Battery hanger completed.

After a hearty breakfast of American delicacies about which my waistline is already complaining, I looked at the weather. The forecast for the week is fine - if you’re a duck! It seems to be cold and wet. There’s a 30% chance of rain for today which I hoped would not materialize.

Anyway, I got out there as soon as the temperature picked up. It was so cold even the pit bull didn’t want to go outside! Fortunately as I’d done all the hard work before, it was just a case of completing the welding and adding a couple of places where a battery clamp could be attached. From looking at the way car batteries are secured, there seems to be some kind of metal bracket holding down the battery and secured to two loops on the battery compartment base via what looks like two J hooks with a threaded portion at the top with a wing nut. I should be able to pick up the J hooks easily enough. I think I’ve seen them advertised. If not then I’m pretty sure I can rig up something similar. The top bracket isn’t hard to fabricate either.

After struggling with my 3/32 welding rods I eventually gave up on them and went for my 1/16th rods. What a difference! They were so easy to use. I had to use twice or three times the quantity and my welds look a bit blobby as a result but they’re good welds. After finishing the last weld I picked up my completed construction and dropped it on the ground. It went thud. If it had gone thud-ding then I’d have known there was something not properly welded.

I’d have liked to have cleaned up the welds a little but couldn’t find my small grindstones - I have some that fit in my pistol drill. No matter - I don’t think the roughnesses will have any effect on seating the battery.

The problem with my Harbor Freight 70A welder is that it’s underpowered for 3/32 rods. I should have paid a little extra and had the 90A welder instead. That would have made all the difference. Having said that, for my purposes, I really don’t need anything massive. My welds don’t have to look pretty - they just have to function. Similarly, the least I spend the better given the fact I have to earn every penny I spend. It’s not like I have a sugar daddy out there.

My Harbor Freight protective gear is pretty darned good. I went cheap the first time around with a non-adjustable welding helmet. While it worked well enough in full sunlight (as long as there was no light behind me), it really didn’t help all that much. I was welding blind. I’d advise anybody to use the Harbor Freight stuff.

One of the things I’m very glad I bought is my digital infrared thermometer. Mine tops out at about 250F and just says “Hi” rather than giving me the actual temperature of the work. That’s perfectly fine though. I could have bought a thermometer that went to 1,000F but really there wasn’t much point. There’s precious little difference between welded steel that’s at 997F and 200F. Touching either is going to burn pretty badly. There just wasn’t much point in knowing any temperature over 100F because if it’s over 100F I’m certainly not going to be touching it with my bare hands!

A few minutes after I’d welded all but the battery clamp terminations onto my battery holder, I used my digital thermometer. You can see it at the bottom left of the photo of the welded work.

As you can see, it says 157F. That’s just a little too hot for me to want to touch to be honest. I waited a good while before I touched it. That was when I did the drop test. It made a lovely thud sound. Now my original battery holder made from the old bed frame from way heavier steel was far heavier than my complete construction!

I’ve made my hanger to be suspended from eight 5/16 bolts. I figure since the battery is 20LBs and my holder is probably 10LBs then that’s 30LBs. Even if my holder weighed as much as the battery and the whole lot weighed 40LBs - which I assure you it does not - then each bolt would have to support 5LBs or in a good shock scenario, 15LBs. I’m good!

With the weather holding off, I hunted amidst my paints to find something to put on the bare steel to prevent it rusting. Clearly I’d used my rust-killing primer so I found the next best thing - a couple of cans of self-etching primer. I sprayed the whole thing with primer. Then when the top side of the primer had mostly dried (it is warmer today) I picked it up (using a plastic bag since some patches were still wet), turned it over and sprayed the rest of it with self-etching primer. I sat it on a spare piece of steel sheet while I did so.

Meanwhile I looked at my one-way valves for my air vents. They’re a really tight fit in my 4 inch tubing. I’m pretty sure I’ll have to cut the reducers out of my tubing. Fortunately I have a 4 inch hole saw so wiggling that around inside my vent tube should enlarge it enough to make my valves slide in easily.

After the paint dried or rather the primer dried, I pulled out a can of Rustoleum white spray paint. It sprayed a little then refused to spray any more - despite the can still being full. That’s pretty much my experience with spray cans, to be honest, they just don’t work half the time. The only reason I use them is because even so, it’s cheaper than using disposable paintbrushes. In the end I found another can of paint. Not a color I wanted but it’ll do as a middle-coat. I’d like to put white on it because white shows up rust well. Right now though, purple is the color. Knowing the way things go - it’s probably going to stay purple too!