Today I decided to tackle some speaker boxes. First up was the driver’s side box for the 30cal speaker. These will be blasting away using the sound board and mini-amp when I press the trigger 🙂
I decided to mount the speakers right underneath the machine guns so that it sounded like they were actually firing. First I created a template of the shape I needed, cut it out of steel and welded it into place.
After some much needed assembly work from Rob, the sound board for the 30 cals is now up and running. Everything for the board came as a kit and needed to be soldered together and this is where Rob came through big time! My soldering skills are really quite crappy 🙂
My fabrication goal over my Christmas holidays was to finish the canopy window frames, and I’m happy to say Mission Accomplished!
It ended up being an incredible amount of work, but the process got faster and faster as I moved along. I learned a bunch of tricks along the way that eventually made things move quicker. I also ended up moving from 1/4″ plywood as a backing material to 1/4″ MDF which didn’t splinter like the plywood and also had some nice flexibility.
Today I was able to finish up the canopy support skeleton. These 5/16″ bars will be fiberglassed right into the canopy shell to provide a solid/rigid frame so that the fiberglass doesn’t flex as much. It should also provide some good tie-in spots for the wiper arm supports.
You can see the two support arms that go from the skeleton out to the window frames. Once I have the frames secured, I’ll end up welding these pieces to the top of the frames as well as welding small braces from the bottom of the window frame to the bottom ridge of the skeleton. This should be a nice solid canopy piece once I’m all done.
The final part of the window frames will be creating anchor points for the bar that runs just below the top of the window which was used as a slide for the fake wipers on the movie car. Below you can see an up-close photo of what I’m talking about from the 92 Batman Returns car. Once I have these anchor points (which should just be a couple of nuts) welded into the frame, I’ll glue the backing of the window frames to the canopy and do the welding of the tie-ins with the skeleton.
I decided to brave the -19 degree Celsius weather today and try and finish up the drivers side window frame. I was only able to stay out in the garage for about 2.5 hours before turning into a Popsicle, but I did manage to finish the frame!
Once I finished the drivers frame I started building the bottom canopy support for the passenger side. I was able to get it all welded into place and added the support screw to allow me to remove the window.
Saturday and Sunday sound like they are going to be a bit warmer with temperatures around -2 degrees. Hopefully I’ll be able to stay out there longer and get more accomplished. I would really like to be able to finish the canopy window frames before going back to work on Monday.
Oh, and I thought you might like these little gems that I picked up. I’m always welding in spots where I can’t get light, and holding a flash light when you need both your hands doesn’t work out real well. These were call “mine” lights. They have magnets all over them and LED lights. I thought they had a very Batman-esk look to them 🙂
Building The BatBerry 