Sooo it’s been a while, but I have made progress 
Pic of the deck:
not sure where the rest of them went…but adding the fiberglass went overall well. I spent SO SO much time sanding and finishing the deck, but it was worth it in the end. The only difference after what is shown is another layer of epoxy that was added and truck liner was sprayed on.
Pics of the battery in progress:
I could’ve sworn I took more pictures, but here’s what I have of the battery. I used single 1/4" tinned copper braid for the series connections over folded 0.2mm nickel. I’ve got the balance wires running off the side where I could, since I had ample space.
I had some issues with poor welds, but @TheBoardGarage set me straight with some solid advice. If you’re having issues getting solid welds on a Malectrics welder and can’t get a Kweld, this video may help.
@AK1 Gave very useful advice you can find here as well!
One really big issue I ran into was battery clearance – the enclosure would not mount with the battery inside. The DS spud enclosure wasn’t designed for double stack 20700 cells, but I thought I had measured correctly (at the front of the enclosure at the lowest point) and was sure there would be enough space.
Turns out, the enclosure has some camber to it (what?). Not sure if it somehow ended up that way over time, or if it just came like that out of the mold and I never noticed, but this created more problems, as now the battery wouldn’t fit.
To fix this, I had to gut out a channel on the underside of the deck AND cut a 1/2" solid rubber gasket for it to finally fit (sorry for the lack off pics, I’m sure I took them but I can’t find them, sorry).
Here’s what the innards look like in their final state:
(don’t ask about the right side of the gasket)
I ended up deciding to run with HFI on this as getting the sensors into the enclosure without making some permanent connections wasn’t ideal IMO, and making adapters for detachable connectors involved more work that I didn’t want to do (I wanted to get this thing up and running before the fall semester as my commuter board). So I used black Milliput to secure the connectors on:
I’ll post some more of my settings for reference later.
Now this build IS supposed to be themed after Octane, and my original plans were to have a decal of Octane on top and to frit the deck, but I decided I will go with the Katakana of Octane (オクタン) instead. I got pretty busy, so I’m not sure when I will be able to get it done yet, but the board is rideable!
** I did forget to mention, I used this 3D printed part(s) for housing the Xenith and BMS