OK.. so it's been a busy time in the last few months for the Hoopstar household with Mrs Hoopstar giving birth to our second child, a 7lb 10oz baby girl, India Rose on the 27th of March.. As you could imagine, the lead up to.. and since this event has been a little busy and stressful, hence this project has taken a bit of a back seat.
With all that said, things are starting to settle down again and so I finally have some time to get back into this. In my last installment, I had just finished mounting the 21" PC monitor which also marked the last job to the cabinet itself in terms of carpentry..
The next job on the long list of things to do involved filling screw holes with plasti-bond and sanding everything smooth - I won't bore you with pictures of this (not only because I didn't take any) as there were literally only 10 or 12 holes to fill.
With all that done, I primed the entire cabinet to seal off the MDF and act as a final 'high fill' for the plast-bond..
We've had some nice warm days recently here in Adelaide and the shed temperatures have been in the mid-20's which meant the primer dried off nicely and gave me a good base for a very light sand in 400 grit.. just to knock off any inclusions into the finish.
I then ran around the outside of all the edges with satin black so that the white primer wouldn't show through around the sideart and vinyl infill ..
Inside was also painted black for a neater finish - of course Little Miss Hoopstar #1 needed to star in the shot
After this dried, I could finally start to fit the vinyl - I only bought 3 meters of the stuff, but it measured out at 1220mm wide. With the cab being 600mm wide in the center, I effectively had 6 meters - more than enough to do the job.
It's a reasonable match for the original stuff - not exact, but better than just painting it. I also gives a really professional finish and is easy to clean requiring just a damp sponge..
With Mrs Hoopstar giving me a bit of a hand, applying the vinyl was a lot easier than I expected and the result was quite nice..
Here's the bottom rear panel complete with cut outs for the power switch, vent slot and power cord slot. There were a couple of screw holes filled along the bottom edge of this panel and with the work that went into filling and smoothing them, they are completely invisible.
I wanted the angle of the three top pieces to be as sharp, straight and defined as possible. While it looks a little wavy here in the photo, it actually looks awesome in person and exceeded my expectations.. I think due to my lack of resizing and photograph skill
I used a rubber edged squeegee to lay down the vinyl which worked a treat - it's a little grippier than the foam edge squeegees which really help get a nice, flat, bubble free finish
and it left some rubber marks behind - They lines you can see on this shot and it wiped off with a little windex and a rag (as you'll see in the final photo shoot later).
I also started to prep the various metal pieces that make up this signature cabinet - starting with the seat angle.
I started off rubbing this down with 120 grit..
Then moved to the random orbital sander and 240 grit..
Then a quick coat of aluminium primer followed by a very light rubbed down with 400..
..and the final (somewhat dusty) result
With all the work on the cabinet, I decided to take a bit of a sideways step and tackle the Control Panel Overlay - just for some motivational 'fun'..
Way back when this project started I repaired the control panel[/URL] where the owner had mounted some buttons.. :cry
Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of the 'finished' painted panel, but it turned out pretty nice, so the overlay was just a simple matter of lining it up and sticking it down. I used the dry method and just hinged the overlay with masking tape at the top..
Here is my helper pointing out the requirements for the next step..
which is trimming the bolt holes and yoke opening..
..and the final result. I am extremely happy with it
A far cry from the original control panel I bought all those years ago :cool:
Anyway.. still lots more to do. Next big job is to lay down the side art..
Hoops