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Hello MEPD members, here is my progress on the radio for my Field backpack. However, this will be a 2 part as I have a plan to finish the radio and place it to the lower seed trays. Items(New): Plastic cabinet feet (This will be the foundation of the radio feet. As seen it can be found in ACE) Everbilt 10-24 screws and nuts (These screws will hold the plastic cabinet feet than the ones that came with the plastic feet. This can be found in the Home Depot) Masking tape 1 mm by 1.5 mm screws and nuts (These will hold the microphone jacket in place and can be found in ACE, Im sorry I dont have an image of these screws outside of the assembly) An arbor and 2 M6 washers (The arbor[The right one] came with the sanding disk template for radar dish for my Mortar Tube and since I didn’t have the actual antenna with my radio kit but these will make it look convincing. The washers will hold the arbor both in and out of the radio and make it look like an antenna. These can be found in ACE[Again]) Binder clips Leather hole puncher Fabric scissors or rotary cutter and cutting matt (To cut the Pleather) Radio parts (This is an Idea of what crashmann gave me, even without the feet and antenna I got resourceful and you'll see scrolling down.) Clamps Black pleather (This can be found in Hobby Lobby and maybe Joann’s) Heavy Duty snaps and gromet (This can be found in Hobby Lobby and Walmart) Industrial sewing machine (I was lucky and found a work shop that had an industrial sewing machine that I could use for free and I have no experience with manually sewing leather and I can imagine it is challenging.) Gorilla glue and/or super glue (This can be found in Walmart, Home Depot, Lowes and ACE) Items(Recurring): E6000 Matt Black Paint Screwdriver Drill and drill bits Procedure: Now this was a challenge to start off but my radio kit came with 5 plastic parts to make the formation of the exterior of the radio and how that was done was I used masking tape to hold off the edges with E6000. Along with the E6000 I used metal dumbbells to keep them in place. However, I can only do one side at a time and wait till 24 hours for the E6000 to dry but I can see why that was important. This was recommended by Crashmann himself and works like a charm. Not shown(sorry again) was the completed version of the sewed on pleather with the industrial sewing machine, but you can see it here as I explore how will it be displayed on the radio box held by binder clips. The next thing I did was used a drill bit that is about half an inch long and used a round file to expand the hole that would hold that would fit the microphone jacket. With the half inch drill in my grasp I used it to poke a hole on the pleather and you can see the result on screen. After placing the Microphone jacket on the right side of the radio box I used a small drill bit to poke holes that would allow me to put screws and nut in order to hold the microphone jacket. Once that was complete I started to focus on the left side where I would need to drill in holes that would hold the AUX connectors. However After I have drilled these holes the connectors were able to fit but not completely the connectors had a little gap that wasn’t letting the connectors connect to the wall, so I used a round file to expand the hole horizontally and they fit perfectly. This drill but I have here was to place in the arbor to act as the antenna for my radio and you will see how it went later on. However, after I have drilled the hole I sprayed the rubber feet, the box, the radio faceplate, 1 of the M6 washer, the tips of the 10-24 screws and the plastic parts that would hold, elastic strap to carry the radio and the dials.(Sorry I don’t have the picture for all of them but there painted and present I assure you.) After all of the painting I got to start putting everything together on the exterior of the box and how I did it was if I was doing the right side placed the microphone jacket on the drilled pleather hole than I screwed the jacket on the wall to keep it in place. Finally I spread some gorilla glue all over the side and used binder clips, clamps, and some blocks of wood(these will come back later) to hold one side for about 24 hours and will repeat the same thing but just for the different sides.(As shown with the left side as well) Note: Crashmann did tell me there was one way to bind the pleather to the walls and that was using acetone and ABS shards. This combination is apparently very effective and has the same wait time as well 24 hours. However, I didn’t have any acetone or enough ABS shards to perfect this adhesive but I recommend if anyone wants to try that out than feel free if they don’t want to try the gorilla glue method. Finally when working on the feet this was a little more complicated than expected before painting the parts I listed I checked how long I needed the small 2 pleather straps and where they would be placed too. However, drilling the holes with a 5/16 or 5/32 drill bit to place the feet and the snaps were even more difficult and I made sure they were at least an inch away from the edge but having so much scattered holed I had to putty them up and staring again, this time accurate alignments and depictions of how it should look like. In the end the 2 pleather straps were about 2.5 inches long and an inch wide to hold the feet and snaps, drilled in new holes on the box, gluing the bottom pleather to the bottom box, poked a hole with an exacto knife for the straps and used a leather hole puncher to guide the screws and snaps onto the radio box. Here is the final result on screen. Part II of this construction will be putting the radio faceplate together and screwing the radio on to the front lower seed tray with questionable brackets I made to hold them together(when I post a picture of these brackets you’ll see why). I still want to thank crashmann for providing me such a great product to have for my sandie and I would hate to redo a finished product but at the same time I have no idea if its good or not for the Police Officer rank. I am glad how it came out, Part 3.2 and 4.1 coming soon