I finally made a decision on the battery for this, and where I'm going to locate things like the RICE & recharge ports, and did some work to it yesterday.
I drilled a hole for the recharge port in both the brass tube and the MHS threaded section that holds the pommel:
Also shown there is the speaker mount I made for this. There is very little room between the speaker and the recharge port, so I will not be able to use a bass style speaker in this one.
I cut, drilled, and tapped a pvc c-clip for the recharge port and fit it inside the MHS section:
Once installed, irt will line right up with the hole in the main body tube:
The c-clip was also drilled and tapped for 8-32 threads in corresponding holes to the CT button screw and the opposing brass button head that secure the MHS section inside the brass tube.
Since my plan is to drill the brass mps insert to house the RICE port, I need to be able to get wires past the speaker. I have found it is easier to to do that by mounting the speaker on the backside of the pvc mounts I make:
More on that later....
This is the battery I chose to try out in this one:
It is a Tenergy 26650, 3.7v, 4000mAh unprotected cell. I'll add a pcb and it'll be good to go!
I soldered the pcb to the battery terminals, added the necessary wiring, and put a piece of thin rubber material underneath to prevent shorting should the solder points manage to gouge or otherwise damage the battery's pvc jacket:
I then wrapped it in polyolefin tubing (this is the rubberized heatshrink, not the pvc type I usually use on smaller packs.)
This battery is going to fit snugly inside the brass sinktube and I wanted to make sure there was no chance of it possibly shorting against the sidewall of the tube. There is plenty of room between the cell and the I.D. of the tube for wires to pass by, and probably enough gap that some foam lining may be in order to prevent the battery from moving.