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Cafe au Cade - Coffee table arcade conversion - Finished with loads of pics!
LeedsFan:
--- Quote from: Evetsllub on June 12, 2011, 07:38:56 pm ---Leedsfan - Planning on getting a piece of glass cut and tempered, then just painting the back black for the bezel. Never used Plexi before but i cant imagine it being as scratch proof as glass. the stain is a good idea to match colours but i just dont know how you'd make it stick...
--- End quote ---
Yeah I've never used stain before myself. It may well be that the stain has to soak into the wood a little and then it might dry a different colour to how it applies right out of the tin. But then again I'm just thinking out loud here. You could always try to stain/paint a separate piece of glass beforehand to see how it goes.
Evetsllub:
Well its been a while, damn house move. The good news is i'm all moved into my new house and found some time this weekend to continue on the project.
Back to dad's place who was kind enough to stain the panels and tabletop and put a couple of coats of varnish on over the last few weeks.
Here's the panels, before their last coat of varnish:
Drying in the sun. This will give you an idea of how it will all come together. Those panels will screw into the sides of the table.
Power button on laptop all soldered up. Special thanks for Bender and his great photo of this. It made what could have been an hours and hours long job a 5 minute job as we knew where the contact 'points' (more like pinheads) were. Dad's a much better solderer than me so i left him to do it. Got it right, tested and it worked! The white stuff was some glue to try to make sure it stays there.
After 3 coats of varnish the panels were ready to go, so buttons all put in, and joystick screwed into place. The buttons arent perfectly aligned, in hindsight, the piece of paper we stuck over to drill pilot holes should have been glued down. Now that all the buttons are in its difficult to see the mis alignment though, so not the end of the world. Really happy with how the control panels look! The red buttons look sweet i reckon.
Here's the underside. Its a tight squeeze. There's literally no room for any more buttons. If i decide i need more admin buttons they will be going on the side of the table. I have include a pause, exit and 'service' button. All others will need to be operated with shift function.
That's all for now. I am having a bit of trouble with the table varnishing. I originally just sanded the surface, re-stained it and lacquered it. But it looked a bit silly as the colour wasn't exactly the same as the rest of the table and the shine on the varnish was different. So i've decided to lacquer the whole thing, but its a bit too glossy for me (i prefer satin), and the colour still isn't quite right as i didn't sand the rest of the table back to bare timber (it would have been extremely time consuming and i am not really interested). Once the last coat dries i'm going to put it in the house for a few days and see what i'm thinking.
Once that little problem is sorted i need to get a piece of glass cut for the tabletop and work out how i'm going to mount the laptop into the table. after that its working out how i will power the thing, and i'll be on the final stretch!
Drunkraccoons:
this is a great idea and its low enough for children :P
emphatic:
Such a cool project. :cheers: Panels looks great. Just get some smaller washers for your joysticks.
Evetsllub:
yeah washers look crappy. any idea where i can get something that looks better? Was thinking something stainless steel or chrome.
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