1-1/2" above the pack frame is good for mounting height of the tube,..............

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Sorry for the crummy photo, but roughly 8" to 8-1/2" of our mortar tube should be hanging past the bottom of our pack frame.

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We may drill the bend in our frame through to the side of our mortar tube with a pilot bit. Just be sure to center the 2" pipe before drilling, and once it's drilled switch to a bit just large enough for a #10 size lag screw. (the lag screw is only for assembly purposes) we want this piece snugged together so we can concentrate on the lower mounting hole easily.

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Now we may repeat the drilling process for the lower mount once we've ensured it's centered up.

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Something I had to learn the hard way but I can share with you is DRILL THESE HOLES AT A SLIGHT ANGLE TOWARD THE TROOPER SIDE OF THE FRAME!!!

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It will make final assembly so much easier.

Also, if you make a mistake on your 2" pipe location, don't worry, relocate it and drill again. nobody will ever see an extra hole in this thing and guess what else????? It will be lighter!

If you're ever uncertain when working with longer pieces of pipe, use the side with the label on it as a guide for helping you stay centered up. Same principal as the seams in the fittings we played with earlier.

Now we may drill our Mortar Tube mounting holes to 1/4" and insert some mollies!

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Now we may tap these mollies home and get ready to paint this Mortar tube!

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Finally!!! We can paint that crshmann pipe too!

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Now to prep the test caps and turn them into mortar tube caps!!! First off we want to mark them at 1" from the tips down.

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Next we'll use an old school Stormtrooper trick for getting a nice even line.............Electrical tape!

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Let's cut off our excess test cap lips and then clean out the ridge inside the test cap as we ream the lip so it will pass over the pipe end easily.

(I failed to mention before, part of prepping the mortar tube includes beveling the pipe ends!)

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We'll sand these babies, shave off as much of the cast in labelling as possible, then drown them with primer! While we wait for those to cure we'll get back to the seed trays and frame!

Okay, ready to mount our main seed tray halves? Well let's do it!

Grab some little machine screws, washers, and nuts! Use whatever you have, don't worry too much as long as they fit and do the job. or if you're a freaky person use some #10-24 x 3/4" ones! :)

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Start in the center and work your way out, snug the little fellers up nice but don't overtighten them or you could risk damage to the tray. Six screws later the boxes are mounted! Check for fit. Don't worry if you're a bit off, it happens. Once the pack is built no-one will notice. However, you may still fix it at this point if you really feel it's important. A good way to check the trays and frame for "plumb and line" is to lay it on it's side, set a level or yard stick across the two trays and check that the two trays are even from corner to corner. You may also "eyeball" the trays and make a mental note of how they line up in relation to the frame on both sides. If you followed the layout for the frame and the trays you will be fine. :)

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Now we may finish the Bee stinger main body and mounts! First off let's use a couple of wood screws and install our mounting L brackets. These don't need to be snug (we don't want to wear the paint off our stinger body) just get em in range! Remember if you haven't already.....now is the time to drill a couple of pilot holes for these screws. A 1/16" Bit will work for our screws, choose the proper size bit for your screws so your screws will run in without splitting the pieces of oak. :) A good way to choose your bit size is to find a bit in the index that looks to be the same size as the "shank" of your screw....(imagine the screw had no threads, and you wanted to drill a hole that it would slip into nice and snug).

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Now let's take that cover plate we've already waxed up.......and hot glue it to our little oak pieces. Do this by placing a nice bead of hot glue on each of the four pieces of oak!

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Next place the cover plate on and press it against the hot glue! Now this babey is good to go!

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We'll go ahead and attach this stinger body to our main box on the frame now..... Go ahead and do a "Dry Run" to see where we want to place it, make a mental note of that image.

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Now we may mark out some mounting holes! Let's measure center to center of our L bracket holes.....and also center to end.

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Now we may transfer our marks to the box (seed tray Half) We're coming up from the tray lip 1/2" to center, and also about 5-7/16" spread on the L brackets. This measurement may vary depending n the bracket and drilled holes.

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Next just drill first with the pilot bit, and again with the 3/16" bit. (or the bit which best suits your screw size).

We may now insert a couple of our machine screws through the L brackets and up into the seed tray we have just drilled out.

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If you measured correctly you will have an easy assembly here......I didn't allow enough for my mounting space and short-changed myself on my oak strip! NO BIG DEAL! We'll just make a "shim" and keep on truckin! Cut a little scrap of oak, wedge it in place, and snug up your nuts!

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With the stinger in place and the main box halves mounted and checked for square, we may now hot glue everything in place so there is no threat of a nut coming loose anywhere. (I know.......OVERKILL!) Oh well, at least when we're trooping we will have peace of mind.....or is that "Piece of Mind" for all the Maiden fanz? :lol: I cover all my nuts with hot glue and let it run down onto the oak a bit.

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Will this be all the same info or did you add anything this time around?

I'm cleaning it up a bit, trying to go into a bit more detail since there may be some in these forums not as familiar with hands on stuff. No giant crabs or bloody fingers, not as many green bottles.....etc. :D

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Allright! Let's get some of this stuff put together and outta the way! Mount the Bullet box with four small wood screws!!! The holes should be pre-drilled with the 1/16" bit. :)

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Be sure to only snug these up and not go crazy!!! Don't want to wreck that nice job we did on the little triangles!!!

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Next insert four machine screws through the "Tool Box" mounting holes and nut them up "finger tight" from outside! Again personal preference on screw size, 10 x 32 by 1" will work pretty well here. B)

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Insert small machine screws for the radio box mount too......nut them up finger tight and ensure all are fairly square!

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Now once we're sure we're square, snug, and good to go, we may encase all of our inner seed tray hardware parts in hot glue!

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This will allow us to change some pieces out in the future without the need of opening the seed tray halves up, and also give us a sense of security knowing we have a solid mounting system!

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We want to pre-drill the trays for rivets because we are after a rugged assembly. This is kind of a strange process. First we want to clamp the halves together, then align each corner so the top and bottom mate up as close as possible. Once one corner is lined up nicely, drill a 1/8" hole in it.

Go to the next corner and repeat the steps. It is important to physically line up each corner before drilling.

We also want to drill the center lip at the top of our tray halves. GRAVITY Don't want them coming apart at the seams now do we?

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Do the blue and the black sets, then doublecheck your rivet fits in the holes you drilled!

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Back to the Crashmann pipe and nipple!

Trim the bottom of our Crashmann pipe so it fits the contour of the Nipple! Use tin snips and sandpaper for a good result. Don't worry if you feel like you're destroying all that nice body work you did with the Bondo and Putty, we'll be making a nice seam here with epoxy soon! :)

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I like to cheat here by hot gluing a small piece of oak into the pipe, then running a screw through the nipple and into the oak so the two pieces stay together.....Make sure they're lined up well before installing the screw! Hard to make out in this photo but the little "bump" inside the nipple is actually my tiny wood screw! :)

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We may use a wide piece of tape to keep the two pieces aligned for the next step.

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We'll mix up some epoxy and fill the gap between the two parts. smooth it out and be sure plenty goes into the gap. A good trick is to "pull" the pieces together with a wrap of tape, then smooth the bead once more and allow to cure un-molested.

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Let's cut a strip of plastic about 3/4" to 7/8" wide by 3-1/2" long then divide it into three equal pieces! These will be the stabilizer piece we will epoxy between the funnel and pipe assemblies.

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Glue or epoxy these together, then clamp them. Since mine are ABS I'm using ABS Cement!

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Let's make sure our pieces will be the correct length. Very critical!!! We'll Set the burger stacker assembly on the table with our "Nipple and pipe" mocked up for a dry fit. Next we'll set the Funnel assembly so that the flare end is on the table but the 3/4" cap is hanging down past.

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Now use a level or just eyeball and mark where we want to cut the 3/4" piece of pipe so that it is the same height as the Crashmann pipe.

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Now cut it off!

Yep it happens to the best of us, temperature plays a big part in painting and I got caught slippin So I'll be painting a couple parts again!

Anyhow, we're ready to make our "musical note" piece of the project! Epoxy the Crashmann "twinkie cap" onto the pipe assembly nice and square. Allow to set up.

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With the funnel cut to length and the twinkie cap in place we may epoxy the two set ups together. Use tape and a Sharpie to keep the pieces Aligned and just far enough apart from each other unless you want to hold it for a few minutes.

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I like to put a nice ammount of epoxy in here, and will come back later with hot glue to beef it up!

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We're going to shape our little "stabilizer piece" to fit the contours of the pipe and funnel. Close is good enough. Then we'll buzz a spot on each pipe where we want this thing to attach with our Dremel or a small file.

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Next we mix some epoxy, put a small bead on each piece of pipe, and a bit on the stabilizer, then set it in place.

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Once our initial joints have set up, we may mix small ammounts of epoxy and work to make a nice uniform looking brace one side at a time. Our end result should be a nice natural looking transition.

Okay I'm disgusted with that crummy paint problem so I really need to shoot this thing black again!!!!! I'll wrap a piece of masking tape around the bottom of the nipple so I don't paint it because when I epoxy this into the burger stackers I want plastic to plastic.

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Let's get some other small jobs out of the way! From our 1/2" PVC let's cut five pieces 2-1/4" in length. Nice square cuts to be sure. Sand these and shoot em black! They are our "Shotgun shells".

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Okay let's wreck a perfectly good tupperware pitcher lid shall we???

Dis-assemble the lid into it's three main pieces,

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Cut the flange off the lid top, then cut the shaft so it will conform to a piece of pipe. Put the assembly back together then press gently against the inside portion of the pitcher lid causing the pushbutton to raise slightly (about 1/8" above normal resting position). Trace the outline with a sharpie. This is where we'll cut the button off so we will still have something solid inside the lid assembly when we mount it later.

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Cut the button, paint the button and pitcher lid top black. DO NOT paint the pitcher lid inner component or the inside of the top component lid piece.

Here's some of todays work, we've located an old motorcycle primary cover screw, and an acorn nut and drilled our pitcher lid piece to correct size. Painted our shells and lid, and also threw a coat of white on our mortar tube caps. They'll need one more coat and we'll paint a keypad piece along with them later.

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Here's an easy job, personal preference wheather this is done before or after the boxes are mounted to the frame. Speed Tape for the Blue box. I like to wrap one set of tape lines at the top of the box, and another set down between the bottom two ridges. Again personal preference. Also I like to go for more of a "Movie" look with it so it isn't "perfect" but looks cool when done. Just wrap how you like, then slice the tape at the spot where the trays meet. (We'll paint this later and it will disappear). I'm using good old fashioned Electrical tape but again this is personal preference. Some of the screen caps I've seen have tape, some don't. Personally I like how it looks.

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Here's some more "Budget" stuff, a quick and easy tool box. Picked it up at the drug store for four bux!

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Since we made the tool box mounts so that the tool box itself may be removed easily, we may change this one out for something else at our leisure. For now, it's a pretty good box, and we can store stuff in it while trooping.

Let's cut the lid loose, trim it up, and shoot it black! I've found that removing the lid and re-attaching it later makes for easier opening and closing than trying to leave it "stock". Just rough it up with the 400 grit paper or even the 600 if you prefer, then shoot a nice coat of the Rustoleum Gloss Black Paint for Plastic.

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Okay let's get our Crashmann Radio Box Faceplate going! I like these Faceplates, they're great for doing all kinds of trick stuff to. We're going to be tricking ours out inexpensively but at the same time it's going to be fun and our end result will be cool! B)

First trim the faceplate down to size. Tin snips and sandpaper will do the trick. I like to leave about a 1/4" lip which will overhang my radio box for a clean look.

Next drill out all the speaker holes 3/16". Since the "Dimples" are already formed for you, your bit stays true so the holes are a sinch, just take your time. :)

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Next cut the grooves for the speaker with your dremel tool and an abrasive wheel. It's easy if you cut from inside the face plate. Just take your time and work steadily, don't worry about cutting it all the way out, just get enough for some good lines. A little goes a long way here. :)

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We'll have something like this when we're done trimming.

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Next we'll lay out the centers for our dials and toggle switches. Center up each square horizontally....................................

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And then center them Vertically

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We'll also center up the dial knob hole and trim out the gauge opening too (For the gauge opening, use the sanding drum on the dremel to fine tune the cut). For the Toggles we're using standard issue Radio Shackers, so we'll open the holes up with our uni-bit. If you want a more accurate look go with "slide switches" and your openings for these will be rectangular slots instead of holes. :) Let's finish trimming our openings!

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We'll measure out the dimensions of our radio box on some surplus plastic and cut it out. First the main box back, then the four sides. Make the long sides 1/8" shorter than the desired length to make up for the short ends.

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Next we'll use some square dowell type material and hot glue our box together. I found this Dowell material at Home Depot.

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Long ends first, then the short ends.

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We may use some of our dowell material to attach the open ends of our "Box" so they're square. I'm almost out because this piece of dowell was used for two radio boxes!

Check the fit of the box and faceplate.

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For this radio box assembly we're installing Neodymium magnets.

Once the fit is established, we'll drill our little squares with a 1/8" bit all the way through, then again with a larger bit for holes our magnets will fit into.

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We'll fill the holes one by one with hot glue, then press a magnet into the hole. The excess glue will run out the 1/8" hole, but the magnet will be secure. Press the magnet in until it is flush or even with the face of the piece of dowell.

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The box is now ready to paint. Note: When using signs for your build, sand the sign material thoroughly and remove as much of the original ink as possible.....it will bleed through your paintjob!

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We'll install our "shotgun shells" next, first Hot glue them in place............

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Get them all glued on nicely...............

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For extra we may drill with a 1/16" bit then run small wood screws through the tray into the shells.

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We've gotten close enough with our siphon assembly to epoxy it to the bellows, and also attach the top seed tray halves together. for the seed tray connection, we butter the halves with a thin layer of E6000 then rivet them together. Finish by clamping the free spaces together and allow to set over night.

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For the Siphon assembly we mix up a liberal ammount of epoxy, butter the inside of the top Burger Stacker lip then slide our nipple in and make sure we are square and have a 90 degree angle if we are looking across our twinkie cap at our mounting screw.

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Going for the siphon mount finally. easy instructions here, just mount to the tray half with washers and nut, hot glue for extra security.

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Once that's done we may attach our lower tray halves same as the uppers.

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With that out of the way, we may prep our radio box and tool box to mount. First we wet sand, buff, and wax them as we've done to the other parts. Then we figure exactly where we like them to sit on the trays. Next we transfer the bolt pattern to the back of the boxes, drill, and install. Nuts and washers are good enough for these, no need for hot glue.

We'll want to attach the funnel portion of our siphon piece to the radio box so it's mounted ridgid. For this we'll use a spacer of rubber material. This one is from a bicycle headlamp mount. It is a piece of spacer which comes with most handlebar mounted lamps. Note it will fit the contour of the pipe nicely.

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Easy job here, just drill through the radio box and into one side of the funnel piece. Poke a hole in the rubber piece, run a wood screw through everything until snug!

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Sorry about the super brite flash killing the photos.

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