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Galacade (Galaga Insipred Slim MAME Cabinet) - painting advice needed
Roo:
Thank you! :cheers:
I spent a lot of time in SketchUp working out this design. Even though design choices and just general difficulty of doing a curve (for a beginner woodworker like me) almost put me off, I stuck to it because I really liked the look. I'm glad I did ;D
I'm no photographer nor writer, and I'm certainly not of a caliber to warrant trying to show off on these forums... (sideways glance at Pixel, Ond, javeryh, drventure, Knievel, Epyx, and a million other expert builders)
In fact, I've never posted like this before... but posting my work log keeps me excited to keep working on it steadily and if I can help anyone else with their build, that makes me happy. I know these forums helped me so much with my design and build!!!
Thanks all!
Roo:
Two coats of primer on, and dried for 3 days. I'll sand it down this weekend and put on 3 coats of black. Painting is so slow!!! :hissy:
opt2not:
--- Quote from: Roo on August 20, 2010, 02:06:47 pm ---Two coats of primer on, and dried for 3 days. I'll sand it down this weekend and put on 3 coats of black. Painting is so slow!!! :hissy:
--- End quote ---
Take your time on it buddy, it may be slow, but it's darn rewarding when done right.
Besides, gives me some extra time to get your artwork done! :D
Roo:
The paint job is progressing. It's funny, I just had no idea how slow it is to attempt a decent paint job. The primer is all on, cured out and (mostly) sanded down. I have to sand the underside of the CP lid.
The top of the CP lid is finsihed. I'll leave it with just sanded primer until I get the "Totally Amazing Custom Opt2Not Control Panel Overlay Design" (tm) printed and stick it on top. ;D
So I'm ready to paint the underside of the CP lid and the inside of the CP box. I'm hoping the new high density foam mini roller and my slightly improved painting skills (don't overwork the paint!!!) will make for better results this time.
And now for the big news... I've cut out a cabinet side! It's amazing how something so easy (it only took me an hour or so) seems like so much progress. I think I've been stuck working on the CP box way too long :laugh2:
Pictures soon!
Roo:
The paint job came out pretty nice. I'm going to call the CP box done, but I'll have to put at least one more coat on the bottom of the CP lid.
So I went to work on the actual cabinet. I'm still excited by how much faster this seems to go then the CP box. It's all pretty easy stuff, even for a beginner woodworker like me.
I started by drawing a bunch of dimensions on my SketchUp model and printing it out.
I traced the design onto the wood using the straight edges from the factory for the bottom and back. The rest I free-handed with my jigsaw. I also clamped a guide on and routed nice straight edges for the few places along the front that aren't curved. Once I sanded it all down I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.
I used the first side to draw the design on the second side, trimmed most of the waste away with my jigsaw and then used a pattern bit on my router to finish it up. Here it is ready for the pattern bit.
I also cut the t-molding slot all the way around at this point. Since I am laminating both the inside and outside, I just centered the slot in the 5/8" ply. The easiest way I know to do this is just eyeball the router to the right depth and test cut some scrap. Flip the scrap wood over and compare. 5 or 6 adjustments later and the router was set at the right depth for a perfectly centered slot :P
I was having problems at first figuring out how to cut out the laminate to the design. Last time I was cutting laminate for the CP box with my jigsaw and it wasn't supported well enough. That did a number on the laminate, cracking it back some places a couple inches. I was trying to get two sides out of one sheet of 4x8 laminate, so I didn't have a lot of spare to mess up ;D
The method I found which worked great for me was to sandwich the laminate between the two sides I had already cut out, clamp it all down nice and tight, and then use my router (free-hand) with a straight bit to cut out the design. No chipped edges at all, and I only had to leave an inch or so all the way around.
The mini blinds worked great for keeping the two pieces apart when it came time to glue it all up.
A quick run around the whole thing with a flush trim bit in the router and then I chamfered the edges of the surprisingly sharp laminate with my sanding block. All set! The inside face of both sides all done :applaud:
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