[Jacques Reed]

Sometimes it pays to procrastinate:

As the guy who was going to fold up my battery holder was away last week I started thinking how was I going to drill the 12 holes for the stud plates accurately?
I had originally thought I would drill them after folding the steel but it really makes no difference in what order they were done.

Marking out is one thing, and then there is getting the centre punch right on target, and then there is getting the piece right under the drill point on the drill press. Lots of variables.

Removed one variable- bought an $8 automatic centre punch. Best $8 I ever spent for the shop. Beats a hand centre punch anyday- and saves fingers!

Marking out- to avoid errors working with small distances (3/4"), and laying out 12 of them I had an idea. I layed out the position of the holes on a sheet of paper but at double the scale. Now they were 1-1/2" apart. Ditto for the position from the bottom mould line. I then used my copier and reduced the copy to 50% and checked the distances- all were spot on. Thanks Canon.
Glued the copy to the sheetmetal, centre punched the holes, drilled pilot hole, then final hole. Checked holes afterwards and I would say all are within position by less than 0.010". It should avoid having to elongate holes to fit if I ever find original stud plates to rivet to it.

Note the other handy hint I use for centering a drill at the punch mark. I use a small Dremel engraving burr to position the chuck at the punch mark. I then remove it and replace it with the drill bit(s). Lot easier for these tired 63 year old eyes!

Regards,