Boxing clever

As I have removed the kitchen unit from my van, I needed somewhere to store the leisure battery. I had originally thought of having it in the same place in the van - behind the drivers seat - but as our greyhound Ally is a bit of a fidget and a mountaineer when in the van I decided against it. She would only use it to climb on to see out of the windscreen!

So it was to be moved to the back. I still needed to box it up though so into the shed and many pieces of offcut MDF were found. Luckily most are the same thickness and size.

Easy enough job, simple box with a second skin at one end to fit the fuse box. All edges rounded over with my new favourite tool, the router.

I found some interesting fixings while I was figuring out how to make it nice though. Like these captive threaded inserts. Simply drill a suitable pilot hole and screw the insert into the wood.

The centre of the insert is threaded (M6 in this case) which means I can use my nice M6 countersunk allen bolts that I have used elsewhere on the van - cohesion of thought I believe it's called!

Next up was an access hole for the fuse box. Not enough for installation work but enough to remove the box lid if a fuse pops.

And finally a nice lid for the battery compartment. This was fitted using stay put hinges and a nice flush mounted lock / handle.

To be honest, with the sprung hinges keeping the lid either open or shut the lock isn't really needed, but I bought a load when I was doing the kitchen unit but never got around to using them.

And now I wanted to...

Next job is to fill the screw heads with car body filler for a smooth finish, then carpet to hide my wavy jigsaw work. Once that's done I can think about exactly where it's going, which will no doubt impact on many other ideas I have rattling around in my head.