Letdown but Progress

Tonight was a time of great nervousness and anticipation.  I was finally going to drill a hole in one of my shiny kettles.  Instead, all I managed to do was dig halfway through the kettle wall because my drill battery died.  So I get to continue to be worried that I will somehow mess it up until tomorrow.  I did get all of the holes marked that need to be drilled.  There are 5 total and each one is going to take awhile.  The kettle does not like to be drilled and the going is very slow.

Since I couldn't drill, I decided to work on my temperature probes and I managed to finish one that I started a couple months ago.  The most annoying part of putting these together is putting the second layer of expandable sleeving over the wires.  The two sleeves just continually grab each other and make life difficult.  I was expecting the soldering of the very small wires to be more difficult, but I made quick work of it.  Now when I manage to drill through my boil kettle and punch the hole for the temp probe I will be able to test fit the probe in the kettle wall!

Control Panel and the Elements

After a week of work I am almost done wiring the control panel.  I have 4 wires left to run, but I am waiting for some ring terminals to arrive in the mail so I can finish.  I tried to keep the wires somewhat orderly, but I'm sure some electrical pros would say this is a rats nest.

I also got some work done on the heating element enclosures.  The front plates have been attached to the gang boxes with JB Weld.  They are drying as I type this.  The next step in the process for these is probably the most daunting of the entire build.  It isn't daunting because it is technically difficult, but because it requires drilling a hole in two of my brand new shiny kettles.  No pressure.

For my brew stand I decided to just use some heavy duty shelving rather than build a stand out of wood or metal.  The box is sitting in the garage waiting to be assembled.  With the control panel almost finished and the other aspects of this build moving along, I can feel the end of the project coming.  It is exciting and I am very eager to power it up and brew for the first time.