Just Another Mountain JukeBox Copy ;) COMPLETED but SPEAKER BLOWN 11/12/2008

[drawfull]

Finished pic first if you don't want to read the whole topic:




And the full topic follows - So I mentioned a while ago of my desire to build a (partner acceptable) jukebox for her Christmas present.

I decided that Mountain's effort was beyond my woodworking capability, so have enlisted my Dad's help. He'll be building the case and incorporating the hardware, I'll be working on the interface and artwork.

The unit will appear to have a separate base a la Mountain, but won't swivel - there's no need for me to do that. But the base will house the speakers and its dimensions will be determined by the subwoofer used so it's acoustically accurate. There will be a simple IO panel on the side or back providing USB support. We don't think the unit will need audio IO.

The main unit will be constructed from MDF, wrpped in oak veneer with an oak front piece. We're staining it jacobean style to match the furniture we currently have.

I'm using a 15" ELO touchscreen for the interface and the marquee will be similar in design shape to that of Mountain's.

We're hoping that with careful design, t-molding will not be required. Hopefully this will look like it belongs in the lounge rather than my games room

Initial timeframe is two weeks or so from now.

Updates to follow

Cheers

editd misleading title

[drawfull]

Quick update:

Quarter-sawn oak is in
Oak veneer is in
Speakers are in
Laptop and ELO are on their way over the water

Things we're undecided on:
Powermate - Is it worth the hassle? We're considering a turned knob hacked onto the speaker's volume control.
Is *just* a USB port going to be enough IO? What else might I want (excluding speakers)
Angle of screen - We're considering angling the touchscreen slightly to improve the viewing angle. I don't have it here now to test and I didn't pack the leads when I posted it off, so, is it necessary?

Incidentally, it's going to be very heavy. The laptop, psu and screen weigh 10kg!

 

[drawfull]

We decided to use some Logitech Z3 2.1 speakers. Ex-display from PC World (we tested them) for £24.99 - I think these used to go for £70-80 when they were current.

We were surpised at the size of the woofer, but the double-port should add plenty of oomph! As I said earlier, we're going to remake the sub housing within the finished juke, so the sound should be as it was from the factory

We're probably going to stick with the included volume (and power) control, but turn the button / knob out of oak.

More pics to follow. 

[Kaytrim]

The speakers I am using are very similar.  They have a nice volume control knob inline with the speaker cables.  Try and get some pics of the rest of your parts.

TTFN
Kaytrim

[drawfull]

The volume control knob pot is really short so we're going to use new logarathmic pot with a longer shaft, 2" spindle. On order now...

It turns out that the power switch (for the speakers) is actually latching which is a bonus. Means it doesn't need to be interfaced to the exterior of the unit (just keep them turned on).

The face and back of the unit are going to be constructed out of the oak below, with the sides from flexible MDF. Veneer shown also. We decided we can't figure out how they cut the veneer as the grain is the 'wrong' way

Hopefully the screen and the laptop will arrive there tomorrow, according to the tracking info, it's back here at the moment, although it did spend 3 hours in England. 

More to come soon!

[Martijn]

i also used this speaker set in my cab. and extended the pots with wires

take a look in my topic for some ideas

cheers 

[drawfull]

That's great Martijn 

The USB panel mount pots are just what we're after!

[Martijn]

dont mount one upside down like i did

[drawfull]

we're oly using one, so I can get away with mounting it any way up 

A bit of progress today: The surround for the monitor was quite tricky as the monitor doesn't have a uniform surround and there are various (unecessary) bits and pieces, cables etc that get in the way of the mounting. That's why the two pieces of wood are routed differently on the underside.

We're going to separate the bezel by the same distance as the speaker box (not shown on the line drawing) and it WILL have some wood underneath the marquee, if that makes sense. We don't think the double thickness will look out of place (the width of the marquee bezel is going to be the same as the unchamfered part of the monitor surround.

Next up is to make the speaker box. We're not convinced that we're going to be happy with the sound quality, so at least if it doesn't end up like we want we haven't made everything else at which point it will be too late.

Lots more progress to come 

[DaOld Man]

I like the wood you are using (That just dont sound right does it?)
 

Great job so far...

[drawfull]

I like the wood you are using (That just dont sound right does it?)
 

Great job so far...

Yeah, it's really nice. The same stuff was used to make the chest below, though that ended up with a very light stain, we're going dark dark dark on the juke. More juke progress later on too hopefully... 

[drawfull]

I forgot to add, I tried to buy the panel mount USb widget referenced above by Martijn, but they wanted €45 shipping!!!

So I used this oneinstead! Much more reasonable 

[javeryh]

Looking good so far!  A wood stained jukebox will probably be the most accommodating to a living room setting or something similar.  All of these mountain jukes are the same but different which is pretty cool.

I am using panel mount cables from frontx.com for my I/O panel in the back of my juke.  They are pretty reasonable and they can be flush mounted so they should look really nice...  I'm planning on USB, ethernet, headphones and audio out ports - they should carry everything you'd need. 

[drawfull]

It's a shame that frontx are in the states but we're kinda committed to just the one USB externally for iPod updating. The laptop has bluetooth so I'm going to get a small bt keyboard in case I really need to do some tweaking.

Today, the front of the speaker enclosure was completed, after a failed first attempt. We made it too narrow, and because there's a couple of mill rebating required on the edge, it would have been obviously too narrow. Therefore, the one in the pics below is actually slightly wider that it will be eventually.

We also sorted out the feet to raise the unit off the 'whatever' - the sub is going to point downwards.

The feet are actually oak kitchen doorknobs, but we used a forstner bit to rebate a circle for the felt base to sit inside.

In any case, things are beginning to take shape - although veneering the unit is going to be a nightmare with the sloping front. The monitor part is routed such that it will slope front to back appx 10 degrees. So because we're not using T-molding, the veneer has to be pretty damn perfect. The front and back panels are going to sit slightly proud of the sides (1mm or so) and the veneer shrinks slightly when applied. so yeah, nightmare.

Anyway, more to come later on 

[javeryh]

That's a clever idea using the doorknobs as feet.  I am opting for a less fancy solution - $2 rubber feet!  Sloping the front panel (like Franco's) is a great idea - I thought about it but decided that I couldn't pull it off accurately. 

The next step looks like you will be getting this thing 3D!

[drawfull]

Well the sloping front is certainly causing headaches. It'll be reet... I hope

The speaker box should be done by tomorrow, which means 3D, but my Dad is collecting his new car so he might get way-layed - I should ask him to realign his priorities! 

[mountain]

I didn't feel the need to slope my Dad's screen. Sitting at a bar on a bar stool puts the screen below eye level by about 6-8 inches. I also wanted it to resemble the basic shape of an old radio.

That said, I can't wait to see what you come up with on the slope. I am really jealous that you are doing yours in wood. That was my original plan. Keep up the good work!

[drawfull]

I didn't feel the need to slope my Dad's screen. Sitting at a bar on a bar stool puts the screen below eye level by about 6-8 inches. I also wanted it to resemble the basic shape of an old radio.

That said, I can't wait to see what you come up with on the slope. I am really jealous that you are doing yours in wood. That was my original plan. Keep up the good work!

My concern re slope is that this will for the most part be on what is essentilly a sideboard (it's a marble pedestal with marble flat bit) which means when in use the user will be standing. To be honest, I haven't tested the viewing angle out but it seems to make sense for this application to slope it a bit. I'm typing this on a laptop on a kitchen worktop and the screen is useless vertically.

You should do a wood-style Juke - it'd be awesome with your skills 

[drawfull]

More picture updates... 

Pic 1 is showing base in place whilst setting - it would be square without doing this, but by temporarily inserting the base it's guaranteed.

Pic 2 is just a top view (duh)

Pic 3 and 4 show the holes for the sub. The larger hole is for the grill. Basically, the pic with the larger hole on top with the smller hole beneath is where the sub is fixed to, (with the magnet underneath) - then then grill is friction-fit to that
1
Next up is the arched top piece. End of weekend should see this thing really beginning to take shape!

[drawfull]

I began work on the marquee art this weekend. I'm struggling for inspiration, but am leaning towards the two themes below. Would appreciate feedback and anyone with experience of backlighting colours so they don't end up washed out. More construction pics to come tonight hopefully too

[DaOld Man]

I cant really help you on the marquee, but since I am going to eventually be in the same boat, I got a question for you.
What program do you use to make the marquee, and what type of printer and paper will you use? Will you get in printed at Kinkos or similar?

[drawfull]

I cant really help you on the marquee, but since I am going to eventually be in the same boat, I got a question for you.
What program do you use to make the marquee, and what type of printer and paper will you use? Will you get in printed at Kinkos or similar?

I use mainly photoshop. I haven't decided how / where to get it printed yet, but there's a local sign shop that 'can print on anything' so I might get it done on some translucent acrylic. The juke is having glass in front of the artwork so it might just be easier to get it printed on some heavy stock. Having not had anything like this printed before and subject to tight time constraints, I am still dithering

[nuka1195]

make sure if you use transparent, your printer has white ink.

[drawfull]

make sure if you use transparent, your printer has white ink.

Do you mean translucent (as I said in my post about acrylic) or white ink if printing on paper? Could I just use white transluscent acrylic?

Thanks

[Kaytrim]

make sure if you use transparent, your printer has white ink.

There is no such thing as white ink for your run of the mill printer.

Could I just use white transluscent acrylic?

I am assuming that you are using transparency paper in your printer.  Take a piece of plexiglas or lexan and sand the heck out of it at 80 grit both sides.  Use this as a backer sheet for your artwork.  This will give you the white background and disperse the light so the artwork is evenly lit.  This is what I did with my dad's bartop.

[drawfull]

I am assuming that you are using transparency paper in your printer.  Take a piece of plexiglas or lexan and sand the heck out of it at 80 grit both sides.  Use this as a backer sheet for your artwork.  This will give you the white background and disperse the light so the artwork is evenly lit.  This is what I did with my dad's bartop.

Thanks for the advice Kaytrim. My dad said to simply use transparency paper, but I thought it would look too lit. Yours looks completely fine, so I think I'll go down that route  -  at least for the first try

[drawfull]

A little progress. We've started to stain the base, which will house the speaker system.

The brass threaded ferrules are for the electronics and the baffle which will separate the woofer part of the base from the mid/tweeter components.

The bottom looks dull as it's MDF.

the row of holes are for the mids / tweeters to fix to and the four holes at the corners are for the feet pictured earlier.

There is a coat of lacquer on the base at the moment, this will be sanded with very fine wire wool then buffed up.

The second image shows the porting arrangement of the woofer. the two tubes fit inside each other (so in the pic one piece is upside down) if that makes sense.

Next really is the top encasement, but the fact the screen part is sloping is still causing headaches. More updates tomorrow for sure! 

[DaOld Man]

I cant wait to see the finished project. This is going to be sweet!

[nuka1195]

Do you mean translucent (as I said in my post about acrylic) or white ink if printing on paper? Could I just use white transluscent acrylic?

I mean see thru if you don't use white the white in your marquee will be clear.

There is no such thing as white ink for your run of the mill printer.

printer as in the place that prints it.

[drawfull]

The speaker box part should be complete by end of play today. A couple more images will show how it's going to fit together better.

In the third pic you will notice two lighter areas of wood where some holes are pre-drilled. These were masked off during the lacquering process so that they didn't get gummed up.

Two pieces of vertical MDF will fix to these. The longer horizontal one serves two purposes - a: something to fix the tweeters to and b: it seals the woofer chamber, making it dimensionally accurate with regard to the original sub design.

The shorter vertical piece of MDF will have the sub speaker fixed to it. Again once the lid of the base is in place this will be a sealed chamber.

As an aside, it seems the world has run out of black speaker cloth - well we have. So off to the local market today to pick up something suitable for behind the horizontal grills.

Also, for the eagle-eyed, the Logitech logo on the lower speaker grill is bang on square as my Dad knows I would pick up on such mis-aligned trauma

More, as always, later. But. The top semicircular part  is temporarily on hold. Waiting on a router attaccment to cut the inner part of the semicircle bezel. We can do the outer part quite simply as any imperfections can be easily sanded out, but we can't get the inner edge against the sander, obviously. 

[drawfull]

A few more pics following this morning's update. 

Basically while it looks like there's quite a bit of space it was a challenge to get everything to fit despite the base's dimensions being governed by what was going inside.

We had to extend the subwoofer pot to the rear of the base, and you can see how we did that in a couple of the pictures. Initially, there was going to be a bezel around the pot knob at the rear but in actual fact it looked perfectly fine recessed 1/8" into the case.

The electronics for the speakers are underneath the port tubes and this also dictated the sub speaer mounting height. Mistake number one - the sub protruded over the top of the base edge. We forgot to take into account that once the base piece is in place, we lose 12mm of available height. I think we ended up routing the lid slightly to accomodate but I will check.

Mistake number two was while staining. The stain we chose turned out to be water based. The oak loved it. Basically it swelled up after the first coat as the water infiltrated the grain of the wood. Complete resanding and a few coats later....

Mistake number three. We powered the unit up and threw some music at it. The sound quality was terrible! we'd forgotted to port the port chamber so if you look closely, opposite where the 5 port chamber holes are you will see dinks out of the case on the top edge and the MDF down the centre. Unfortunately, we had to angle the drill too close to the case so the forstner bit didn't slip. Luckily the dinks will not  be visible when the unit is assembled.

Needless to say, propoerly ported and sealed the sound quality is frankly stunning considering the speakers we've chosen, so I'm really pleased with that. We chucked a little rave music on and that got an expletive from my Dad. In a good way

Another buried body is the speaker cloth. Female stomach-holding-in lycra type stuff. Cut from a fresh pair. 

[Martijn]

nice job, i love the bass control knob extender

[javeryh]

Totally SICK.  

Can you explain a little bit more what you did in there components-wise?  Seeing this makes me nervous that the speaker bar I'm shoehorning in mine is going to be totally inadequate...

[Franco B]

Awesome work, your dad sure has some skills! I hope you have been taking notes

Its nice to see some more UK'ers on here 

[drawfull]

nice job, i love the bass control knob extender

Yeah, I wasn't sure how that would turn out when my Dad and I talked about it. I'm really pleased with the sound quality too - I had an over-the-phone demonstration of Mahler (heh) and Scott Brown - both performed really well but the classical lost a litle due to the speakers' dynamic range (or lack of).

Totally SICK.  

Can you explain a little bit more what you did in there components-wise?  Seeing this makes me nervous that the speaker bar I'm shoehorning in mine is going to be totally inadequate...

I asked Da Old Man about his choice to use the speaker bar as he seemed to have loads of room in the base of his unit. Don't forget that mine will not have an IO panel, so I wanted semi decent speakers from the get go. If all else fails, I can always open the back door and plug something beefier in if need be. That said, my Dad's place is about 4 times the size of mine and he was a good few rooms away and I could still hear everything clearly over the phone. I am sure that the Dell set is perfectly adequate for easy listening in any case - I wouldn't worry.

I'll edit the post with the pics to explain what's inside and so on - I guess letting everyone know where the bodies are buried will help others in the future

Also, thanks very much for the kind words, my Dad will be thrilled when I show him this!

Awesome work, your dad sure has some skills! I hope you have been taking notes

Its nice to see some more UK'ers on here 

Oh yea, plenty of notes. I have noted that I do not have anything like the ability to pull a project like this together. By comparison, my Star Wars bartop is a breeze! There are one or two mistakes, but thankfully they will not be visible once everything is complete.

 

[DaOld Man]

I agree with everyone else. this thing is going to be a beast!
And also, your Dad does have some dang good skills.

Im kinda worried about the sound bar myself, but I gave my wife a test run of it on the work bench/dining room table and she liked it. (Im talking about the speaker bar ya perverts!  )

Keep up the great job of posting, and I love the details.

[drawfull]

I agree with everyone else. this thing is going to be a beast!
And also, your Dad does have some dang good skills.

Im kinda worried about the sound bar myself, but I gave my wife a test run of it on the work bench/dining room table and she liked it. (Im talking about the speaker bar ya perverts!  )

Keep up the great job of posting, and I love the details.

I know he does, he's pretty good at woodworking generally, although he has my ability to trash his working environment (see pic)! Thanks again for all the positive feedback, makes the effort all the more worthwhile! 

[drawfull]

Spent another few minutes trying to get something I would be happy with. The shape represents how the final bezel will be - ie it differs from the two mock ups above. More construction pics to come later on... 

[drawfull]

Well progress. Then Arghhhhhh  We're sleeping on it, but it is an issue to me Read it and weep...

Just a nice angled shot, yay.


This shows the four pices of oak squared in readiness for cutting the front and back arches



Then we had to decide the amount of wood visible around the knob. This:


or this:


All going great. We decided on the fatter surround. The Picture isn't actually the width we picked - shave half an inch off that.

Then came the problem. So the stain would take we need to chamfer each external 90deg join slightly. As you near the corner / mitre you can't do that as the corner wouldn't be perfectly square. Fine. Except we forgot about the marquee bezel. It uses 40mm each side. But we sanded to within a couple of mm of the corner.

After a brief call, we decided to shave 3mm from the top part of the monitor surround. I didn't think the implications through - basically the mitred corners at the top of the bezel area no longer meet in the corners. We're thinking of ways to fix the problem without remaking the bezel - suggestions please

In any case, as things stand now, we have the semicircular surround for the knob biscuited in place and all the reverse routed as required for the glass as these will show.



Ready for assembly... ^



The underside ^ and then the effed up mitres



Anyone got any ideas?

 

ps I screwed up the pic sizes - how do i link to the project pic thread properly?

[javeryh]

Can you reattach the photos?  They are hard to see (tiny) - click "additional options" and then just add them from your hard drive and make sure they files are less than 512kb each.  Also, I think 2 of them are identical (where you are trying to show the differences between amount of wood visible around the knob).

The last picture looks good from the front (which is the most important thing).  When you add the top arc, isn't everything going to work itself out?  I can't tell what you did wrong!

[drawfull]

Check the point where the mitres meet in the last pic. I fixed the pics heheh

[Kaytrim]

Here is an idea.  Take out the top piece from the frame and remake it.  Recut the two side pieces so the miters are back in the corner like they should be.  Install the new top piece and you should be back in business.

[javeryh]

I must be slow or something... I still can't see how you made a mistake that will show through to the front when it is all said and done...

EDIT: I see it now.  Last pic upper right shows the mitre not hitting the corner.  Kaytrim - it isn't a matter of remaking that one piece because he cut the corner of the two side pieces as well.  Hmmm... this is a tough one.  I'd probably recut all three pieces or just remake the frame since you aren't too far along. 

Totally sucks though and I DEFINITELY feel your pain.  I mean you could shave 3mm off of the entire thing on the other 3 sides to get it square again but that might mess up other things (like the relation to the base).   Damn.  Hopefully someone smarter than me will chime in with a solution.

[Kaytrim]

Look at the upper right corner on this pic javeryh.  You will notice that the cut line doesn't go to the corner.

[drawfull]

Here is an idea.  Take out the top piece from the frame and remake it.  Recut the two side pieces so the miters are back in the corner like they should be.  Install the new top piece and you should be back in business.

At first this sounded like a possible idea, but along with what javeryh pointed out if you look closely at the upside down piece, the top edge is also chamfered 10degs (for the sloping front). In any case, it's a nightmare.

Hmmm... this is a tough one.  I'd probably recut all three pieces or just remake the frame since you aren't too far along. 

Totally sucks though and I DEFINITELY feel your pain.  I mean you could shave 3mm off of the entire thing on the other 3 sides to get it square again but that might mess up other things (like the relation to the base).   Damn.  Hopefully someone smarter than me will chime in with a solution.

We discussed at length. The biscuited circle is a day's work essentially. Well perhaps not quite but not easy either. The frame took a couple of days - but that was quite easy as it could just be an arbitrary size - if it were to be remade it would have to be perfect... Also, is the time frame. The builder is leaving for sunnier climes in just shy of two weeks, so it HAS to be done by then and there's still LOTS to do.

We're still thinking of a way around the problem. 

[drawfull]

In the end we decided to make a new bezel for the monitor.

Turns out that although the initial bezel took ages to do that was mainly because of all the measuring / design / making the rebates for the screen. Should've been obvious, but we already had all that information this time around, so the replacement took a couple of hours. Pics to come!

[Martijn]

That's the best solution i think for this problem with 100% result 

[javeryh]

Glad to hear it!  You will be much happier in the long run.   

I'm wishing I could remake my entire project but I'm going to have to live with whatever results I get by sanding and polishing.

 

[Martijn]

Javeryh , ask your gf nice to bring the kids to the grandparents this weekend and get some quality repairs done 

[drawfull]

I'm wishing I could remake my entire project but I'm going to have to live with whatever results I get by sanding and polishing.

 

Javeryh , ask your gf nice to bring the kids to the grandparents this weekend and get some quality repairs done 

Jveryh, I agree with Martijn - the time you've taken off the project will reap dividends when you get back to it.

We've had a couple more cock-ups today too, but I don't have pictures of them...

Anyway, we ordered a compass attachment for the router and that arrived yesterday which meant we could start work on the arches. The spindle supplied by the compass manufacturer had about 2mm play in it when attached so we made a new one from a little bit of aluminium and a block of MDF



This was centred onto another slab of MDF so that we could route the arches from the square section of oak (4 pieces, mitred) and deliberately score the MDF beneath with the router. This will help in setting up the router accurately for the inner pieces in the future. It also served as a base for a home made compass which we used to draw out the circles onto the square section:



The we attached the router. We noticed that the router was dipping under its own weight, so stuffed a small piece of MDF underneath to keep it level



And the finished piece:



Afterwards, half the finished circle was clamped to the workbench and the two semicircles separated by snapping the wood at the mitre joins. Went perfectly! And we didn't lose any material due to the width of the bandsaw blade... but

  Whilst routing the chamfer on the external edge, the router slipped and we're left with a hole on the front, about the size of a 5p piece. We're going to try and patch it (we can match the grain) but ig it looks crap, time to make a new one (or use it for the back arch). Problem with using it for the back is that we rebated already for the glass, so the door won't fit - we'd have to make it fit into the rebate and it would still be proud a couple mm. Anyway, at least we have two options.

More later!

[drawfull]

The new bezel, with accurate mitres



And the repair job - we decided you'll not notice the join once it's completely sanded and stained.. saved a lot of rework!



 

[drawfull]

Not finished, but hard to tell

[Kaytrim]

That is some real nice repair work on the arch.  The joint is hairline and will disappear once stained.  Your Dad has some skills. 

[drawfull]

Thanks kaytrim - it turns out that due to the angle of the grain at the end of each arch, as the router gets there it rips the end off, so we had to repair all four ends eventually as this shows - the technique was always to just match the grain as best as possible:



Then, we made a jig so we could attach the pieces of the bezel area together and check alignment with the arch. I should have posted this before, but didn't have a pic of it. The bezel slopes upwards at 10degrees, but would be laid flat during positioning here. In each corner, where the MDF holding pieces are, we applied some beeswax to the lower MDF to ensure that any glue that might have trickled down didn't stick the bezel to the MDF template:



Once we had the two pieces in position, we routed a small slot so that we could use a home-made biscuit to join the pieces together:



We also routed the groove for the glass retainer:



Once the slot was routed, the two pieces were removed from the jig and positioned ready for the biscuit - you can see the slope in this pic:



Once the glue was set it was sanded flat:



And the surround for the volume control added:



More progress later today hopefully

[drawfull]

We also started work on the back door, since the arches were complete.

First, we made two strips of oak to attach to the body of the bck door, which is made out of MDF. the reason for this is to give the hinges and lock mech something subtantial to be fit into:



Once this had set, the arch shape was cut out, prior to the routing of the hinges and the lock:



Once the arch was done, a rebate for the lock mechanism was fitted:



Once this was done, the veneer could be applied. It shrinks like a asdfghjj when heat is applied, which is going to cause all kinds of headaches when it comes to the time to veneer the arch sides as we'll have only point contact from the heat source. It's iron on veneer:



the door itself will also be veneered on the edges as when it's open, the MDF sticks out like a sore thumb!

More tomorrow!! 

[javeryh]

Looking really good - I didn't realize you were angling the front panel at 10 degrees.  What does this do to the profile?  There is some serious skill involved in putting that off!   

[drawfull]

Looking really good - I didn't realize you were angling the front panel at 10 degrees.  What does this do to the profile?  There is some serious skill involved in putting that off!   

The biggest problem it creates is flush trimming the veneer - we can't. Well  not safel anyway. The veneer on the back panel was trimmed with a stanley knife (box cutter?) and the results are perfectly adequate so that's what's going to happen with the front too.

Today we accomplished quite a lot. We used a forstner bit to rebate the surround for the volume knob. The bit goes directly between the monitor and marquee surrounds and came out better than I expected:

Pilot hole


We had to dismantle the pillar drill to get the bezel in position:



Once this was drilled the forstner bit took out the rebate for the knob:



Then we could start work on the carcass. the bendy MDF will fix to this, and will then be veneered. We used 15mm x 15mm pine for the box part, and similar section plywood for the arch. The reason for using ply was we needed to be able to fix securely to the arch and pine is not solid enough. The finished frame is 'flexible' - that's the reason why we didn't add too many cross braces. We wanted to make sure that when fixing the front and back oak panels, we could wiggle the carcass sufficiently to allow for proper alignment.

Front and back pine / ply sections:


The finished carcass:


Front view:


Profile of angled front:


Then we started work on the control knob itself. This was turned oout of oak, and the spindle attached. We might change the dimple and fit a machined piece of aluminium in the same place. All in all though, I'm really pleased with how it's turned out.



And installed (temporarily)



we started the installation of the bendy MDF today too, but no pics of that yet...

More to come tomorrow..

[Franco B]

Wow, just wow. This is gonna be sweet

Is that a Sealey drill press in that picture? I nearly bid on a similar Sealey one on ebay last night. Does it have a digital RPM readout? I ended up winning an auction for another bench mounted drill press. 

[drawfull]

Wow, just wow. This is gonna be sweet

Is that a Sealey drill press in that picture? I nearly bid on a similar Sealey one on ebay last night. Does it have a digital RPM readout? I ended up winning an auction for another bench mounted drill press. 

Thanks for the kind words! No, it's not a Sealey. The drill is manufactured by Record Power in Sheffield. It does the job but the spindle has LOTS of play when fully extended (4"). Cost about £250 I think.

Cheers

[drawfull]

Bendy MDF - there's a 12mm gap towards the bottom of each side. This will be finished with oak. the clamps are because we cut the length of the MDF too short, the join is behind the clamped batten:



Enough for today  

[javeryh]

 

Wow.  Looks great!  The frame is going to make it very light. 

[drawfull]

Wow.  Looks great!  The frame is going to make it very light. 

Thanks again - It'll weigh in the region of 30-40kilos all told, we think, which should be plenty heavy enough, but yes, the frame itself is quite light

[kizer]

Man this thread is pretty cool. I like the fact that even thou the original idea has been copied a few times that it keeps morphing into something different each time.

[DaOld Man]

Great work! I like the carcass idea!

[drawfull]

Man this thread is pretty cool. I like the fact that even thou the original idea has been copied a few times that it keeps morphing into something different each time.

Great work! I like the carcass idea!

Thanks guys - positive feedback really means a lot, helps keep everything moving forward when things go wrong. 

There's a little more progress to post too:

I am becoming increasingly concerned with ventilation, as the trial version of the juke I made got very hot to the point that the laptop I intend to use for the guts would become jittery. It's AMD based and well I know they tend to run hot but this gets very hot.

We decided to route some slots in the back door. I don't know the name for this tool, but basically once set the router fits within the internal space and its north/south travel is restricted to the correct amount by the horizontal rulers. This was after we'd done the first few slots - this took almost a full day as the spacing and length of each slot is absolutely critical to get the look we were after, and it was a one time only deal, obviously:



This picture shows both the finished routing, and you can also see where the veneer shrunk slightly during application. this is quite concerning (the white is filler) but as it's the back door which won't be seen, not the end of the world. We have a new technique for application in mind for the sidewall veneer - more on that to come!



The top line of the routed slots follows a concentric circle on the same centre as the outer shape. Therefore if you measure from the top point of each slot to the tangent of the outer circle, the distance is the same for all slots  -even though it doesn't look like that in the pic!!



we next started to plan the layout of the laptop and marquee light. We decided that access requirements to the laptop would be few and far between (heh) but we also didn't want to be poking about inside the juke whenever changes were needed.

The first pic shows the front view and you can also see the marquee fluorescent in this pic. I was going to use some really great LED strip for the light, but the one I liked was about £120 per metre... spendy.



This is from the back with the laptop closed. Forgive the Heath-Robinson blocks getting everything to the correct height! If you notice where the laptop hinge is (toward the bottom) you'll see that there are two rounded pieces of MDF. This ensures that the laptop hinges down for acess along the axis of the laptop screen hinge.



The catch that holds the laptop shut is easily accessible, and when you open the laptop the screen stays in place (it's velcroed to the horizontal batten that's visible in the front pic above). The keyboard comes out a comfortable distance for any changes that may be required. Despite the slightly rough look, it works surprisingly well 



I should have a few more progress pics later on today. In the pics above, the front bendy MDF edge has only been rough cut - will be flush trimmed later. I said we couldn't flush trim that or the veneer earlier. That was a load of rubbish 

Cheers for all the feedback!

[kizer]

I dont' have any photos because my ghetto juke has never made it past protype stages, but anyways I put a little PC fan at the very top blowing out which of course heat rises so it blows out the hot air and cooler air is sucked in from little notches near the bottom.

I really like your idea putting in little notches for venting. It just has that finished look opposed to just cutting a hole.

[drawfull]

I dont' have any photos because my ghetto juke has never made it past protype stages, but anyways I put a little PC fan at the very top blowing out which of course heat rises so it blows out the hot air and cooler air is sucked in from little notches near the bottom.

I really like your idea putting in little notches for venting. It just has that finished look opposed to just cutting a hole.

The slots fit quite well with the finish we're looking for imho. What we did realise though is that the position we've put the fan means that the laptop will actually get very little cooling. I am thinking the fan should have been towards the top, sucking warm air out, but we are where we are.

So, we made a little aluminium deflector which will fitover the fan, attached to the laptop support pillars. This will hopefully ensure that at least some airflow reaches the laptop but because it's 4" narrower than the width of the internal cab we still get airflow over the touchscreen. We hope. It's not up to Franco's metalworking but it suits the purpose I don't have an installed pic - everything is apart as we're staining - but hopefully my budget description and pics before will help...



As I said, we started staining - the back door prior to lacquering. You can see the join between the two pieces of veneer, but as I said earlier, we have a better idea now of how to apply it on the sides of the unit. Touch wood, that'll be perfect:



We weren't that happy with the dimple on the volume knob. My Dad suggested an aluminium insert, flush with the top surface  of the knob. It's an aluminium spacer, fit into a hole through the knob. The wooden insert is an 8mm diameter piece of oak, hammered into place. ONce it was in, we stained the piece, but the oak 8mm bit rose above the rim of the aluminium. The aluminium is araldited in place, but a few minutes in the vice set the oak insert flush again. It's perfectly smooth and I'm please with how it turned out.



Hopefully I'll be able to get some finished staining pics up later on tonight. We are waiting on veneer to arrive (the web store shut for a week the day we placed the second order) but it should be here Tuesday morning. If it arrives early enough, this might just be finished by end of Wednesday... otherwise it will be a couple of weeks after that as we're away. Fingers crossed!

 

[Barry Barcrest]

Some crazy skills going on with that thing. The volume knob is really nice.

[drawfull]

Some crazy skills going on with that thing. The volume knob is really nice.

Thank you!!

Just a few more small progress pics, not much explanation required.

Test fitting the volume knob and electronics:


Something close to the colour in real life:


And a couple more random pics:


Another - we sprayed the hinges matt black in eeping with the rest of the stuff on the back of the unit:


And one more, whole door, inside - shows veneer problem quite well:


Getting closer! 

[mountain]

Damn! That's pretty. I love the keyed latch too.

[drawfull]

Damn! That's pretty. I love the keyed latch too.

Thank you again

This is probably close to final artwork for the marquee, just printed on an inkjet. I'm going to remove the black border, extend the larger circumference swirls and print a silhouette of just the text so it hopefully pops when backlit.

I think it's understated enough to work unlit and lit too, and it says what I want it to. I think the colour works well too but you have to imagine the dark stain with it. - Also, there's a lot of inkjet bleed obviously...



Comments?

[edge]

drawfull - fantastic job thus far.  I love the wooden knob.  I may need to kidnap your dad for my jukebox. ;-)

On the marquee, it looks like the S in Hanny'S is too close to the word Tunes.  Must be because the S seems to be leaning over to the right a bit... Maybe add some more space in between the 2 words?

[javeryh]

I was also going to say it looked like one word or actually like Hanny' Stunes.  Also, I would have the text follow the arc of your cutout.

[DaOld Man]

This juke is frickin sweet.
I agree about the lettering in the marquee, but other than that, it looks great! I love the 3-D look.

[drawfull]

drawfull - fantastic job thus far.  I love the wooden knob.  I may need to kidnap your dad for my jukebox. ;-)

On the marquee, it looks like the S in Hanny'S is too close to the word Tunes.  Must be because the S seems to be leaning over to the right a bit... Maybe add some more space in between the 2 words?

Thanks for the feedback and kind words. I agree re the 'S' - I was aware of it, but the font I  used was a free version of something commercial and the kerning is all wrong. I think that's the right phrase. I can fix it and will - thanks!

I was also going to say it looked like one word or actually like Hanny' Stunes.  Also, I would have the text follow the arc of your cutout.

This juke is frickin sweet.
I agree about the lettering in the marquee, but other than that, it looks great! I love the 3-D look.

Thanks again guys - with regard to the text mirroring the arc, it's tricky. It just doesn't look 'right' that way. Because the top arc mirrors the knob surround, it's much more severe than both your jukes. I think if I move the 'S' it will improve it a lot. I also want to change the flowery bit around the knob to match the upper surround. Strugging with that too.

More to come later

[drawfull]

Veneer is absolute HELL to apply. We have had so many problems. It shrinks like a salted slug. The grain raises too so much when damp. We're using a waterbased stain. Big mistake. But it's all we thought we had. We actually have litres of methanol-based stuff but didn't find it til after the base and back door were stained.

So while these pics are before any sanding / trimming, rest assured that we might have to redo the lot. We wet the veneer (to raise the grain) then sand when dry. Then, wet again, sand again. Eventually the grain should stop raising, which means we can stain. It took 4 goes on the solid oak parts, but at least it worked. we have wet the veneered parts now several time on the main body and the grain keeps on rising. the major issue is the veneer is so thin, it's looking like getting to the point where there'll be nothing left to sand soon. Anyway, we've wet it one more time and are going to leave it alone til the morning.

Even with this problem, it actually looks MUCH better than these pics now. The joints are virtually invisble and part of me thinks it will turn out OK. It looks like we're going to miss the deadline of completion before holiday, so there will be a week break or so from updates after tomorrow unless I work on the artwork some more.

Anyway, here's the in prog pics of the veneering:













 

[nuka1195]

looks good.

has your dad ever fumed white oak? i see you staining dark brown. you can get really good results fuming. nice chocolate brown.

i've read that european white oak is more consistant for fuming.

i only fume white oak.

[drawfull]

looks good.

has your dad ever fumed white oak? i see you staining dark brown. you can get really good results fuming. nice chocolate brown.

i've read that european white oak is more consistant for fuming.

i only fume white oak.

I know his grandfather clock he built a few years ago out of european white oak, he fumed that. I'm not sure why we decided not to fume this. The oak we have for this goes very dark when fumed, but I'm happy with the stain.

(edited as I am stupid)

[drawfull]

This is probably the last update for a few days or so. Once the veneer had set in place, we flush trimmed it, then sanded it to death as mentioned in the earlier post. These pics look a world better than before we did any of this work. I'm really pleased with it.









We also fit some real oak at the bottom of each side, about 12mm deep, which you can just make out in this pic. we were concerned that if the juke got a knock, the veneer would chip. This will stop that happening.



This was after all the sanding etc, it's not a brilliant pic but it gets the job done:



Before staining the main body, we had to fit the front and back arches:

From the front...


From the back (the two circular cutouts you can see in the frame are for power (at the top) and USB (at the bottom))...


This final pic shows the profile of the front and back arches in relation to the cabinet body. The front and back rise proud by 1mm each, kind of like t-molding...


There's a small chance I'll have some stained pics by end of today, but it is only a small chance... 

[Franco B]

Awesomes, just awesomes 

Can't wait to see it finished 

[javeryh]

Awesome job!!  I can't wait to see this finished.   

[drawfull]

Awesomes, just awesomes 

Can't wait to see it finished 

Awesome job!!  I can't wait to see this finished.  

Once again, thanks guys! 

Well it's very very close now, and it might be lacquered and therefore essentially complete, really soon... nearly there!



You can see the difference the lacquer makes in this one:



Cheers all

[javeryh]

Very very nice!!  You'd be surprised how fast you can install the components - you are really almost finished!   

[drawfull]

Very very nice!!  You'd be surprised how fast you can install the components - you are really almost finished!  

Yep, very close, and we've already installed everything once. There is virtually no chance of completion by tomorrow though. Gotta leave at 1pm (it's 7.30pm now) so realistically, at the most we have 6 hours to lacquer, let i t dry, polish, install. But we'll likely lacquer at least

[drawfull]

Well, the mother of all cock ups has happened. The wood used for the base was one length of 6" wide oak. The wood for the top, another length although the same batch.

The stain, believe it or not, is the same one for the base and the top.

We really don't know how to fix this


I've attached the pic separately so it will open bigger.

[Kaytrim]

Looks like you have red oak and white oak.  Head over to the woodnet.net forums and post your question there.  Plenty of folks there who are more than happy to help you out, just like here.  As long as you haven't applied the lacquer yet you still have a chance to tweak the color to match.  If the lacquer has been applied then you'll have to either strip or sand it down or apply some kind of gel stain.

Good luck,
Michael

[(+_+)]

Great job so far!! It is very antiquey looking and looks like it'll go with the decor I see in the pics.

[leapinlew]

Looks like you have red oak and white oak.  Head over to the woodnet.net forums and post your question there. 

Awesome suggestion Kaytrim. Good luck fixing that. This is FAR from a disaster and is very fixable. Very worse case scenario is you rebuild the base (assuming the top is the right color choice).

[system01]

Pisser!  I had the exact same problem on my cab.  I went cheap and used Polyshades.  I wouldn't recommend it!

Kaytrim's right, I think a gel stain will be what you want.

Theres also color chips you can add to lacquer/varnish/poly that does a similar job, such as http://www.homesteadfinishing.com/htdocs/TransTint.htm.

Good Luck!

[drawfull]

Hi guys

The base is the correct colour unfortunately. We are sure that the stain is right (ie the same on each piece) just the wood has taken the stain differently.

we did try and apply some blackening stain (might be gel, I don't know its proper name) on the upper half but it didn't make much of a difference.

Unfortunately there is a coat of lacquer on the top, and we were really pleased with the overall finish. We could sand the top and try again, or sand both and fume them.

I'll check the woodworking link posted, thank you for the advice.

System01, I'll look into those colour chips too. I'm sure my dad has come across them before, but I haven't!

Cheers

[DaOld Man]

I kinda like the color on both the top and bottom, just too bad they dont match.
Im sure you and your dad will get this worked out in no time.
The project is really looking good. Kinda wish I had angled my monitor a bit now.

[javeryh]

Kinda wish I had angled my monitor a bit now.

Most definitely.  Too bad it's way out of my skill set. 

Curve + 10 degree angle = 

I don't think the stain looks that bad.  The bottom is separate so it's not like you have 2 adjacent panels that are different colors.  Plus it looks like the volume knob matches the bottom so it ties in kind of nice.  This is one of those things no one but you will notice and if they do they will just think it was intentional.

It looks fantastic.   

[Kaytrim]

Kinda wish I had angled my monitor a bit now.

Most definitely.  Too bad it's way out of my skill set. 

Curve + 10 degree angle = 

Actually it is rather easy if you break it down.  Cut your curve part first.  Then add the 10 degree angel at the base of the curve.

 

[BASS!]

I actually don't think its too big of a deal. If it really bugs you though you could always just get a much darker stain and have it look closer to ebony, that may really contrast well. On a side note, you have an amazingly beautiful house and somehow managed to match the stain to your mantle and that beautiful turn of the century clock.

[drawfull]

Thanks for all the reassurances! I like the black base idea! We will sort something this weekend.

I wanted to document the build permanently, and have ordered a bespoke photo album from epica.com. they're in the states, but their online live support was cool

It's hit me for about $450 and the exchaange rate is bleak, but I am happy. I will post pictures of the completed album once it's here. I lso arranged for some proper complete professional shots to be taken. Gonna be about £100 framed, but that includes the photography / picture I pick

Cheers

[leapinlew]

It's hit me for about $450

[drawfull]

I guess it does look like a lot now I read it lol, I think the basic album was about $120~ - the rest was customisation and shipping... Then again, I really don't think it's too bad, a posh handbag would cost much more and they're both just leather stitched together...

[drawfull]

Just  quick one to say we can't do anything to match the way the top came out, so we have a two-tone juke. We don't have time to restart, sand to wood and hope etc.

Not thrilled, but it isn't as bad as the pic makes out

Cheers

[kizer]

All I gotta say is WOW. That thing is very nice looking.

[Franco B]

Awesome, awesome, awesome project 

I don't think the two tone is a big deal, looks good to me!

You will have to show us some pics of the album, I wanna know what a $450 album looks like! 

[facesmiths]

make sure if you use transparent, your printer has white ink.

There is no such thing as white ink for your run of the mill printer.

Could I just use white transluscent acrylic?

unless your run of the mill printer is an ALPS as they had not only white ink but also metallic and foil inks. 2400 x 2400 DPI too

[facesmiths]

ok now that I got to look at the whole of the thread I have to say MAN WOW! yes I can not wait to see the finished product either. it is going to be so full of WIN that it would be illegal here. (of  course it does not take much here since FUN is illegal too HEH HEH)

really awesome wood work.

[drawfull]

Awesome, awesome, awesome project 

I don't think the two tone is a big deal, looks good to me!

You will have to show us some pics of the album, I wanna know what a $450 album looks like! 

Cheers Franco, hopefully the album will make it in time, even though the content won't be that exciting!

ok now that I got to look at the whole of the thread I have to say MAN WOW! yes I can not wait to see the finished product either. it is going to be so full of WIN that it would be illegal here. (of  course it does not take much here since FUN is illegal too HEH HEH)

really awesome wood work.

Thanks once again all for the great feedback, I have said before it means a lot, but it really does.

There might be a rather big update later today, but we have email issues at the moment, which we've been trying to sort for an hour. I did finalise the art, and that's attached



... Stay tuned (pardon the pun) 

[drawfull]

Despite previous posts, despite thinking we we're going to be forced to settle for a two-colour juke, we decided to take one last throw of the dice.

Say hello to Mr. Nitromoors. This was a big decision, we had no guarantee that the juke top would come out the correct colour. We tested every stain we had and NONE matched what had happened on the top part of the juke. But something HAD happened, and we decided we would never be truly happy unless we tried. So out came the nitromoors. I'm not sure if this is available in the states, but it's a brand name for indutrial strength paint-remover.



We really didn't know how this would turn out, it was a big gamble so close to the deadline. The way it happened, it turned out great! Right backk to the original oak! But, we weren't that happy with the veneer. It is very thin and didn't like the curve of the juke too much when we applied it. So with this new opportunity, we decided to fill it. The filler used is designed to take the stain well, so we slapped it on generously wherever there were cracks or imperfections in the work we'd done:



Once this was set, it was sanded generously. Turned out great. So the moment of truth:

Stained, lacquered, MATCHES THE BASE!!!! 



There are a couple of small imperfections in the above picture, but believe me, it is a fantastic improvement on where we were. The filler didn't take the stain exactly as the veneer did, but the image above eccentuates the problem if it really exists so much. Please disregard

So we could begin finally installing the guts. First was the glass for the touch screen. We utilised the original clips from the monitor surround, and also got the fan installed too:



Then the rest of the touch screen:



And with the back of the screen fitted:



This is where it's up to now. Artwork and everything else should be done by tomorrow, so just loading MP3s and software tweaks to do



Well pleased  

 

[Kaytrim]

Nice Save on the stain.

[javeryh]

WOW.  Very nice.  I can't believe you were able to match the stain.  Incredible job.   

[DaOld Man]

Beautiful!
A work of art my friend..

 

[system01]

Holy Ess!  You should buy a lottery ticket with that luck!  Glad you got it matched.  That kind of stuff really eats at me.

 

[drawfull]

Bit of a mishap with the glass retainer for the artWORK. It slipped and broke. But it's almost there now, Just a couple of pics of things being installed... thanks for the good comments as always

We got a nice and discreet usb hub, it's on the left of this pic.



And it works! I'm using Touchtone for the front-end software and there's lots of tweaking to do. I may still yet change my mind, but I bought the licence so am going to see how far I can get.

Will get the glass tomorrow then it can be 99% done 



Cheers

[Encryptor]

Very nice! What does the top look like where you had to put the putty? Did it take the stain well?


Encryptor

[drawfull]

Very nice! What does the top look like where you had to put the putty? Did it take the stain well?


Encryptor

It looks fine. If you look at the last pic, there's an inch or so that looks white on theright-hand vertical side. That's putty. But, it only looks white as it reflects the harsh halogen floodlight and camera flash much differently to the oak. In real life you can't tell, unless you know where to look. It came out really well.

Cheers

[drawfull]

Just a few loose ends to post about, but am pleased to say (one small thing aside) that my partner's Juke is finished

There have been a few traumas on the way, but I am thrilled with the final product.

We made another small misjudgement - with the positioning of the laptop and the sides of the case, it wasn't possible to hinge down the keyboard without the VGA output lead to the touch screen catching. So we decased the original blue plug and using good old electricians tape, wrapped the guts of the plug. This reduced the overall size by just enough to clear the Juke body, which you can just make out in this picture:



Then it was simply a case of installing the rest of the guts. Mainly the marquee light, glass retainers and artwork.



And with the laptop opened:



Herein lies a problem. We had initially planned to use 2 pieces of 4mm glass to hold the artwork. this created an issue that I didn't think of when making the artwor. I made the art to be just a mm or so larger than the viewable area. this means that due to the thickness of the front piece of glass, when looking from an angle, you can see white paper. I need to redo the art, and I'm doing that this evening. This is how it looks now:



Really pleased, art aside 

Final pic, with the lighting in the room off. There's just enough light through the 220gsm stock to illuminate the art nicely, and the letters stand out really well. In real life it doesn't look washed out at all. Pleased! You'll also notice that there's some glow on the wall. I had hoped that it would more closely resemble the slots in the back door of the cab but I'm still happy with the effect it gives



As you can see, I still need to sort out the software, it's gone nuts! Small issue and will be easy to fix I hope.

Just want to say thanks to everyone on here for their support and more importantly encouragement, it really is a great community.

Finally, I want to say thanks to my Dad, as without his experience and woodworking skill I wouldn't have been able to do this in any way. Cheers Dad!! 

[Kaytrim]

I agree to both you and your Dad.  Now to get started on mine.

[Nvts]

Looks great!

You just put the light across the back supports, yes? 

What is that knob above the door? 

Can you go into some of the wiring that had to be added?  Looks like you have a terminal strip or whatever they call it, and some odds and ends underneath.   You sure went from a Here is the Shell to Here is it almost done really fast.  :p

How well does the sound bar seem to work now that it is all done?

[Kaytrim]

   You sure went from a Here is the Shell to Here is it almost done really fast.  :p

I find that is the case with most of my projects.  Building the Shell is 80% of the project.

[leapinlew]

 

As you can see, I still need to sort out the software, it's gone nuts! Small issue and will be easy to fix I hope.

famous last words!

[drawfull]

Looks great!

You just put the light across the back supports, yes? 

What is that knob above the door? 

Can you go into some of the wiring that had to be added?  Looks like you have a terminal strip or whatever they call it, and some odds and ends underneath.   You sure went from a Here is the Shell to Here is it almost done really fast.  :p

How well does the sound bar seem to work now that it is all done?

Thanks! Yes, we added a strip of wood to hold the light. The lamp has its own diffuser, which is why the illumination from the back of the cab isn't a true reflection of the slots in the door. All that's getting to the slots is reflected light from the inside of the cab / rear of the marquee.

The knob above the door was going to be the main power, but I decided that I didn't want to power the laptop down so it does the speakers and lamp. The reason it's not quite central is simply because there is not enough wood around the frame if we cut the rebate for it centrally.

With the wiring, the mains input comes up from the speaker box into the terminal block then up to the switch and back down to the terminals again. From there to a decased 12V power supply from a wall-wart which powers the fan. The laptop psu comes straight  off the Mains input from the base.

The speakers are adequate for the size of the room it's going in. The sub provides just enough bass so you can feel it without bringing the house down. I'm a little disappointed with the top end, but haven't played with it much and I think I'll be able to fix it in software. One other small disappointment is the adjustment of the bass. It's working but whether the frequency range it controls is really low or something, there doesn't seem to be that much difference between min and max. Could be the 'music' I listen to, dunno. But overall it's fine, and very loud at full volume

It did seem to go quite quickly once the shell was done, but as Kaytrim said, that was 80% of the work. Although we thought about the internal layout quite a bit, no-one will see it so it didn't need the same attention to detail imo as the rest of the cabinet.

I agree to both you and your Dad.  Now to get started on mine.

Thanks Michael, get your finger out buddy!!

As you can see, I still need to sort out the software, it's gone nuts! Small issue and will be easy to fix I hope.

famous last words!

Yep. But I am not too concerned, I am only running music so to speak, am thnkful I don't have a gazzilion emus to configure! Once it's up and running I'll do a YouTube vid which should be sometime mid-week next week.

Cheers all  

[DaOld Man]

Man Drawful!!!
Im at a loss for words.
This thing looks like something you would pay  thousands for at a cabinet shop.
 

[drawfull]

Cheers DaOld Man, I just hope the better half likes it!!

Does anyone run the Touchtone juke software? I have tried loads but this one can use the itunes software as its back-end music player, so it works for me. I was wondering if anyone knew of others that can use itunes, but don't necessarily mention it in their advertising?

Cheers

[nuka1195]

http://xbmc.org

has an itunes plugin, that can import your itunes.xml, but also has it's own db management. i'm really surprised more people don't use it in a jukebox. it's a great free media center, with a lot of support. if you have interenet access to your juke, there are scripts and plugins that add functionality. lyrics script for one, can grab lyrics from lyricwiki.com for the currently playing song. plus the video section handles a lot of formats. no drm though.

i'm currently working on a plugin for mame for it.

edit: forgot, it has support for kareoke.

[drawfull]

http://xbmc.org

has an itunes plugin, that can import your itunes.xml, but also has it's own db management. i'm really surprised more people don't use it in a jukebox. it's a great free media center, with a lot of support. if you have interenet access to your juke, there are scripts and plugins that add functionality. lyrics script for one, can grab lyrics from lyricwiki.com for the currently playing song. plus the video section handles a lot of formats. no drm though.

i'm currently working on a plugin for mame for it.

edit: forgot, it has support for kareoke.

Thanks nuka, although I think the lack of drm support is the issue. I know a lot of new itunes stuff has no drm (apparantly), but at the moment most of what we have will have.

[nuka1195]

there's always ways to use your itunes collection fairly. google fairuse itunes

but yeah drm is an issue.

[drawfull]

there's always ways to use your itunes collection fairly. google fairuse itunes

but yeah drm is an issue.

I've decided to stick with the Touchtone software for now, and managed to get it configured pretty much how I think it should be. There's one or two things it doesn't do (like YouTube access, which would be cool, especially for hard-to-find old music), but it's pretty solid it seems.

The youtube vid is pretty budget, but I used my phone to record it, but should give an idea of how the whole thing works.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiVuuwj--Jk[/youtube]

Thanks and cheers 

[DaOld Man]

Great job drawful!
It turned out very good.
Can you get a video of a walk around, showing the cabinet front and back?


 

[drawfull]

Great job drawful!
It turned out very good.
Can you get a video of a walk around, showing the cabinet front and back?


 

Thanks DaOld Man! I will see what I can do in the coming days. I blew a speaker last night while tweaking the sound - good job we didn't use an obsolete set of speakers...  So I'm pretty pissed off - there was one set on eBay (UK) of the speakers we used, and they are going for too much money. We'll see.

In other news,

You will have to show us some pics of the album, I wanna know what a $450 album looks like! 

Looks well packaged:



And well wrapped:



And a funky little drawstring bag (exciting, isn't it...)



At first glance, I'm really pleased, but. The gold leaf is not fckng parallel with the cover  - it looks OK in the pic, but it runs down to the right about 1mm



And the calligraphy, really pleased with it



Overall, it will do, but I just think I'm sounding off 'cos of the speaker. Oh well. Still got two weeks to fix.

[thatitalian]

AWESOME!

I love all the soppy ---daisies--- on here! 

Nothing says it like a handmade gift! And even though my girlfriend says "well, I don't really need a juke box" she was amazed at the amount of effort and consideration that goes into these projects!

Well done to all you guys earning us brownie points! Fight the good fight!

[drawfull]

Ya, it's a bit soppy, but what you gonna do. Just hope she likes it 

[BASS!]

Hey I gutted the electronics for these, but I still have the 2 sets of smaller speakers. Pm me an offer, I'm easy.

[Franco B]

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awsome!

Ive been waiting to see the video as I couldnt' see it at work, did I say awesome? 

Shame about the speaker Hopefully Uprightbase360 can sort you out.

Album looks good too, whats the layout like inside?

[drawfull]

Hey I gutted the electronics for these, but I still have the 2 sets of smaller speakers. Pm me an offer, I'm easy.

Thanks for the offer, but before I saw this I bought the Logitech Z4 speakers. It was a bit of a blind purchase, and I'm hoping that the tweeter units are the same ohmage as the original Z3s. There's a pic a bit earlier of the speaker base part from the top down. The Z4s are considerable longer than the Z3s, but without stripping the juke apart I think I have literally 1mm space to play with to make the new ones fit. Luckily, the tweeter diaphragms still sit within the grills on the front, but it's going to be really tight. I might have to come back to you on your offer! But, it looks like your volume control is part of the speaker units. Might be an issue... unless I just used one?

Awesome, awesome, awesome, awsome!

Ive been waiting to see the video as I couldnt' see it at work, did I say awesome? 

Nowhere near as awesome as yours but it fits my house well - thanks Franco!

The album is only 9" x 6", so one pic per page, standard size. I am dithering about adding commentary to each pic (I  have 45 pages so 45 pics I think) - do they still make letraset? Is there a better way?

The 45 pics is making it quite difficult to get everything I want to in there. I am sorting out the order prior to mounting any of them as I don't want to get half way through the album and only be a quarter of the way through the build, for example.

[BASS!]

Yeah I was figuring you just needed the tiny speakers. I have one still with the case and another pair (I cut the bottom part off to control the volume on my cabinet). They are great little speakers, and now just the amp is used to power my whole machine.

[Blanka]

Speakers are mostly blown up by bad amps that are too small, not by big amps.

[DaOld Man]

I love that album.. but what is in it? Pictures of the build process?
Thats a real neat idea.

If you think that was soppy, wait until you see the marquee I made for mine.
Remember, it's for the wife and she loves snowmen. Just a hint.

I printed it on my home printer.
I was planning to ask some of these artists on here to re-design it for me, but I figure it's too close to Christmas for them to be bothered with it. Maybe after the first of the year, but knowing my wife she wont let me change it out after she sees it anyway.

[drawfull]

I love that album.. but what is in it? Pictures of the build process?
Thats a real neat idea.

If you think that was soppy, wait until you see the marquee I made for mine.
Remember, it's for the wife and she loves snowmen. Just a hint.

The album will have pics of the build initially, but I expect it to be filled with something more memorable in the fullness of time... I put the pics in today using self-adhesive corner mount things. Bloody tedious lol.

I think your marquee idea sounds cool, I wish i'd have done a Christmas themed one initially and chaged it later. Cool idea.