Galaga replica scratch father-son project *Complete* (for now)

[wordsworth]

Completed (for now)











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Original Post

If you'll abide some nostalgic musings on my part I'll tell you why this is very cool for me. I remember when I was about 10 years old (mid 80's) my father worked in a shopping center that had a local pizza joint and once in a while I would get to come and see my dad at his job and we'd walk down to get some pizza for lunch. This pizza joint had a Galaga cabinet and while we waited for our food we'd play a game (or two depending on how well we did on the first one). Many times I'd wolf down my food so I could get another game or two in before we left. I've always had fond memories of these times with my father and what better way to relive them then to build a Galaga cabinet together.

Galaga has always been my father's favorite arcade game. I have tried several times over the years to provide a way for dad to play Galaga at home like game consoles, Jakks plug and play, and most recently the Gridlee app on his iPad. I could always tell that these were poor substitutes for the real thing. Trying to play Galaga on a touch screen is quite a joke really.

I recently re-acquired my interest for Mame and was learning how to get it working on my MacBook Pro. I realized how ugly the graphics were on these old games without the inadequacies of a CRT display to add its vintage flair. I set out on a quest to get cgwg's GLSL shaders working on my Mac. Although these shaders are excellent they still didn't quite get it right.

These things combined together to push me to quit messing around and just build an actual arcade machine.

I had previously discussed the topic of building a cabinet with my dad and felt that he and I both would like a replica cab that was fairly close to authentic but wanted to be able to play more than just Galaga. We both like the classic vertical games like Pacman, Ms Pacman, Donkey Kong, etc. so I chose to get a 4 way joystick but felt like adding another button to the panel would push it too far into the custom relam so we'll keep it at 1. There are plenty of games, many we've never played (or heard of), that only use 1 button and I think it will suit us fine.

The ordeal began with me, my sister, and my mother all pitching in for a Father's Day/Birthday present that included:

• Blank control panel chassis
• Control panel overlay artwork
• Joystick 4 way
• Buttons and leaf switches
• Marquee
• T-Molding

The chassis, stick, buttons/switches, and T-molding I got from Twisted Quarter while the control panel overlay and marquee came from Phoenix Arcade.

The plan was to give him a completed control panel. I started by placing the overlay on the blank chassis and marking the location of the holes. Then I drilled the holes for the buttons which was a chore but they turned out okay. I used a 1 1/4 hole saw.


A drill press would have been wonderful for this but I don't have access to one. Instead I borrowed my dad's big ol' Milwaukee hammer drill (hammer setting off) to make the holes. I had to lie to him 3 different times about what I was doing with it. 

I used the same hole saw for the joystick opening too. Seemed like the most efficient thing to me.

After the holes were drilled I started covering the chassis with the overlay. I lined it up, clamped the top on and pulled a little bit of the paper off and made sure it was pressed down with no bubbles.




I kept doing this a little at a time until it was all on tight and smooth. No soapy water or any other tricks, just those fat fingers and elbow grease. 


Here you can see where I need to trim the joystick hole.


I had to trim one side as the vinyl was just a little past the edge.


I then arrived at my first issue. Of course the overlay was precut with a slot for the joystick so I had to get creative.


I decided to try and fill in the empty areas with extra I cut from the hole. It looks okay and unless you're looking for it you don't see it but I'm not totally satisfied.


I don't like the idea of a dust cover because that covers some or all of the "Move" text. It's a much cleaner look without the dust washer. I probably could have had a custom overlay made but I wanted to keep it as authentic as possible and liked that Phoenix Arcade's was silk screened like the original.  Any suggestions?

One idea I had was to make sort of a rounded off pentagram shaped opening. What do y'all think? (forgive the horrible "MS paint" style edited pic)


Alrighty then, part two of the control panel assembly coming soon. Thanks for looking and for any suggestions.

[McHale]

my vote is for leaving it with the scrap pieces filling in. 

Looking great so far!

[thefox]

+1. The fill-in pieces look fine on the pic. I'm sure only you would notice. Better Imo than the shape cut out idea.

Really nice so far. That cp chassis looks great. I will watch the rest of this project with interest.

[Yvan256]

I can't even load the page properly, I had to disable images to be able to post this reply. Why doesn't the system resize images that are too big?

Please don't post megapixel images. 

[PL1]

Please don't post megapixel images. 

Related post on resizing/cropping images here.


Scott

[wordsworth]

my vote is for leaving it with the scrap pieces filling in. 

Looking great so far!

+1. The fill-in pieces look fine on the pic. I'm sure only you would notice. Better Imo than the shape cut out idea.

Really nice so far. That cp chassis looks great. I will watch the rest of this project with interest.

Thanks for the input. I'm leaning towards leaving it as is.

I can't even load the page properly, I had to disable images to be able to post this reply. Why doesn't the system resize images that are too big?

Please don't post megapixel images. 

Please don't post megapixel images. 

Related post on resizing/cropping images here.


Scott

Sorry about the huge pics. They started out about 5MB and I got them down to under 2MB for the original post. I just cut 'em again to about 600KB. Lemme know if I should cut it more.

[PL1]

They are still pretty large and still resize on my screen.   
(Click on the photo and it resets it to full size.)

For most pics, 600-800 pixels is more than wide/tall enough for a clear view IMHO.

Also, remember that Saint has to pay for the server storage space -- not that expensive for a few photos, but it adds up.

That's also why I crop almost all my photos before posting.


Scott

[wordsworth]

I think I got it...

[CraftyMech]

I'm going to keep an eye on this project for sure!

Galaga and Pac-man were my first arcade loves so to speak. My youth also involved a pizza joint, and my parents would give me a few quarters to go entertain myself at the two cocktail machines they had near the order counter. When arcades started to fade by the early nineties, I had a job and plenty of quarters, but a Galaga machine with a fire button that actually worked and a joystick that was responsive was hard to come by. Ever since I've thought about a cabinet project for a dedicated Galaga, and I even have a Namco PacMan/Galaga 20th anniversary board to put in it. Just need the time and inspiration to build it, so I'll be following your progress!

[opt2not]

I like that you started with the Control Panel.

Everyone normally starts with the sides...but I say get your controls locked down first, then worry about the box. 

Good luck with the rest of the build.
I'll be keeping tabs on this one.
 

[Malenko]

dust washer on top.

I think this is a fantastic project to do with your kid, so kudos to you!

[yotsuya]

dust washer on top.

I think this is a fantastic project to do with your kid, so kudos to you!

If I'm not mistaken, he's doing this with his dad, which is even cooler.

[wordsworth]

I'm going to keep an eye on this project for sure!

Galaga and Pac-man were my first arcade loves so to speak. My youth also involved a pizza joint, and my parents would give me a few quarters to go entertain myself at the two cocktail machines they had near the order counter. When arcades started to fade by the early nineties, I had a job and plenty of quarters, but a Galaga machine with a fire button that actually worked and a joystick that was responsive was hard to come by. Ever since I've thought about a cabinet project for a dedicated Galaga, and I even have a Namco PacMan/Galaga 20th anniversary board to put in it. Just need the time and inspiration to build it, so I'll be following your progress!

Thanks! I'm sure there are many other similar stories to ours. These memories not only cemented my love for classic arcade games but have also caused an unhealthy love for pizza but that's another forum.

I like that you started with the Control Panel.

Everyone normally starts with the sides...but I say get your controls locked down first, then worry about the box. 

Good luck with the rest of the build.
I'll be keeping tabs on this one.
 

Yeah, if you start with the controls then you got something to do while the paint drys. Thanks!

dust washer on top.

I think this is a fantastic project to do with your kid, so kudos to you!

To be honest the dust washer was the last resort to cover up any major accidents. Thanks!

dust washer on top.

I think this is a fantastic project to do with your kid, so kudos to you!

If I'm not mistaken, he's doing this with his dad, which is even cooler.

Yep, with my dad. Taught me everything I know. Very cool to work together a little again.

[PL1]

I think I got it...

I believe you do indeed.   


Scott

[Malenko]

dust washer on top.

I think this is a fantastic project to do with your kid, so kudos to you!

If I'm not mistaken, he's doing this with his dad, which is even cooler.

I was talking to his dad.



ok, no I wasnt, I just forgot what I read after looking at the pictures

I only suggested the dust washer, because that's the route I took when I put a 4way to 60 in 1 my dead galaga.

[wordsworth]

I only suggested the dust washer, because that's the route I took when I put a 4way to 60 in 1 my dead galaga.

I imagine that is the best method when modifying an existing control panel

[CraftyMech]

Forgot to ask if you are going to go with an original Galaga board, or one of the Namco anniversary releases? The 25th anniversary board has Galaga/Ms Pac/Pacman, that includes the rapid fire mode for Galaga, and speed modes for Ms Pac/Pacman. The board runs on a suped-up Z80 processor, using the original game code.

[wordsworth]

Forgot to ask if you are going to go with an original Galaga board, or one of the Namco anniversary releases?

I'm actually going with a Mame PC. It would be amazing to use a real board but then I'd probably have to get a actual arcade monitor too and there goes several hundred. My plan is to go RGB to YP_BP_R via transcoder into a CRT TV and get native resolutions in place of a real monitor.

I also have this dream of making the Windows boot sequence look like the Galaga ROM test but I really don't have a whole lot of knowledge about how to do this. I'm sure it will involve making the front end the shell and such.

I've gone through this info: http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Hiding_Windows. It might be possible to make an animated BMP of the Galaga ROM test and make it the Windows bootskin. If so that would mean:

• turn on PC
• wait 5 seconds for TV to warm up and image to appear which should hide all of the BIOS screen stuff
• fake Galaga ROM test bootskin (instead of WinXP bootskin)
• front end loads as shell
• front end loads straight to Galaga (skipping the actual ROM test) instead of menu
• push 1 player start and 2 player start to get to the front end menu to select a different game

That's all probably something I should ask on another thread but if anybody here has any ideas or any help with this it's greatly appreciated.

If I could pull all of that off then it would be nearly indistinguishable from an actual arcade Galaga. *fingers crossed*

[wordsworth]

Part 2

I bought Twisted Quarter’s Ms Pacman replacement joystick which is supposed to offer a similar experience to an original. It also came with the adapter plate so it’s a drop in replacement for a Ms Pacman cabinet. It looks like it’s the same as their Namco 20 year reunion replacement stick minus the adapter plate. This seemed like the most logical stick considering dad and I like the classics and Ms Pacman is probably number 2 on our list of favorites. 

So I started mounting the joystick first by lining up the adapter plate with the joystick opening in the chassis


No amount of shifting and rotating could line those holes up with the original locations of the bolts. I chose a happy compromise and marked the openings and drilled away. I ended up using the middle 4 holes and not the outer and just used the adapter plate as a spacer. This way they seemed to match up a little better.


I know that these holes are normally squared off to accept carriage bolts which I'll probably end up doing but for now I'm leaving them round. I'm also using temporary bolts and plan on getting some real carriage bolts later.

You can tell the holes aren't exactly where they're supposed to be


Here's a pic of an original


In hindsight I see that making the joystick opening round instead of a slot shifted my mounting holes up enough that they don’t line up with the holes on an original control panel. I also think that the adapter plate must not be exactly the same for Galaga as it is for Ms Pacman. It would've been easy enough to make some custom holes in the plate and have them match up. Oh well, I'll chalk it up to inexperience 

After all of the holes were made it was easy enough to just install all of the components. (terrible pic)


I went ahead and painted the temporary bolts to help hide the fact that they were cheap and temporary. When I get the real ones I plan on leaving them silver.

I bought the buttons from Twisted Quarter as well. They came in a kit which included the fire button and the start buttons. Though it’s not too obvious the fire button seems a little smaller, specifically the shaft border seems thinner than the yellow buttons. Seems like the yellow buttons are the ones that are different from the original buttons. They actually look more like Donkey Kong style Nintendo buttons rather than Midway ones but overall I'm pleased with the look.

The underside sans wiring and encoder


Speaking of encoders I started with this...


and by the time I got to this...


I asked myself "why am I going through all of this trouble" and ordered a Vigo encoder. I don't have any pictures of it mounted yet but I will eventually.

Here's another shot of the patches I cut in around the joystick opening. Also my hole is not exactly centered between the green arrows. Ugh! Too late now 


As part of the Father's Day/Birthday gift we got dad the marquee and although not yet part of the assembly I went ahead and made the marquee retainers. I used the method by mcseforsale I read about here: http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,117977.msg1268459.html#msg1268459

Really slick and inexpensive. Here's a shot of the painting process (including the screws and CP bolts). Thanks to my wife for the painting.


One thing that never occurred to me is the angle of the top retainer is not going to be 90 degrees but more like a 45 degree angle and so I'll have to get cute and heat it up and try and decrease the angle of the top retainer.

Here are the completed retainers and the marquee.


Can't wait until I see it mounted on the cabinet. In fact while I was testing the control panel I had to temporarily tape it on my cardboard arcade cabinet (another story, another time maybe) but here is a pic.


So we gave everything to dad and he loved it and we have already begun construction on the cabinet. More to come! Thanks for looking and for any comments or suggestions.

[thefox]

It probably frustrated the hell out you, but i reckon you shouldn't be too hard on yourself a out the stick/mount positioning. It's still looking really good. I bet your dad is so pleased.

[opt2not]

A+ for the Leaf buttons. C- for the replacement Pac stick. Should have went with a JLW. It has the best action and feel for this type of classic game.

[wordsworth]

It probably frustrated the hell out you, but i reckon you shouldn't be too hard on yourself a out the stick/mount positioning. It's still looking really good. I bet your dad is so pleased.

Yes, he is pleased and that pleases me. Thanks for your kind words!

A+ for the Leaf buttons. C- for the replacement Pac stick. Should have went with a JLW. It has the best action and feel for this type of classic game.

Really? I went back and forth about it and actually considered a JLW but it just didn't seem fitting. I guess it shouldn't be too hard if I want to change it down the road.

[wordsworth]

Part 3:

So the cabinet construction begins. Everything will be based on Jakobud’s plans that I downloaded here. Big thanks to Jakobud!

The plans seem to be almost exactly the same as an original which is why I'm going with them. I have very little access to a real cab, not nearly enough to make my own plans/measurements.

I had a fun time converting all those decimals to fractions . I found a few websites to help. My overly anal personality hardly allowed me to round to any less than a 1/32 of an inch which is silly because we aren't sending a rocket to the moon so what's a 32nd difference gonna make?

I probably looked at a thousand pictures trying to get this thing as accurate as possible. It would have been nice if I could've gone down to the local arcade and gotten some help but all the local arcades are gone around here. I can't even find a cabinet in a laundromat or a 7-11.

I did get some time after the cab was assembled to visit an arcade while on vacation. They still have quite a few of the old cabs there although they're pretty ragged out. My wife is always cool enough to stand with me while I play a few and she doesn't even roll her eyes when I get an extra man but when I broke out the tape measure she headed for the door.

Even standing directly in front of a real cabinet you can't tell much more than Jakobud’s plans tell you so some of this cab will have to be improvised, especially the insides.

We decided on 3/4 MDF. In hindsight we probably would've been happier with lighter MDO but you know hindsight. We picked up 3, 4x8 sheets and began the measuring.

Maybe it seems silly to include a picture of my scribbles on wood but I promise you I spent over two hours laying it out before I was ready to pull out a saw. It was so much fun for my dad while I was relearning everything I forgot in high school geometry.

After much head scratching we ended up with this and it looks pretty good.


So, much to my day's joy, we got out the saws. We used a circular saw for the straight and a jigsaw for the curved.


We ended up with this. A fair amount of grunting and nodding happened at this point and maybe a chest bump but I don't remember.


Of course the second one is always easier than the first. We just traced it and cut it the same.

We used some sandpaper to try and smooth out the rough spots. Couldn't really get much sanded by hand though. May have to come back later with some more power.

Again with the measuring. I enjoyed the challenge of laying out these measurements but I tell you what, maybe I should've picked something without curves and mysterious innards for my first arcade cabinet build.

We made up the furring strips for the inside panels out of leftover MDF glued together to make 1 1/2 inch square strips.

Never really occurred that this wouldn't be strong enough. After its glued and screwed I don't think it's going anywhere.

Here are the panels we cut. We just rough cut these at first and planned to finish cut them later.

These panels will probably have some screw holes in them to deal with later but we tried to keep the main sides panels clear of any holes.




We fastened the furring strips with 1 3/4 screws and no glue. We countersunk the holes which left the screws about 1/4 inch from poking through the main outer panels. I know what you’re thinking, no glue? I lived in fear that in our inexperience we would measure wrong and permanently attach a strip or panel an inch off or something. The plan is to come back later and glue them up when we’re sure it won’t end up on CrapMame.




I love this picture because it looks like a DeWalt monster threw up all over the place. My dad is a DeWalt fan if you can’t notice. Quite impressive really. It took TWO 18 volt cordless drills to fasten this cabinet together and, I’m not kidding, there is a third DeWalt cordless drill in there waiting to go in the game. The only thing not impressive about this picture is that white, living-room-lamp, extension cord plugged into another white, living room-lamp, extension cord. I guess when you’ve spent years winding up 50 feet of 10 gauge extension cord you’ll take the easy route.


Here’s some final cutting on a panel


Finally this thing is starting to look like an arcade cabinet. At this point we started getting a bit more excited.


The fully assembled cabinet without a back or bottom but hey it was getting dark.


In this one you can see that 3rd drill and the DeWalt compressor


Had to stick that marquee up there


The plan is to pull it apart and glue the strips and panels and re-screw everything. We might do some fine tuning of the shape while its apart again. More to come. Thanks for looking!

[blashyrk]

Great build, galaga is one of my favorite arcade games too.

[bluemini17]

amazing build, Galaga is also my all time favourite game. Long Live Galaga 

[wordsworth]

Great build, galaga is one of my favorite arcade games too.

Thanks! Although we'll have other games on it I'm sure Galaga will be the most played.

amazing build, Galaga is also my all time favourite game. Long Live Galaga 

Thanks! It's been fun to work on but it'll be even more fun when we get to play.

[wordsworth]

Just picked up one of these bad boys:


Can't wait to see what kind of fun I can have with it. At the very least now I can rout out for T-mold.

[wordsworth]

Well it's been a while since I've given an update on this build and that's because I struggle with an obsessive attention to detail much to my dad's frustration at times although he's never shown it. We've just started to work on it again after it sat in a pile of parts since last summer.

There was a decent amount of work done last year that I never gave an update on so I will start with that.

We picked up a Sony KV-24FS120 TV for the monitor. It displays the games in the original resolution/refresh rate and it does so beautifully. Even better than an original I'd say. An original Galaga comes with a 19-inch but we had trouble finding one of those. Most of these TV's seem to be the 27-inch. I scoured Craig's List for weeks looking for a 21-inch which is the closest Sony KV model in size but it never came along. I knew a 24-inch would physically fit in the cabinet and eventually learned that the Galaga/Ms Pacman Reunion cab comes with something close to a 24-inch. This satisfied some sense of authenticity in me.

I actually struggled with the fact that it's not original equipment but it really is like arcade-ing at its best, bright, clear and flat but with that great effect that a CRT adds to the experience.


Huge thanks to rCadeGaming for helping both specifically with my projects and in his wealth of knowledge in other threads on this forum. He's clearly the resident expert here when dealing with getting authentic resolutions/refresh rates from your computer and MAME to an old CRT TV. It looks great and we wouldn't have nearly as nice a display without his help.


We started the process of de-casing the TV. This thing is heavy and awkward to carry even in its case but it's a beast when you take the handles off.


The back came off easy enough but the hard part is figuring out how to make a frame and mount it without electrocuting ourselves. Okay the electrocuting isn't so hard to avoid if you stay away from certain areas of the TV but it's always in the back of my mind. Take note of the circuit board area on the right. We also had to come up with a plan to mount this without disturbing it’s connection to the tube.


My dad had some pieces of super hard maple and we decided to use these as the mounting frame for the tube. We messed up more than one saw blade with this stuff. This isn't a metal frame but it's close to it.


We scribed the sides of the tube to the maple to ensure a tight fight and dad used a jigsaw to make the cut.


Once the long ends were cut we attached them to the tube’s mounting ears using the original bolts. We then cut some end-braces to attach the sides which completely surrounds the tube and makes a super strong and tight frame to mount the CRT.


Here is the completed frame with the tube mounted.




We found out that the entire case of the TV is just 3 pieces, front, back and bottom. The bottom has the PCB attached already so we just made a separate mount for the bottom assembly and attached it to the tube frame. We made it out of the same maple. Simple and easy but it turned out great.


With more of the same maple boards we attached mounting rails on the inside of the cabinet to hold the monitor (I can call it a monitor at this point, right?). With my brother-in-law’s help the 3 of us hoisted the monster into the cabinet and screwed it into place.




One we got it installed I started seeing issues. Things you don't ever seem to think about until you see it in place. Like something funky going on near the control panel. The front board is too tall and is going to cause a problem and monitor frame looks like it's too thick for control panel clearance.

Also the plans are for a 19" monitor and the thought didn't occur to me that adjustments would need to be made since we're using a 24". The back of the monitor is nearly poking out of the cabinet's rear so we'll have to improvise a little.

But it was looking like a real arcade cabinet.


The underside of the monitor seems to leave plenty of clearance for the computer and other essential equipment.


It really looks like arcade guts back in there. I love it!


At this point we knew we had to plug everything in and try it out. I just hacked a temporary mount for the control panel, clearance issues and all. 


Notice how close to the monitor that rear panel is in that last picture. Something has to be done about that.

I had plans to address the previously mentioned issues and other perceived problems. That's when progress collided with my obsessiveness and things came to a halt.

My next update will cover almost a year of time.

[rCadeGaming]

Glad that I could help    Looks like things are panning out nicely.  Great job on the monitor frame and mounting.

[wordsworth]

Glad that I could help    Looks like things are panning out nicely.  Great job on the monitor frame and mounting.

You rock man! Thanks again

[BEGINSTUDIO]

Wordsworth, I am entertaining putting in a CRT Television(Sony KV-24FS120) into my cabinet/arcade project.

Approximately, how much time did it take you from initial decasing, building a frame, and settling it into the cabinet?  [I have three little ones around with curious hands that I will need to send away with their mother, if I decide to do this. An accurate time would be nice.]

Thanks!

DPB

[wordsworth]

Well, I checked the time stamp of the pic just after we removed the back of the TV, it's 1:12 PM. The time stamp of the one just after it's installed is 7:49 PM.

It didn't take the full 6 and a half hours as it was July 4th an there was at least an hour of eating somewhere in there. We were not pushing ourselves that hard either. Come to think of it we never planned to mount the TV that day, it just kinda happened so we had no real strategy or forethought.

If you did some planning ahead of time and pushed yourself a bit I'd say it could easily be done in 3-4 hours.

I would definitely plan on having another set of hands and a strong back (or an engine hoist) to actually move to CRT from bench to cab.

Hope this helps!

[BEGINSTUDIO]

Excellent!  That is reasonable, 3-4 hours time lapse.  I work and forget to eat turning me into an Altered Beast which my wife isn't bothered.   Thanks for this qualified assessment.  It is very helpful.

Love what you are doing with your project!  My Dad loves Star Castle and I hope that we may make it a together collaborative project, or I'll just do it!  Our geography gets in the way.

Thanks again!

[wordsworth]

Thanks for the kind words. I recommend working on a project with your dad if possible, it's enjoyable and you end up with something you can have fun with when the work is over.

I've heard of people like you, who forget to eat. I wonder what that feels like?? Unfortunately I've never forgotten to eat once in my life   

[AzureKnight]

I recommend working on a project with your dad if possible, it's enjoyable and you end up with something you can have fun with when the work is over.

I can't say enough how much I encourage people to do this.  Two years ago I lost my dad to cancer (he was 55).  Build these memories, you will be so happy that you did.

[wordsworth]

Sorry to hear that AzureKnight. I have appreciated greatly the time I've spent with dad during this project. Thanks for reminding me that the memories are the most important part of this build.

[wordsworth]

The previous update on the build was from the Fourth of July of 2013. This picture was taken August 1st of 2013 and it represents all the work we did for about a year.

In all my eagerness to make the greatest DIY arcade cabinet ever I talked my dad into taking the entire cabinet apart so that we could clean up the edges. They were cut with a jigsaw and ended up being uneven. My intent was to make a template out of 1/4 plywood and trim it all up with my new toy/router then re-assemble it with glue and continue our progress.

We were able to get the shape a little more fine-tuned this way with nice rounded corners and such but it ended up being a little bit backwards. The template route would have been a great way to go at the outset of the build but in this case after the initial cuts had been made with the jigsaw there was no choice but to make the whole cabinet slightly smaller as we trimmed away good material to make it smooth *cringe* If I ever make another cabinet I do plan to use a template and a router as this makes an incredible edge with MDF.

I didn't even have a large enough piece of plywood to make a full template and I used smaller pieces which turned out to be a mistake. It turns out that after one side was trimmed smooth it was still larger than the other side meaning my plan to use the first trimmed side (side A) as a template for the other side (side B) would not work. This is where frustration caused us to hit a wall, figuratively and probably literally at some point although I don't remember.

We didn't touch it for about a year.

We started working on the cab again on the Fourth of July of 2014 with renewed vigor but with a more realistic expectation. Willing to compromise some things if necessary if it meant we could enjoy the cabinet instead of it sitting in a pile in the garage. In fact there aren’t any “in-progress” pics due to the fact we were just banging it out and the pics were an after thought.

Picking up where we left off we ended up using the front edge of side A to trim side B which means they are not exactly the same size and I shudder when I think about this still but I am working through my feelings and am getting better.

While the sides were apart and on the work bench was a good time to rout out for the T-molding. Nothing much to mention about this really. Just lined it up and did a few test runs on scrap until it was just right.

Having different sized sides also meant that the carefully measured braces and their locations were not in the exact same place. It took some improvisation but we got them back in-place, this time with glue.

Something you can’t see from the older posts is that we had yet to make a bottom for the cab and as mentioned in the previous post the front panel was too large and caused some issues when the control panel was installed so we actually removed it and used it for the bottom with plans to make a new front panel. I’m not sure why we decided on this but that’s what we did.

Speaking of the bottom we ended up putting it higher instead of flush with the bottom of the sides. This seemed like the right thing to do at the time but I think now in hindsight we should have made bottom flush with the sides like an original cab would be but you live and you learn. It still looks good, kind of a floating type thing.

By the way there is a just a work-light sitting in behind the marquee so we could see it lit up.



We re-installed the monitor and re-assembled the cabinet but without the final front panel and also without the previously mentioned panel that meets the back of the monitor. We had yet to measure a new piece for this.


This left us pretty much where we left off a year earlier with some progress made but some stuff to be re-done. Thanks for looking y'all! More to come.

[Malenko]

It still looks good, kind of a floating type thing.

Easy fix, just put the kick plate rubber low enough to cover the gap

For the sides, why not just clamp them together and use a flush trim bit on a router to make them the same? I know too late now. Either way, the sides look fine in the picture and as long as the cab doesnt wobble, you're golden.

Glad to see you havent given up on the project!

[wordsworth]

Easy fix, just put the kick plate rubber low enough to cover the gap

Confirmation! I had this thought too

For the sides, why not just clamp them together and use a flush trim bit on a router to make them the same? I know too late now. Either way, the sides look fine in the picture and as long as the cab doesnt wobble, you're golden.

Yeah, this really was the plan until I realized the newly trimmed side was still a bit larger than the un-trimmed side. If this hadn't taken the wind out of my sails I would have trimmed the smaller side and then re-trimmed the larger by clamping them together. It turns out that they aren't that much different so we dodged a bullet. Next time though...

Glad to see you havent given up on the project!

I really appreciate the input!

[wordsworth]

Now that we had the ball rolling again we made a goal to have this machine finished and inside the house for Thanksgiving Day. Nothing like holidays to get us going.

We started by making the missing front panel, the modded rear-monitor panel and the entire back of the cab. We measured and cut them from the 3rd and last piece of 4X8 MDF.




More cutting but you can see that the rear-monitor panel (as I call it) is now installed. It took some extra brain power to measure and place this one since the angle is different than it would be for a 19". We relied totally on Jakobud's plans initially but had to improvise after we got a 24" monitor.

Another after-thought was "how do we get the glass in" realizing after the fact that it must have been slid in from the back panel. Oh well. Worry about it later.

There is actually a complete lack of anything on the back at this point. We had to cut 3 rear pieces: top, bottom and a removable door.

The upper-rear panel was an interesting situation. Usually this panel is fairly short but because the monitor frame basically touches the back of the cab we did what seemed right at the time and brought it to down to the monitor frame. This seemed like a natural place for it to stop but we did this not realizing that access to this area will forever be denied after MDF is glued-and-screwed. We don’t have room to drop cables and such between the marquee section and the bottom.


Changing router bits for the back door fitting from the slot cutter to a 3/4" template bit that we used to fine-tune the corners with templates. This can serve double duty as a straight bit since the bearing is at the top of the bit.


Here we are setting up to cut a half-lap joint for the back door with a straight edge clamped on for a guide.


If done properly it will lock itself in at the bottom and sit flush at the top only needing the cam-lock to keep it closed.

The bottom cut


The top cut


Turned out to be a perfect fit. Makes up a little for all of the non-perfect fits.

A little piece of duct tape for a temporary pull since it was such a perfect fit... maybe a little too perfect 

The new front panel gets drilled, glued, clamped then screwed in place.




I really think we should have brought the front panel down to the floor after seeing it. Resisting the urge to tear it all apart again I think maybe a kick plate will suffice. This will probably be on the list of things to do after its up and running. 

And finally all of the wooden panels are installed

Always gotta get that marquee in there when I can

It was very encouraging to see the progress we made up to this point. Thanks for reading!