Two questions: tutorial about building an inclined box and textured material.

[Stormrider]

I'd like to build a box with 19mm MDF. It will be rectangular but the front will be lower than the back, so it will be inclined. I'd like to build it myself and I wonder where I could find a tutorial on how to do this. I've though I could build a normal box (easy) and then take it to a carpenter to have it cut all at one with a professional saw. The only problem is that it would look like the figure in the right, but it's not bad anyway. Any ideas?



The second question is about the material I'll use for the surface. I'd like a black textured surface like the one you can see in some kitchen tables (usually white) or in the big hi-fi speakers. I want something which looks nice and is durable and doesn't deteriorate when my hands slide on it many times. Maybe there's some kind of vinyl? Or maybe any special kind of paint?

[padstack]

Go to the woodworking forum and check out the part about the sawboard.  You will need a circular saw and a drill with a hole saw.

The circular saw will cut the angles you need with adjustment.  YOu just need to figure out what angle you need it at.  For somplicity's sake, let's say you want a 30 deg angle (too steep though, IMO).  You will need to cut  abunch of 120 degree angles (90 degrees is square, then add 30 degrees to get your pitch).  To get the height of the legs, you would need the length of the front leg, the depth of the panel (the hypotnuse for the equation).  YOu know one angle is 90 degrees, the other 30.  That means the last one has to be 60 degrees (or whatever 90 minus your angle is).  Use the formulas on this page:
http://www.themathpage.com/aTrig/solve-right-triangles.htm
to figure the side I have markes as "A".  then add that length to the length of the fron side and you have the total length of the back leg.

Sorry if that was too drawn out.  If you can't follow that, PM me and I can help you out.

Go to home depot/Lowes and buy a sheet of MDF.  That will give you wnough material to mess up a few times.

For the textured surface, I'm sure others can help you better than I can.  I know people have mentioned it on here before.

Afer that, search around on here a bit more and you will find everything you need.

[Fozzy The Bear]

I'd like to build a box with 19mm MDF. It will be rectangular but the front will be lower than the back, so it will be inclined. I'd like to build it myself and I wonder where I could find a tutorial on how to do this.

Read the WIKI http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/ and I'd also recommend that as you are new to this, you get a copy of Saint's Book.....

Your top surface has a lot of options..... You could get laminated board, and you can get it in black. That would give you the hard surface you asked about. You could use a stick on overlay, visit http://www.MameMarquees.com  and you could use an artwork layer and then overlay that with a piece of Plexiglas.

But most of all.... learn to use the search function in the forum, beecause that will answer a lot of your questions.

Also this question is probably better suited to the woodworking forum on here.

Hope that helps....

Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)