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I have finally started my cabinet!!! (Now With Pictures! 13-APR-2008)
Jdurg:
--- Quote from: sparcade on February 02, 2008, 07:43:32 am ---Jdurg,
No biggie on the CP... Think of it as a $16 woodworking lesson >:D
Looking froward to your pics.
sparcade
--- End quote ---
Thanks. I'm probably going to head to home depot today and pick up another couple slabs of plywood and maybe pick up a circular saw to help keep my cuts straight. Just frustrating as all hell that I didn't bother checking for squareness when building this thing.
On the other hand, I have figured out a better way to get the sides attached to the bottom and the screwed up bottom is now a very good piece of scrap.
Jdurg:
Sorry to have kind of wasted time here with this thread, but I think I'm going to start over from scratch. I've learned quite a bit with the progress I've made thus far, and figure that I'd be better off starting over from scratch instead of trying to repair what I've already done.
In addition, I've learned that I need a few more tools in order to do this right. I just went and bought a miter saw to help make straight cuts a bit easier and when I get my plywood blanks I'll have Home Depot cut the straight parts for me so all I have to do is use my miter saw to cut the angled corners.
Basically, I figure that by starting over from scratch I'll wind up with a much better cabinet than if I tried to fix my mistakes thus far. In addition, the screw ups I've made so far are great examples of how not to proceed.
Since I have no real "deadline" for when this has to be done, I decided that I'd be better off doing this right and taking a longer time than doing it wrong just to get it done.
I'll probably start a new thread with more pictures once I get everything done right. ;D On the bright side, I have all the parts I need already so building this second CP won't take nearly as long. ;D
Jdurg:
Went to Home Depot and got them to cut me out two 37" x 16" panels for my CP top and bottom. (37" since the angles start at 4" in from each side). The nice thing is that after telling the guy cutting it what the panels were for, he seemed very interested and made sure my cuts were exactly on the mark. When I got home and measured them, they were spot on!
I also bought a square and a miter angle device to measure angles accurately. I have a 10" Compound Miter Saw coming to me in the mail, and I'll use that to cut the angles on the corners of the CP.
All I can say is that the square is critical to me and the newly cut pieces look fantastic. This go around will turn out MUCH better than my first attempt, and now my first attempt gives me a "test right" for controllers, trackballs, buttons and spinners. ;D :cheers:
Jdurg:
I've got all the angles cut and the top and bottom flushed out with the router. This time, as I laid everything out on the panel, I measured everything so that I'll have good numbers to go off of when designing my artwork. Much easier to measure it out now than to try and measure it out later. It will also let me start working on the artwork since I know where everything will now go.
I also saw that the board I got for my top has warped a little bit, so I've clamped it down to my straight bottom piece and have been applying some water "mist" to it in order to soften up the wood. I hope this will straighten in out for me.
One thing's for sure, it moves along a lot quicker the second time through. ;D
Jdurg:
Been a while since the last update, but I have finally finished CP Version 2. I think it came out okay, though I will need to use some 1" thick T-Molding since the CP top is a bit warped/twisted. Not anything huge, but enough so that it's not dead flat.
I also noticed that my P1 buttons didn't line up as nicely as I thought they would have, but I think when the artwork goes on it won't bug me as much. I just know that the spacing works out just fine. At the top I have three admin buttons, but I think the center one will go away since I only see the need for Pause and Cheat to be up there. The service menu and other junk will be handled by the panel behind the coin door. I can also use the shift button on the bottom left side panel to handle escape and whatnot. (Shift + Pause = Exit, Shift + Cheat = Reset).
So everything is now primed up, I have all the wiring stuff I need, I've got my Lexan ready, but I still need to finalize my artwork. This is taking me a while because this is the most critical part. I'm just happy to have the construction done with. My first woodworking project and it came out nice. My buddy asked me why I didn't just make it a simple box to make things easy, and granted that probably would have worked out better. But hey, I got a lesson in woodoworking, miter angles, Bondo use, etc. :cheers:
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the spinner isn't installed yet and the buttons are only placed in there for a quick preview. The only thing actually attached is the Trackball plate. I'll be putting a thin posterboard over this, then the artwork, then the lexan. I also need to get one more blue convex button for the right side. I just need to find other things I have to spend money on first to make the shipping charges worth it for "one" button.
My apologies for the poor picture quality. I just used my cell-phone to grab this image.
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