finshed bartop

[hobsonschoice]

Ok guys,
heres my "almost" finshed bartop.
I just need to replace the marquee with something a bit more classy but thats it.

It's my first one so go easy guys.

lessons learnt.
Always Spray never paint with a brush.
if at all possible, use wood thick enough to use T-molding, trying to finish edges is a nightmare, even after sealing them.

[punxrus]

Looks pretty nice! I hope mine comes out as well! BTW...what size monitor did you use?

[hobsonschoice]

thanks

It has a dell C500 laptop inside so the screen is 15in flat panel.
I'll post some more photos of the actual build later this eve hopefully.

[Benevolance]

What did you end up doing for the edges? It looks like it's painted?

[glonq]

Nice work.  What's the CP width?  The CP looks nice and glossy.  Is that plexi, or just the paint finish (enamel?)

[hobsonschoice]

Outline cut.
The wood is MDF and i think it was 6mm.
Cut each piece individually but soon realised, as mentioned elsewhere that its better to cut them together. far less sanding down afterwards.

[hobsonschoice]

attached to the base and put a support beam in which i realised later i didn't actually need.
The holes for the speakers were cut using a jigsaw and a steady hand. i used an old yogurt pot lit to get the diameter but i think 6cms should be tops as most speaker covers are around that size or larger.

[hobsonschoice]

attached the sides and top

[hobsonschoice]

and applied a liberal few coats of weatherproof wood sealer. This was a white glue type substance that i just watered down and covered the whole rig in about 4 times. It dries really quick so it only took a couple of hours. This makes painting later much easier as it seals the wood and deters it from sucking the paint in.
trust me, You really want to do this otherwise you'll have to paint the edges of your MDF a dozen times before it looks ok.

[hobsonschoice]

Bezel cut.
Unfortunately i don't have a router so i cut just a basic rectangle the same size as my Laptop screen, Try to get this as tight as possible so that when you finally come to pch your screen in place there is no light showing around the edges. Quite a bit of sanding tomanage a good fit but really worth it otheriwse you have light leaking around the edges later and you'll have to place card or tape to seal it.
Applied the same weatherproof sealant mixture to all pieces of wood paying special attention to the edges.
PS. take into consideration than when your bezel is painted it will also reduce the inner space by about a millimeter all round because of the thickness of the paint.

[hobsonschoice]

Cut out handle slot in the rear panel, again i just used a 2 euro coin to get the curved ends and a jigsaw and sandpaper.
I then Used a grey primer and applied by brush. Never again! regardless how smooth your mdf is before painting, the very nature of a brush will leave tiny riples everywhere.
I had to use the elctric sander on it for ages to get it smooth again but still wasn't perfect.
Spray, Spray Spray!
It's more expensive to buy spray primer but definetly worth it.

[hobsonschoice]

The back with hanlde and sprayed with metallic car paint

[hobsonschoice]

OK,
the guts of the machine is a dell laptop c500.
You can see i have stripped it down and attached the motherboard to a shelf that slisdes into the back of the cab.
You will also see i have a cheap 4 port USB extension which i got of ebay for about 4€ and pulled apart and screwed down to the shelf.
In the middle you will see some old 4 wire telephone cable ending in a blob.
This is the hacked on/off button of the laptop and as the most difficult part of the whole project.
I underestimated how hard it would be to actually solder a wire to each side of the push button circuitry. I am talking soldering pinheads here.

I strongly recommend before starting a project to investigate the on/off switch of the potential donor laptop.
I was lucky and once it was soldered i lathered it with Araldite.

[hobsonschoice]

araldite sealing the on/off hack

[hobsonschoice]

Testing with screen inserted into the bezel and Mala frontend and software.
still using normal keyboard and mouse to navigate.

[hobsonschoice]

OK, at this stage i have painted the whole cab with primer and then sprayed using a metalic car paint.
I have also masked the cab and painted the edges yellow.
I wouldn't do it this way again. next time i will construct used a wood thick enough to accomodate T-Molding. The painting was a real mess and kept seeping under the masking tape etc. Used a lot of white spirit to tidy it as i went.

You will also notice the backlight installed.
This is a mains powered small undercabinet type light about 8 inches long. cost about 15€.
If possible try to avoid mains powered backlights because they need switching on and off seperately from the computer. The best solution would be some kind of light whic derives its power from the computer.
I  might review my setup and hack the battery connections on the laptop and see if i can find a decent voltage to do this in the future.

You can also see how the shelf slides in now.
You can see the on/off wire temporarily fed through the speaker holes. These are just bare ended wires i touch together to recreate the on off action of the laptop.

[hobsonschoice]

Here is another direct view from the back.

Note the magnetic latches on the side. This is how the back panle is held. It gives me easy access and was a much simpler choice than hinges etc.

[hobsonschoice]

Ok, almost there.
I now have to arrange the control panel.
This is the most exciting part of the project but also the most daunting.

I cut out a piece of wood that overlapped the cab by about 1cm at the front and sides. Then curved the edges and sides with the electric sander to get a nice smooth feel allround.

measure where to place all your buttons. I actually cut out real size buttons from paper and blutacked them around the panel until i had the right layout. took a while but finally got it to accomadate a two player setup.

Buttons where bought from ebay and i bought a Keywiz from Grooveygames.

I then drilled all my holes with a spde bit, and had to dremel them a little larger as it seems that you can not by a spade bit between the width of 25 and 30mm. looked everywhere but could only buy a 25mm or a 30mm not  26M as required for the buttons.

[hobsonschoice]

 you can see here how it looks before the control panel is installed.
Note the speakers are just laying on the bottom of the cabinet for now.
Later i would hack these open and hang them on the inside of the cab behind the holes .
The volume control was extended through a hole in the side of the cab behind the left speaker grill. Not the best of places , it is handy but not pretty there really. i would rather have had it hidden beneath the lip of the control panel on the side but by this point there was not enough room for all the buttons joysticks ant the amplifier board with extended volume knob under the panel.

[hobsonschoice]

OK, before installing the control panel, i have bought 4mm plexiglass from B&Q.
I have cut a panel of this with a jigsaw and slotted it in front of the lcd dsiplay.
It is held in place by the back of the lower Marquee shelf and a small peice of superglued wood at the base. this makes it really easy to remove at this point. once in place it is supported by the bezel. the bezel then in turn is wedged from behind to keep the whole thing fixed. Doesn't move at all at this point but if i need to replace it at anytime it would be a 10 min job.


The marquee also is a strip of plexiglass with a printed marquee. The light leaking through will be fixed later with a small wood strip inserted as a frame from behind which seals the leaking light and holds the marquee in place.

[hobsonschoice]

Now, at this point i started wiring all the buttons and joysticks.
Unbelievable how many bits of wires you actually need! I terminated each peice of wire with a spde terminal so that i could easily switch buttons around later.
It was a real birds nest before i was finshed.
Mounting the joysticks flush was also a nuisance without a router. it was a case of cutting the hole and then dremelling the heell out of it to accomadate the hangover.once all in i applied woodfiller over the joysticks faces being carefull not to gum up the centres.
couple of layers of woodfiller and lots of sanding beofre painting the panel with about 4 layers of high gloss, piano finish black paint.

I will take a few pictures of the underside of the control panel over the weekend.
but for now...