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Gamesomnia - inspired by Knievel's Woody Cab
ragnar:
Today I managed to get the monitor bezel built.
Two pictures. The first being the creation of the template. I needed a way to get nice and straight lines. After considering a router table and jigsaw with guide, it dawned on me that I cut just use the table saw. Just taking ones time is the key to doing it this way. Cut all the way to the edge leaving a small piece of wood to keep th inner and outer pieces attached. then when all 4 sides are cut, use a jigsaw to finish cutting out the middle.
Then it was a matter of using a router to create a 30 degree slant on the hole opening. With the template, this was a snap!
Total time, about 1.5 hours. Not bad. The bezel is not yet attached but it is pretty much done. Just needs some black paint.
Also, I applied the first coat of black paint to the cabinet. So far, I like it. It is an off black color with a hint of blue. Flat paint of course.
severdhed:
looking good. i really like the shape of your cabinet, very unique
ragnar:
--- Quote from: severdhed on September 07, 2010, 01:30:40 pm ---looking good. i really like the shape of your cabinet, very unique
--- End quote ---
Well, thank you very much.
Whenever I do a project like this, I try to do something just a little different from what others have done. In person, I have to say that the actually shaping is well proportioned. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.
The size itself is not much off of Knievel's Woody dimensions. As an overly simple explanation, it is about 4" deeper (101 mm) than Knievel's Woody.
ragnar:
So, I did some more work last night. I'll try a new post method and do a talk for each picture that is attached.
-- 1 --
The easy part last night was sanding down one of the top pieces for the cabinet. It had a 30 degree angle in it so I had to do a sort of biscuit style attaching of two plywood pieces. The glue was all dried so I sanded everything smooth. This assembly will attach to the bottom of the marquee with the small section being the part that holds the marquee in place. The small piece will be parallel with the ground and the larger piece will then slant upwards towards the top back corner of the cabinet. The area that is created will provide room for a cavity that will house the speakers behind a speaker grill. To get a better idea see the sketch of the cabinet in the original drawing.
-- 2 --
This picture shows the door and the holes that had to be drilled for the hinges. I first did a test in a small scrap piece, also pictured, in order to determine how far away from the edge to drill the hole and to determine how deep the hole had to be. I ended up making the hole about 1/8" from the door edge while the instructions said 1/4". the hole I made is slightly oversize so I could move the assembly around if needed to closer mimic the location stated by the hinge directions.
-- 3 --
I did a test with the button centers 1-3/8" away from eachother to determine if that was acceptable. The result was that 1-3/8" is the minimum. Those buttons are Happ buttons by the way. Any closer and they would not fit properly. Some of my buttons are 1-3/8" apart but not all. If I made an error drilling, I will just widen the holes slightly but I think it is a non issue.
-- 4 --
The CP button and joystick layouts were laid out and taped down. In the end, the layout is fairly similar to what I had intended. The left joystick is 5-1/4" from the left edge. More than what others do, but I wanted it this way. In messing around with that joystick placement, I determined that 4-1/2" was the minimum so I was probably going to do that, so I did not feel bad about adding an extra 3/4".
-- 5 --
Using the paper templates, I used a small drill bit (something between 1/8" and 1/4") to carefully "dent" the acrylic with a hand drill wherever a button was to go. These acted as a pilot hole ("dent) for drilling the 1-1/8" hole for the buttons.
Each joystick center was drilled with the same drill bit (again, something between 1/8" and 1/4") all the way through to mark the joystick center in the acrylic and the wood. These locations were then used to cut holes for the u360s in the wood and to use the router to create the inset for the u360s to rest in for the surface mount. When determining the inset depth, I also took into account the fact that a screw head would be on top to hold things in place.
Image 5 is there to show the dents that were formed in the acrylic.
-- 6, 7 --
These two images show the CPl top resting on top of the CP box. Yes, 9 buttons. I spent the extra $10 on something that might not be needed. I used a button/joystick template from slagcoin referred to as the "Sega layout" and added a thumb button to it. I located the thumb button at approximately a 45 degree angle to the bottom left button and located it 1-1/2" away.
http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/layout.html
I used the alternative joystick center that is the small circle on the left edge of the image.
No one told me how long the CP top would take :dunno I think I spent about 4 hours doing the holes/routing in the CP top.
javeryh:
Nice progress. I'm curious - are you putting artwork over your CP? I'm going for a stained look on mine and it is proving to be a very difficult task - everything must be bottom mounted with nothing showing through to the top. I had to get really creative with the router to mount the trackball.
Also, 4 hours is like a world record pace for me - I spent 3 full days cutting my CP and box out! :cheers: