Oh yea, I was supposed to update the weekend before last, right?! Well, things are slow, as usual. I'm making progress, but also getting antsy about getting the damned garage organized again after I get done with woodworking. At the same time, stressing out and trying to take my time to make sure I don't screw up.
The weekend before last, was another hot one. I had seen the Emerson Straight Edge clamp from Arroyo's thread and nearly bought one...but I really like how easy my sawboard is to use. Make your line, clamp the sawboard on top and run the saw over the sawboard. But maybe I could modify it with clamps underneath?!
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
The clamps have 'star knobs' that I can unscrew/adjust. In theory, it was a great idea (I had seen something similar somewhere online, I'm sure) but in practice...the clamps sometimes got in the way of lining up the board on the sawhorses and took just as much time to clamp down as the clutch clamps I normally use. I've finally figured out the sweet spot where I need to place the board/sawboard on the sawhorse to get it clamped nicely. A little late in the game, but oh well. Worth a try I guess.
My main struggle that weekend was the bottom rear door. I had spent a good deal of time routing out space for magnets in the framing pieces and the door. I spent most of that Saturday morning building a jig that I thought was going to make it all perfect. Then turned out, I didn't have enough depth. The sun was baking down, and I needed to eat...so I grumpily waited until the evening. Finally finished, but after checking it out, turns out the thin magnets were too weak.
So I ordered more magnets, more cutting, and eventually ended up with this:
Doors are definitely a weak point for me, but at least this one will be better than the one on my first cabinet. Which wasn't even flush:
I'll have another door up top, but I'm hoping all the sweat I put into the first one, will make the second much easier.
I've pretty much been building from the floor up. And then will decide the final height of the side pieces on the cab. So next steps were Control Panel and Speaker panel. I'm close to done on the CP.
I made an angled cut to align the sides of the CP using the jig saw. I was pretty amazed that I guessed the angle correctly and it ended up that snug.
I basically re-cut all the control panel boards and tested angles and whatnot on scraps as I went. The top board got a 3/8" roundover (thank YouTube for the correct sized bit to use!) that turned out super sweet. Unfortunately I must have been too excited, wet my pants, and forgot to take pics.
For the CP, I have one cut to make on the top board as it's too long right now. I erred on the side of over-cutting everything after a number of mistakes. The top is just about perfect, so I'm going to have to be extra careful when cutting out the trackball, button/joy holes.
Then I'll try to trim the top edge of the front CP face, so the top panel will sit snug across the sides and front. That seems to be a really tricky angle to get right, so I'll have to test on quite a few scraps first.