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

[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