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100% wood rectangular box
ErikRuud:
My control panel is all wood, glued and nailed. The top piece is removable.
The top is a combination of 1/2 inch birch ply, 1/4 inch Cherry ply, and solid Cherry 1x2. The box is 3/4 inch Oak ply.
u_rebelscum:
--- Quote from: The cranky hermit on April 29, 2003, 09:53:55 pm ---Is it OK for the box itself to be 100% wood? No lexan, no plexi, just complete wood?
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If you paint it with a decent paint, yes, you don't need lexan or plexi. You could go clear if you want, but I suggest at least a couple coats.
--- Quote ---What's a nice, comfortable angle to mount the top at?
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(assuming you're sitting at a desk) depends on how tall your torso is, how tall your chair is, how tall the table top is, and how tall the CP is. Ideally, 15-20 degrees and your froearms and hands are also at 15 degrees. But if you need to hold you forearms at a higher angle to reach the controls, you might want to go up to 30-40 degrees.
--- Quote ---What's a decent, not too expensive type of wood to use?
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If you aren't picky and will paint it, there's always partical board. MDF is great, but costs more and needs to be painted. I don't suggest pine plywood ("soft" wood dents too easily). Don't know enough about hard woods to help you, but plywood is usually cheaper than plain wood.
DeathMonk:
--- Quote from: ErikRuud on April 30, 2003, 09:50:26 am ---My control panel is all wood, glued and nailed. The top piece is removable.
The top is a combination of 1/2 inch birch ply, 1/4 inch Cherry ply, and solid Cherry 1x2. The box is 3/4 inch Oak ply.
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Why are your controls bass-ackwards?
HeadRusch:
Yeesh, the local home depot just sold me 3 sheets of 4x8x3/4 MDF for $6.80 a sheet...!?!? $15??
Are you using that hard-cored stuff? The stuff thats like 60 pounds a sheet???
i was going to just cover my panel with Con-Tact paper....well the top part anyhow, but then realized that would probably wear through....so I think I have to go with some type of Lexan top no matter how I slice it...
ErikRuud:
--- Quote ---Why are your controls bass-ackwards?
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Because I like them that way! ;D
I've answered this many times already.
The "sort of standard" stick on the left, buttons on the right arrangement did not become common, until long after I stopped going to arcades. My arcade days were from 1978 to about 1982. Games had many different layouts then. Also the Atari 2600 and Odyssey2 console systems had the button on the left.
So far only one person out of twenty had a problem using my control panel, and I showed him that he could use the player 2 buttons with the player 1 joystick for one player games.