**Building Project Nightlight: A Comprehensive Guide**

After completing the welding process, the builder is pleased with the outcome and takes a moment to admire their handiwork from the side view. The custom design makes it difficult for anyone to access the bolts on the side of the light bar, which was a key feature in securing the rig.

**Securing the Light Bar**

The metal post fits nicely into its designated spot, and the builder has ensured that it is securely bolted down to the truck bed using a specialized drill bit. The holes were drilled on both sides of the post to accommodate the bolts, providing added stability to the entire setup. By taking these extra precautions, the builder has made sure that Project Nightlight will be safe and secure.

**Preparation for Painting**

Before applying paint, the builder takes the time to thoroughly clean and scuff up all surfaces using sandpaper. A dust mask is essential during this process to prevent inhaling metal particles. Next, alcohol is used to wipe down the entire frame, removing any dirt or debris that may interfere with the paint's adhesion. This meticulous prep work ensures a strong bond between the herky liner and the metal surface.

**Painting Project Nightlight**

The final step before painting was applying xylene, a specialized cleaning solution that prepares the surface for the herky liner. After wiping down the frame once more, the builder is ready to apply the first coat of paint using a combination of brushes and rollers. The process is surprisingly easy, and the result is a smooth, even finish. A second coat is applied 24 hours later, resulting in an exceptional-looking finish that provides rust protection and durability.

**The Final Result**

With the painting complete, the builder is eager to install Project Nightlight on their truck. They take pride in their handiwork and are excited to show off the finished product. The herky liner has proven itself to be a worthwhile investment, providing excellent rust resistance and a durable finish that will withstand the rigors of outdoor use. As the final touches are applied, it's clear that Project Nightlight is ready for its debut.

**Conclusion**

Throughout this comprehensive guide, we've seen the meticulous attention to detail and care that goes into building a custom light bar like Project Nightlight. From welding to painting, every step was carefully considered to ensure a safe, secure, and durable setup. Whether you're a seasoned DIY enthusiast or just starting out, these instructions offer valuable insight into the process of creating your own high-quality lighting solution. By following along with this guide, you'll be well on your way to crafting a custom light bar that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey guys chris fix here back with part two of project nightlight if you missed part one stop here and go find the link in the video description and then when you're done watching part one come back and check out part two right now i'm finishing up some welds i couldn't get to on my truck so let's pick up where we left off i started welding up end caps on everything that is opened i need to still grind it all down but it's just flat pieces of metal that block it off just so that water can't get in so all the tubing is capped off and i did something a little bit different for the front i made a little point here so when it wind hits this it doesn't make a howling noise it's also you know deflected up and down i don't know if that's going to really make a difference but i just took the square tubing and i cut it like that put it right here tack welded it in and then weld it up here cut a little triangle out here welded that up i'm gonna do the same thing to this side but before i do that i'm gonna just finish up we've got this little piece of metal here capping that off and i think all the ends yeah it looks like all the ends will be capped off then i could start grinding down all the ends make all the welds look nice and smooth nice and clean just for aesthetics and then we'll mount up our light bar brackets right here and right on that side and we'll test fit the light bar and then we'll paint we're almost done really simple ugly welds just get it in place they're all going to be ground down anyway and i'm going to go cut this off right now whew that melted my glove now let's cap off this last tube in the front we have our angled cap and tack weld it right up just like that hmm i have to grind this down a little for now just because it looks so bad that it's bothering me okay so light bar is gonna go right here so i'm gonna have to make some brackets that come out right here and right here so here's what the bracket's gonna look like i'm gonna weld it up right there and then i'll have two holes drilled for the light bar when we figure out where that's going to be so just to try to get it flat i'm going to use this other piece of metal and that'll make sure the mats will be level as i tack it into place tack it into place finish welding it okay so we got the top welded up here weld up the sides and get the bottom and then we'll go to the other one i finished up welding on this side and the bracket is completely secure in place we'll go to the other side check out this bracket which is also welded in place now we're gonna go drill some holes so we can mount the light bar but first let's put it on the truck to mark up where the holes are gonna be okay everything is on the truck set up so we can put our light bar on there looks really good if we look at our picture you can see we have everything done except that top bar that goes across with that little piece of metal and that's to protect the light bar but i want to put the light bar on and actually mount it so that we know how high we want that protector bar to be okay so here's our light bar i want to show you so there's two bolts that go in here so we're gonna have to mark the location of these two screw holes that we wanna drill and drill them on the mounts that we made okay that looks awesome just give you an idea of how it's mounting up this is how the light sits on the mount to make marks for those bolt holes what i did was i just bent the nail and then i'm just gonna scrape the metal in the hole just gonna get in here just scrape the metal and do the same thing for the other side and that'll give me marks i'll do the same thing for the other bolt holes and we'll see where those marks are and then we'll drill them out okay so i used a marker so you could actually see it on camera where we made those marks and that's where i need to drill here's the bolt that comes with the light i'm going to use this size drill bit which is a little bit bigger than the bolt and i'll start with a smaller drill bit to start the hole try to get a punch in here so the drill bit doesn't bounce around so you saw i went from a punch to indent the metal to a small drill bit that will make the first hole and then to a large drill bit to make the large hole so that'll fit right in there no problem let's go from this side and get that side done okay it's all drilled out let's go mount the light bar and let's weld the protector for the bar so tree branches and stuff won't hit it there we go perfect the other side fits in as well and this is coming along beautifully so now we're going to do the protector bar that goes over the light bar like that we have four posts to support the bar one goes there one goes there and the other two go in the back corners and then the top bar goes across just like that and that'll prevent branches and stuff like that from hitting the light from above and i'm really liking how this looks i'm gonna go tack weld this in place but just so you get an idea of what it'll look like so there will be a leg here a bar coming up to the front a leg here and a bar going across same thing for the other side so let's go weld this together we'll remove the light bar obviously we don't want to weld with that in place so we did that one come over here let's weld this one with one side welded down i'll weld down the other three sides with the post welded in i'll weld the top bar just get it in place and pull the trigger now i'll weld the other side and we'll cut off the end and smooth it out okay with it all welded up let's see how it looks that is perfect look at that almost done we have four more bars to weld and then we're ready for paint let's weld in the right rear post now we could weld in the top bar starting from the front and then welding the rear i move back and forth between the front and the rear to prevent the bar from warping due to the heat from welding now i'll grind everything smooth so it looks good and we can move to the left side again welding that rear post completely lay the top bar on and weld it in the front first then move to the rear and finally grind down the weld so they look good all right look at this that looks awesome this is just coming out really nice i'm going to just fill out the ends here get little caps weld them in and then we're ready for paint at the last minute i decided to weld in plates right next to the light bar to make it hard to get to the light bar and the bolts on the side of the light bar i don't want anybody stealing this so anything to make it more difficult will help so now that we're all done welding i really like how everything came out here's a good view from the side to see my plates welded in let's see what it looks like with the light bar the light bar fits nicely you see my design really makes it difficult to get to the bolts on the side of the light which is what i want it also looks pretty good and goes with the flow of the design now let's take the light bar off and have one more thing i want to do okay one thing i want to do the metal post goes down into the post hole and there's a small hole already in the bed from the factory to give me access to our metal post what i need to do is drill a hole in each post so that we could add a bolt and bolt this whole rig down right to the truck i'm drilling both the right side and the left side okay both of those holes are drilled out to 3 8 let's go tap them tapping the hole is pretty simple just make sure you're holding the tap square so that it goes in straight and also turn it slowly you just need a little bit of pressure and it'll start to drill in there and carve out a thread for your bolt let's take the tap out so now we'll verify that this fits good now let's tap the other side again make sure it's nice and square you will feel resistance to start which means the threads are getting carved into the metal so that's good now let's take the tap out and make sure the bolt fits we'll make sure that the bolt fits beautiful there we go now this will be securely mounted into the truck okay project nightlight is coming along everything is done all the cutting welding and grinding now we're on to painting we're using herky liner it has a black textured durable finish which i think will look good this is made for truck beds so it won't scratch or chip and it also bonds to the metal nicely so the first thing we need to do is get some sandpaper and scuff up all the metal you want to make sure you use a dust mask when you're doing this so you don't breathe in all the metal dust so we have these nice deep scratch marks in here it's all scuffed up now we're going to use some alcohol and just wipe down the whole frame i want to try to get this as clean and dust free as possible so that was just the top of the rail we're going to have a lot of cleaning to do make sure you take your time whenever you're prepping for paint when painting it's all about the prep work so do it right last step before we paint the whole thing is to use xylene you can get this at your local hardware store it just makes sure that the surface is perfectly prepped for that herculiner again wipe down everything make sure it's clean so the paint bonds nice and strong to the metal all right now let's open up the paint stir it up really good and pour it into our container the first step is to use a paint brush and get all the joints where the roller can't reach so i got all the joints now i'm going to be using a roller and we'll finish the rest of this first coat this is as easy as it looks you just roll on the herky liner and make sure you cover all the bare spots great now we'll wait till the paint gets tacky and then we'll apply a second coat one hour later let's do our second coat and finish this up i don't know how it looks on camera but the finish looks great in real life and now we're gonna let it dry overnight oh baby look at this 24 hours later this is looking awesome i'm really excited to put this on the truck i'm going to give you a few quick close-ups and i'm putting it on the truck i'm just too excited the finish looks great feels durable and most of all it'll provide rust protection which is what we need the moment we've all been waiting for let's see what it looks like on the truck so well i hope you enjoyed the build as much as i did and i hope it was inspiring for you to get out there and make something yourself let me know what you think of the final product i know i really like how it came out but it'd be cool to hear what you guys think and as always remember to give the video a thumbs up and hit that subscribe button if you aren't already subscribed the last video of the build is going to be how to wire the light bar properly and in that video you'll get to see how project nightlight got its namehey guys chris fix here back with part two of project nightlight if you missed part one stop here and go find the link in the video description and then when you're done watching part one come back and check out part two right now i'm finishing up some welds i couldn't get to on my truck so let's pick up where we left off i started welding up end caps on everything that is opened i need to still grind it all down but it's just flat pieces of metal that block it off just so that water can't get in so all the tubing is capped off and i did something a little bit different for the front i made a little point here so when it wind hits this it doesn't make a howling noise it's also you know deflected up and down i don't know if that's going to really make a difference but i just took the square tubing and i cut it like that put it right here tack welded it in and then weld it up here cut a little triangle out here welded that up i'm gonna do the same thing to this side but before i do that i'm gonna just finish up we've got this little piece of metal here capping that off and i think all the ends yeah it looks like all the ends will be capped off then i could start grinding down all the ends make all the welds look nice and smooth nice and clean just for aesthetics and then we'll mount up our light bar brackets right here and right on that side and we'll test fit the light bar and then we'll paint we're almost done really simple ugly welds just get it in place they're all going to be ground down anyway and i'm going to go cut this off right now whew that melted my glove now let's cap off this last tube in the front we have our angled cap and tack weld it right up just like that hmm i have to grind this down a little for now just because it looks so bad that it's bothering me okay so light bar is gonna go right here so i'm gonna have to make some brackets that come out right here and right here so here's what the bracket's gonna look like i'm gonna weld it up right there and then i'll have two holes drilled for the light bar when we figure out where that's going to be so just to try to get it flat i'm going to use this other piece of metal and that'll make sure the mats will be level as i tack it into place tack it into place finish welding it okay so we got the top welded up here weld up the sides and get the bottom and then we'll go to the other one i finished up welding on this side and the bracket is completely secure in place we'll go to the other side check out this bracket which is also welded in place now we're gonna go drill some holes so we can mount the light bar but first let's put it on the truck to mark up where the holes are gonna be okay everything is on the truck set up so we can put our light bar on there looks really good if we look at our picture you can see we have everything done except that top bar that goes across with that little piece of metal and that's to protect the light bar but i want to put the light bar on and actually mount it so that we know how high we want that protector bar to be okay so here's our light bar i want to show you so there's two bolts that go in here so we're gonna have to mark the location of these two screw holes that we wanna drill and drill them on the mounts that we made okay that looks awesome just give you an idea of how it's mounting up this is how the light sits on the mount to make marks for those bolt holes what i did was i just bent the nail and then i'm just gonna scrape the metal in the hole just gonna get in here just scrape the metal and do the same thing for the other side and that'll give me marks i'll do the same thing for the other bolt holes and we'll see where those marks are and then we'll drill them out okay so i used a marker so you could actually see it on camera where we made those marks and that's where i need to drill here's the bolt that comes with the light i'm going to use this size drill bit which is a little bit bigger than the bolt and i'll start with a smaller drill bit to start the hole try to get a punch in here so the drill bit doesn't bounce around so you saw i went from a punch to indent the metal to a small drill bit that will make the first hole and then to a large drill bit to make the large hole so that'll fit right in there no problem let's go from this side and get that side done okay it's all drilled out let's go mount the light bar and let's weld the protector for the bar so tree branches and stuff won't hit it there we go perfect the other side fits in as well and this is coming along beautifully so now we're going to do the protector bar that goes over the light bar like that we have four posts to support the bar one goes there one goes there and the other two go in the back corners and then the top bar goes across just like that and that'll prevent branches and stuff like that from hitting the light from above and i'm really liking how this looks i'm gonna go tack weld this in place but just so you get an idea of what it'll look like so there will be a leg here a bar coming up to the front a leg here and a bar going across same thing for the other side so let's go weld this together we'll remove the light bar obviously we don't want to weld with that in place so we did that one come over here let's weld this one with one side welded down i'll weld down the other three sides with the post welded in i'll weld the top bar just get it in place and pull the trigger now i'll weld the other side and we'll cut off the end and smooth it out okay with it all welded up let's see how it looks that is perfect look at that almost done we have four more bars to weld and then we're ready for paint let's weld in the right rear post now we could weld in the top bar starting from the front and then welding the rear i move back and forth between the front and the rear to prevent the bar from warping due to the heat from welding now i'll grind everything smooth so it looks good and we can move to the left side again welding that rear post completely lay the top bar on and weld it in the front first then move to the rear and finally grind down the weld so they look good all right look at this that looks awesome this is just coming out really nice i'm going to just fill out the ends here get little caps weld them in and then we're ready for paint at the last minute i decided to weld in plates right next to the light bar to make it hard to get to the light bar and the bolts on the side of the light bar i don't want anybody stealing this so anything to make it more difficult will help so now that we're all done welding i really like how everything came out here's a good view from the side to see my plates welded in let's see what it looks like with the light bar the light bar fits nicely you see my design really makes it difficult to get to the bolts on the side of the light which is what i want it also looks pretty good and goes with the flow of the design now let's take the light bar off and have one more thing i want to do okay one thing i want to do the metal post goes down into the post hole and there's a small hole already in the bed from the factory to give me access to our metal post what i need to do is drill a hole in each post so that we could add a bolt and bolt this whole rig down right to the truck i'm drilling both the right side and the left side okay both of those holes are drilled out to 3 8 let's go tap them tapping the hole is pretty simple just make sure you're holding the tap square so that it goes in straight and also turn it slowly you just need a little bit of pressure and it'll start to drill in there and carve out a thread for your bolt let's take the tap out so now we'll verify that this fits good now let's tap the other side again make sure it's nice and square you will feel resistance to start which means the threads are getting carved into the metal so that's good now let's take the tap out and make sure the bolt fits we'll make sure that the bolt fits beautiful there we go now this will be securely mounted into the truck okay project nightlight is coming along everything is done all the cutting welding and grinding now we're on to painting we're using herky liner it has a black textured durable finish which i think will look good this is made for truck beds so it won't scratch or chip and it also bonds to the metal nicely so the first thing we need to do is get some sandpaper and scuff up all the metal you want to make sure you use a dust mask when you're doing this so you don't breathe in all the metal dust so we have these nice deep scratch marks in here it's all scuffed up now we're going to use some alcohol and just wipe down the whole frame i want to try to get this as clean and dust free as possible so that was just the top of the rail we're going to have a lot of cleaning to do make sure you take your time whenever you're prepping for paint when painting it's all about the prep work so do it right last step before we paint the whole thing is to use xylene you can get this at your local hardware store it just makes sure that the surface is perfectly prepped for that herculiner again wipe down everything make sure it's clean so the paint bonds nice and strong to the metal all right now let's open up the paint stir it up really good and pour it into our container the first step is to use a paint brush and get all the joints where the roller can't reach so i got all the joints now i'm going to be using a roller and we'll finish the rest of this first coat this is as easy as it looks you just roll on the herky liner and make sure you cover all the bare spots great now we'll wait till the paint gets tacky and then we'll apply a second coat one hour later let's do our second coat and finish this up i don't know how it looks on camera but the finish looks great in real life and now we're gonna let it dry overnight oh baby look at this 24 hours later this is looking awesome i'm really excited to put this on the truck i'm going to give you a few quick close-ups and i'm putting it on the truck i'm just too excited the finish looks great feels durable and most of all it'll provide rust protection which is what we need the moment we've all been waiting for let's see what it looks like on the truck so well i hope you enjoyed the build as much as i did and i hope it was inspiring for you to get out there and make something yourself let me know what you think of the final product i know i really like how it came out but it'd be cool to hear what you guys think and as always remember to give the video a thumbs up and hit that subscribe button if you aren't already subscribed the last video of the build is going to be how to wire the light bar properly and in that video you'll get to see how project nightlight got its name\n"