Ms. Pac-Man/Galga reunion in wood cp (again)

[Santo8742]

I know this subject has kind of been beat to death, but I have a slightly different question. I'm using a 5/8" piece of plywood with a 1/8" piece of lexan covering and I'm trying to mount the reunion stick to the panel. Without really thinking it through, we routed out the bottom 1/8" on all of the joysticks including the reunion, which works great for all of them but that one. I've read in other posts that plywood is stronger than MDF and was wondering how much further should I be able to route the hole in the bottom out? I want the best feel length wise I can have, but I don't want the wood to fall in on me. Your help is appreciated.

[brophog]

My advice.......leave it as is and get a longer shaft either from tornado terry or groovy game gear. There really are only 2 good ways to mount a reunion it seems: longer shaft mounted from the bottom or top mounting it with a router to recess it and then covering it with something (usually lexan).

[Quarterhorse]

I agree.  Leave it as is.  I just got 2 of tornado terry's new sticks and they are wonderful.  The balltop is bigger and feels more like the original.  He ships out quickly after payment.  Save the hassle and get these new tops -- they're superior to the original sticks IMO.

[squirrellydw]

I also got two longer shafts from TT and the blue ball tops all great

[Santo8742]

I worry that the longer shafts are going to be too long. Remember I already routed out 1/8" off the bottom, would the 1/2" remaining wood and 1/8" plexi make it short enough? If so, this is most likely the route I will go.

[Hoopz]

Since you only routed 1/8" I doubt you would think it was too tall.  That's a marginal amount compared to the entire joy IMO.  It's not like you routed out an inch or more, which I know isn't possible but was used as example of what would cause the joystick to be much too high. 

[AtomSmasher]

You could always re-make your CP using a new piece of wood and remember to top mount it this time.

[Santo8742]

I'm certainly not going to redo the whole control panel for it, I'm pretty sure my dad would refuse to assist. He is already getting tired of coming over to work on it everytime he's home. I wonder if top mounting it is still an option, I could just cut through for the joystick and route down whatever depth the wide part of the base is (can't be more than 1/8"). I would think the 3/8" left in the plywood would be sturdy enough to hold the control firmly. It will be covered with a CP overlay and lexan so it shouldn't show. Does anyone think this would cause a problem?

[brophog]

Should work. I'd just make a new panel, but I know how being dependent on others changes that. How big is your panel and how many controls must be placed?

[Santo8742]

its pretty large 48"x18". It has 4- 8 way joysticks with two of the players having seven buttons and the other two have four buttons, a 3" trackball, a spinner, the 4 way joystick, and a couple administrative buttons. This would make for quite a bit of reworking to redo it.

[AtomSmasher]

its pretty large 48"x18". It has 4- 8 way joysticks with two of the players having seven buttons and the other two have four buttons, a 3" trackball, a spinner, the 4 way joystick, and a couple administrative buttons. This would make for quite a bit of reworking to redo it.

Well, if you did decide to redo it, you can use a flush trim router bit, and then use the first one you made as a template to quickly make the second one.

[Santo8742]

We ended up routing out the top for the joystick, which left a very thin piece of wood that I'm amazed we didn't crack when routing.  What we did to alleviate this problem was to glue a few pieces of 1/8" thick wood in the routed out space in the bottom then put some support pieces across the bottom of the cp and the new pieces of wood. This gives it more support than it originally had and should work out great.