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Things I learned the hard way while making my cabinet.
Mark70:
Hopefully this will serve as a good guide for beginners. These are all things that I wish I had known before I started my project. Try and keep these one line type responses. Start another parallel thread to discuss anything which inspires you.
I'll start:
1. BYOAC forums will time out if you type a really really long reply and you will loose everything you typed in that really really long time then you will have to do it all over again, but you won't have the patience and everything will become a crappy abbreviated version of what you typed before.
2. Tolerance. MDF is very flat and very smooth and drawers and doors that work wonderfully in mock up will stick later on. See #3.
3. Paint is thicker than you thought. See #2.
4. Black paint recipies at paint stores include white pigment. Make sure are very clear when you order that you want it black, black, black. For extra fun, dress up like a goth and say it's for your living room. People will always ask you why you're buying gallons of black paint.
5. Acrylic is impossible to score and snap. Conversely acrylic is easy to work with a router while sandwiched between two pieces of wood. Don't fear acrylic. Don't pay for lexan.
6. Plan everything. The only thing that doesn't fit on my cab is the two pinball button holes that I drilled impulsively while building. I modeled my whole cab in 3d except that. Now I have to find special internal microswitch buttons and hope that they fit.
7. Wiring takes up more space than you think. Plan it. If your PC and coin door in the bottom, and there's a keyboard drawer between your PC and the monitor/CP, you have to get by that drawer. I found a way. Luckily.
8. The oscar controls 3d model of a happ track ball doesn't show the mounting bolts. Despite modelling my cp in 3d I ended up routing slots for the bottom two mounting bolts in the wall of my CP. Thank god they didn't end up outside the box.
9. MDF is insidious. The dust gets everywhere. I shop vac-ed my whole garage. I vacuumed everything. I mean everything. Walls, my lawn mower, the broom, empty beer bottles, shelves, the floor, my tools, the door.... I'm still picking up pieces of MDF off of the living room carpet. Don't even think about building inside your house. Ruin just your garage.
10. MDF dust is toxic. This is the one thing I didn't learn the hard way. I have a long history of working on boats and to me sanding/cutting/dust = mask; always has. Any money you spend on a mask is an investment in your health. Don't skimp here. I honestly didn't know MDF dust is toxic when I started so I'm glad I always wear a mask.
Mark70:
11. A router with a deep cutting slot bit on it will "climb". My router started climbing and it didn't feel any different than when the router base was riding on the material. I ruined about 12" of one of my t-moulding slots.
12. When you have your artwork printed make sure that you tell them to print it with no border which seems to be the default for most printers. Staples/business depot printed my CP art with a border and didn't notice until I was trimming the edges. My artwork had all shrunk by the width of the white border. It was mostly cut and installed when I noticed and kept it anyway.
13. When you make your sawboard make sure the saw motor will clear the clamps while they're in place.
14. When you make and angled cut with your sawboard, you ruin it for making cuts except on that angle for ever more because it cuts your sawboard off on that angle and you can no longer line up the edge of the sawboard for a regular 90 degree cut. Make new sawboard.
15. MDF will split and spread if you screw into the end, even if you pre drill. Find any way you can to screw perpendicular to the piece. Usually it means adding blocking
hypernova:
15. MDF will split and spread if you screw into the end, even if you pre drill. Find any way you can to screw perpendicular to the piece. Usually it means adding blocking
Doesn't project arcade incorporate some of this? I didn't have any of this happening myself.
1. BYOAC forums will time out if you type a really really long reply and you will loose everything you typed in that really really long time then you will have to do it all over again, but you won't have the patience and everything will become a crappy abbreviated version of what you typed before.
always irritating when something goes wrong when posting and everything is erased. This is actually probably common knowledge, unfortunately!
Timoe:
--- Quote from: hypernova on February 19, 2006, 09:38:17 pm ---
always irritating when something goes wrong when posting and everything is erased. This is actually probably common knowledge, unfortunately!
--- End quote ---
Yeah but it seems to be happening a lot lately. go easy there new guy ::)
quarterback:
--- Quote from: Mark70 on February 19, 2006, 08:29:14 pm ---6. Plan everything. The only thing that doesn't fit on my cab is the two pinball button holes that I drilled impulsively while building. I modeled my whole cab in 3d except that. Now I have to find special internal microswitch buttons and hope that they fit.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure exactly what the issue is, but if it's that you don't have enough room inside your CP for the buttons, maybe you should take a look at the Sanwa pushbuttons. ponyboy sells them
NOTE: The 2nd pic here is of a "snap in" style. As of this posting, ponyboy only carries the screw in style. The first post in his thread should let you know if that changes