Now that this ship is (mostly) done, I’m building out the radiobox. I’ve got some reasonable marine speakers (rain and salt resistant); the challenge is to first protect the backs of the speakers by putting them into an enclosure and second to mount them to the ship.

I bombed on down to Goodwill in Davis Square last week to scope out the pot and pan selection trying to find something suitable. That place smells funny. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any cookware that was the proper size, and the few single pots that would have fit the speakers were made of false metal (aluminum), which can’t be easily welded to steel. I ended up stopping at Target the next day and finding some cheap bowls that were the right diameter, and — bonus — they’re made of stainless steel! Weldable AND rust-resistant:

The bowls aren’t a perfect fit, but they are so close that the difference can be made up by using corner brackets:

The corner brackets were re-bent with the help of the vise so they’ll fit snugly in the bowl:

In order to finish installing the speakers into the bowls, though, I’ll need to drill holes in the bowls. I tried this, but stainless steel is very difficult to drill without a press. So that will have to wait until I have access to a drill press later this week; in the meantime I’ve marked where holes need to be made:

Over the weekend I also breadboarded out an LED blinky circuit. My rear blinky on my civvie ship has been malfunctioning and it has a broken mount. Now I can make another blinky!