Yay and whoops.

Today I took the scrap steel that I'd used to test my wire welder and cut it to make two legs to which I could fasten a cross bar to hold the D cell batteries in place.

The steel was cut with the angle-grinder and then drilled. I tapped two holes to 8-32. That needed an 11/6 drill bit and I know I had one. I just couldn't find it so I used the nearest and tapped them. The tapping worked and the cross bar held in place nicely.

While I was hunting for my drill bits I took a step forward and put all my spanners (wrenches) into a big plastic ammunition box then I took the screwdrivers out of my drill bits box and put them in the now empty box. Now I have separate boxes for drill bits/taps and screwdrivers. Given the bulky nature of screwdrivers, if I buy more, they might end up in a bigger box too.

Having cut the steel, drilled, tapped and spray painted it, I put it in place. 

It will definitely hold the batteries in place. I'll need a crosspoint screwdriver to remove the batteries but that's fine. They're the batteries for the door lock and I do not anticipate changing them more than once a year. That part of the system is now very tidy and completed. The cross bar is a piece of brass that I bought for a purpose that I cannot recall and which never got used. I'll just regard that as a successful project that cost no extra money.

I looked at the timer relay and other relay that I had to work out how to wire so that the light would go off after a minute or so and really didn't feel like working it all out. What I had in place - an on-off pushbutton switch works. The relay thing would be a great idea but I just didn't feel like working on it. While I have the relays and spent money on them, I probably will just keep them to one side and proceed on with just the switch. There's a lot to be said for KISS (keep it stupid simple). 

After that I found out again why I rarely work on two projects in a day. I found some wood to cut to make a baffle around the back of the switch. The plan was to glue it around the switch and screw a metal plate over it so the back of the switch is protected from things banging around as they're thrown in the closet. 

My 45 degree cut wasn't quite 45 degrees. That was the first clue that it was time to finish for the day. Still, it could have been used. I sprayed the wood white and the spray just didn't dry like it did on the metal - possibly because the temperature had dropped some. 

While the paint was almost dry, I went inside and put cable wrap over the wire from the battery and light to the switch. Then I clamped a slightly sticky painted block to the bench outside to cut a cable groove, after of course knocking the pair of blocks off the spray cans they were sitting on to cure straight down the stairs onto the ground.

So I cut the cable groove. And cut it in the wrong place. That means the cutting, painting etc was all in vain. I'll start afresh with a new piece of wood next weekend.  

The groove looks great but should have been in the other piece of wood. 

Once I have the little protector installed around the back of the swtch and the wire conduit fastened into place I'll be able to call and end on operations inside the closet. I should be working on brake lines next weekend anyway. I want to get the length from the engine to the differential done and the bit around the differential done too. I still have a couple of things to work on under the hood that I'm not 100% happy with yet.