refurbishing my reef lights

so i had an incident with a favorite coral of mine and upon taking the canopy down and investingating my equipment i had narrowed down the problem to salt creep causing a rust builup that basicaly rotted the metal reflector from the inside out.
anyhow i had to find a new one..i found an out of service shoplight nearby stripped it down and stole its reflector.at first it didnt fit but i just laid it down and used my wieght to bend it to a proper fit.[img][/img]

and for those who may wonder about the background its the green mile.good movie
so now on to the drill.first i made some marks to where i wanted the light clamps in place and then i drill the holes.[img][/img]
i am lucky i live next to a hardware stor to get some new washers and nuts as some of these were a we bit rusty regardless of being stainless steel.better safe than sorry.[img][/img]
now to place all the light clamps in the apropriate places and tighten some screws.
oh and there were no holes made in the floor as i had a styrofoam buffer

now with all the clamps in place i need to remount the ballast.
[img][/img]
pretty simpe but i like to keep things that way.gonna just mount the PC 2*65 Watt on the back.[img][/img]
there we go.a couple of holes drilled and then grounded the ballast to the reflector and thats that.
[img][/img]

i mounted the bulbs in and fired em up..and its back in the saddle...or should i say canopy. i had to make one last adjustment to that left PC bulb but other than that it wasnt to much work for how much of a hurry i was in.[img][/img]

im just glad you didnt have to buy a new one, you are the macguyver of the hobby...

whats funny is buying one never even crossed my mind.i instantly looked to cannibalize something.i spent about $9 in nuts,bolts,and clips.all in all it went well asides from loss of some nice coral.

lol, i guess it was meant to be. think of it as making space i guess...