Reinforcing: Leather case to carry a motorcycle battery

[Littlef]

Working on an odd project.  I'm gonna make a leather case to carry a motorcycle battery, with a shoulder strap.  I'm picturing the aesthetic of a civil war era cartridge box.  I'm planning on using 9-10oz leather.  Its a fair amount of weight.  Do you think I need to reinforce it with a strap going underneath?  I'm a little concerned about stressing the seams over time, if its not reinforced.

[Handstitched]

How heavy is the battery ? around 1 -1.5 kg?  I'd be going with my gut and reinforce it.  But yes, it will be heavy on your shoulder, you may even wish to  make a shoulder pad of some sort . And, batteries having acid in them, I'd be putting plenty of sealer or waxes  or both on the threads. 

HS

[Littlef]

46 minutes ago, Handstitched said:

How heavy is the battery ? around 1 -1.5 kg?  I'd be going with my gut and reinforce it.  But yes, it will be heavy on your shoulder, you may even wish to  make a shoulder pad of some sort . And, batteries having acid in them, I'd be putting plenty of sealer or waxes  or both on the threads. 

HS

Its about 7.5lbs which is 3.4 Kg.  I was planning on sealing the leather good, and also putting some sort of plastic bag/liner around the battery for a little extra protection.  I always wax my thread, but putting a little extra on the interior seams wouldn't be a bad idea either.  I'll work the design using some reinforcing straps.  The shoulder pad isn't a bad Idea either, although I'm not really planning on toting it around any great distance.  I appreciate the suggestions.  thanks.

[fredk]

55 minutes ago, Handstitched said:

. And, batteries having acid in them, I'd be putting plenty of sealer or waxes  or both on the threads. 

The OP can tell us, but nearly all modern motorcycle batteries are totally sealed for life. Thus they don't spill acid when a motorcycle goes topside

I would put two straps around the case in a + shape with the ends of one making your carrying strap

I used to have a case of this sort for carrying extremely heavy dry cell batteries and a very large condenser for a portable camera flash unit. The gubbins for inside weighed about 6 lbs. The case was about 8 inches by 4 inches and 6 inches tall. Very thick leather, 3 straps around the body and a separate carrying strap held on by loops and D rings on the back

[Handstitched]

5 hours ago, fredk said:

The OP can tell us, but nearly all modern motorcycle batteries are totally sealed for life. Thus they don't spill acid when a motorcycle goes topside

Thats a bonus  

[Littlef]

9 hours ago, fredk said:

The OP can tell us, but nearly all modern motorcycle batteries are totally sealed for life. Thus they don't spill acid when a motorcycle goes topside

I would put two straps around the case in a + shape with the ends of one making your carrying strap

I used to have a case of this sort for carrying extremely heavy dry cell batteries and a very large condenser for a portable camera flash unit. The gubbins for inside weighed about 6 lbs. The case was about 8 inches by 4 inches and 6 inches tall. Very thick leather, 3 straps around the body and a separate carrying strap held on by loops and D rings on the back

yea, its a modern sealed battery.   - That sounds like the right direction.  I'll work it up with 2 bands going around it, and the carry strap looping under and going through the two perpendicular bands.  Glad I didn't try to make it without the extra support.   - Thanks for the suggestions

[chuck123wapati]

i have an old leather bullet pouch it was made  by using one piece for the front back and bottom with the sides sewn in. That would be plenty strong to hold a battery in 10 oz. as the weak point is the seam which wouldn't have pressure on it being a side panel and not the bottom panel.

[Littlef]

11 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

i have an old leather bullet pouch it was made  by using one piece for the front back and bottom with the sides sewn in. That would be plenty strong to hold a battery in 10 oz. as the weak point is the seam which wouldn't have pressure on it being a side panel and not the bottom panel.

Thanks chuck, that's basically how I was going to approach the construction.  One long rectangle to loop around the battery, and then sew the sides in place. appreciate it.

[Doc Reaper]

Pictures speak volumes, what is the battery really for, does it weigh about 7 pounds??? I'd also add a couple of 1/4 inch screw post as insurance on each of the four sides (8 screw post total). An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure, plus it will look better.

[Littlef]

53 minutes ago, Doc Reaper said:

Pictures speak volumes, what is the battery really for, does it weigh about 7 pounds??? I'd also add a couple of 1/4 inch screw post as insurance on each of the four sides (8 screw post total). An ounce of prevention is a pound of cure, plus it will look better.

 

standard sized motorcycle battery.  Its about 7.5 lbs.    That's a good idea.  Adding a couple rivets or screw posts would probably make it bullet proof.  Cool, thanks!

[Littlef]

16 minutes ago, Littlef said:

 

standard sized motorcycle battery.  Its about 7.5 lbs.    That's a good idea.  Adding a couple rivets or screw posts would probably make it bullet proof.  Cool, thanks!

Oh, and sorry.... the battery is to fire a replica Civil War Mortar that I built.  After I built it, I was reading the fine details of the regulations where I planned to fire it.  I caught that there is a prohibition against anything fired by lighting a fuse. (I assume that is to prohibit people lighting fireworks.)  So I reworked it, and modified model rocket igniters to fire it.  Using battery power is definitely an anachronism, but ....Need to stay legal.  I want to make this, so the aesthetic, at least visually, goes with the era.  

[fredk]

That looks the size of a car battery! I'm used to motorcycle batteries being much smaller, weighing just a couple of pounds. Do you really need so much power?

[chuck123wapati]

man that sounds really cool.   I'm thinking like Fred estes rocket ignitors only take 4 aa batteries from what i remember. piezo ignitors can be bought also or scavenged off of old barbeques. we used to use them for our potatoe guns lol.

[Littlef]

20 minutes ago, fredk said:

That looks the size of a car battery! I'm used to motorcycle batteries being much smaller, weighing just a couple of pounds. Do you really need so much power?

This is no where near the size of a car battery.  There's more than one way to skin a cat.  I could do it with a lessor battery, but I have this as an extra battery for my motorcycle, and its rechargeable.  I'm not hiking with this all day.  Its basically just taking it from the car and walking 30 yards out into a field.  

[chuck123wapati]

duh i was thinking gas on the piezo ignitors don't mind me I'm old i doubt they would work reliably on pyrodex.

[Littlef]

10 minutes ago, chuck123wapati said:

man that sounds really cool.   I'm thinking like Fred estes rocket ignitors only take 4 aa batteries from what i remember. piezo ignitors can be bought also or scavenged off of old barbeques. we used to use them for our potatoe guns lol.

Yea its a good time.  It can lob a concrete filled coke can (about 2 pounds) about 300 yards with 200 grains of black powder.  I'm slowly scaling up the charge.  I put together this little video of it being fired last time I went out.  You can skip ahead a bit and not listen to me talk to just see it fired

 

Edited September 6, 2023 by Littlef

[Doc Reaper]

Saw the canon, well damn!

[Littlef]

6 minutes ago, Doc Reaper said:

Saw the canon, well damn!

 

It makes for a highly entertaining day.

 

[Burkhardt]

I expected by the time I got this far into the thread that Frodo would have had a insane story or video. @Littlef look forward to seeing the carrier when done.

[TomE]

Reminds me of a grownup version of the tennis ball cannons we built as kids, powered by lighter fluid.  One idea for the case is to incorporate 1/4" plywood in the bottom to prevent sag.  A number of the larger cases in Stohlman's book have wooden reinforcements, usually sandwiched between leather layers.  Is this an AGM type battery?

[Littlef]

1 hour ago, TomE said:

Reminds me of a grownup version of the tennis ball cannons we built as kids, powered by lighter fluid.  One idea for the case is to incorporate 1/4" plywood in the bottom to prevent sag.  A number of the larger cases in Stohlman's book have wooden reinforcements, usually sandwiched between leather layers.  Is this an AGM type battery?

The battery is agm.  I think plywood might be way too thick for this size bag.  I was contemplating on adding a piece of Formica; however, the battery itself is a hard plastic box. I'm not sure that adding another layer really changes the equation.

[fredk]

If the case is made tight to the battery, the thick leather and straps underneath should be sufficient to prevent any 'sag', (imo)

[chuck123wapati]

On 9/7/2023 at 9:41 PM, Burkhardt said:

I expected by the time I got this far into the thread that Frodo would have had a insane story or video. @Littlef look forward to seeing the carrier when done.

lol do you remember being able to buy m80's and cherry bombs at the fireworks stand as a kid? our mortar was a piece of pipe buried about two feet into the ground with a pop can full of sand as the ammo, we would drop in the m80 then the can then run like heck because the pipe was pretty much straight up.

[Littlef]

1 hour ago, chuck123wapati said:

lol do you remember being able to buy m80's and cherry bombs at the fireworks stand as a kid? our mortar was a piece of pipe buried about two feet into the ground with a pop can full of sand as the ammo, we would drop in the m80 then the can then run like heck because the pipe was pretty much straight up.

lol, that's funny -- that's not too far off from the mortar I built.  Growing up, I couldn't ever find m80's in my area, so we'd put a few m60's together.  Doing plenty of nonsense that we shouldn't have been doing.

[fredk]

deviation; I think the very dangerous thing I/we used to do as youngster would be called a 'mortar'

Here, the real fireworks had long fuzes, which gave you 20 to 30 seconds to do anything.We got a length of plastic water pipe. Stuffed a 'sky rocket' firework down it. On top of that we put a paper cup or paper cone filled with fire-crackers. We lit the fuzes on the fire-crackers or other small fireworks. Then one of held the pipe as another lit the fuze on the sky-rocket. The tube was hastily shoved into a bucket of sand or soil, at an angle off from vertical but close to. The sky-rocket fuze had been cut short so it would go off well before the fire-crackers. If all worked well the skyrocket launched taking the paper cup up and as it exploded it sent the fire-crackers flying out, and then they went off, whirling and twisting as each section exploded. Sometimes, one of us (usually me)  had to hold the bottom of the pipe to stop it falling over, and sometimes (a lot of times, ) the fireworks didn't go skywards but dropped on to somebody's house roof 

PS. as my friends knew I was from Chicago they gave me the nickname 'Chicargo Chuck-a-boom'

Edited September 9, 2023 by fredk