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My 1st Cocktail Finished! (100%... finally)
Franco B:
Very smooooooth :cheers:
How are you finding the 204B? Im thinking of using a LCD in my cocktail instead of the flatscreen CRT(s) I have.
system01:
Thanks All.
@Franco B
I'm very pleased with it. Not top 'o the line, but it could be way worse. Its got a very fast refresh and I don't notice any blur or ghosting at all. Its got a very good left-right viewing angle (on your desk). I'm using some low dining room chairs right now and it still looks sharp with good colors. Standing on the side (watching 2 players) looks kinda bad. Everything stays sharp but the colors do that inverted thing. Thats the up/down viewing angle if it was on your desk. No ones complained about that though and you kinda forget about it after a while. Its also big, for a cocktail. The minute I turned it on in the cab for the first time I thought "Holy S, arcades were never this big". And I got a refurb from somewhere for 200 USD. I didn't care since I de-cased it, and I haven't found any bad pixels yet.
system01:
The Top
I read that cocktail tops are usually 1” thick. Well, I couldn’t find anything useable at that size. I decided to use the same ¾” veneer, and then laminating a 1/4” (measured ~3/16) to the top of it. I was going to use Formica on the top, so I didn’t need the most beauteous wood. The bottom ¾” piece I finished the same as the sides.
My top measures ~22” x 32”. On my first attempt I spread a ton of wood glue between two 26” x 36” pieces and sandwiched them. I parked my car on them overnight with a bunch of 2-bys to hold down all the edges/corners. It turns out that there’s just not enough weight (Nissan Altima) for all of that surface area and it left some pretty big gaps in between. This kinda pissed me off cos I now had to cut into a second full sheet of $50 veneer ply.
Second (last) attempt: I cut my finished shape out of the ¾ ply with hole-saws and my router. This also included in center square where the monitor goes. I made the opening just barely big enough so the stripped LCD would press in. This gave me much less area which means my weight had more PSIs for laminating. So I spread wood glue on the cut ¾ piece and laid it on another 26” x 36” 3/16” rectangle. This time I dug up one of those giant storage-totes that all your wives have filled with shoes and purses in your closets, and filled it with water. I also threw some sand bags on the corners just for good measure.
Perfect!
Then I measured the actual screen area – inside the little metal frame – of the LCD. I don’t own any template guides for my router. I need to buy some template guides for my router. So I very carefully made some inserts out of scrap oak. These precision aerospace pieces were press-fit inside the square hole in the ¾ ply, along the edges. This allowed me to use my regular pattern bit to carve away an offset hole for the screen. (I wish I had some pictures of this, but the models will have to do)
After waiting forever for Lowes to special-order some Formica (Wilsonart actually), I finally got my too-big roll of Flat Black. I talked to the lady at that Home Design Center desk and she said that instead of using contact cement I could also use Liquid Nails. Since I have 6 cans of the stuff already, I decided to use that. I don’t know if I had the wrong stuff, but I didn’t really like it. It’s not really an issue as it would be under glass, but it didn’t really want to squeeze down like I had hoped. The Liquid Nails felt too firm. Then I just used my pattern bit and my ultra-precision spacers and trimmed everything off.
T-mold slots and finished!
Hole Saw Tip:
I've got a lot of these 2" and 3" and 3 1/2' hole saws. Cutting MDF and dense ply wants to burn down your garage and then tear out the back piece of your work. Heres the answer!
Plan out your work where your mutant hole saw is going to cut. Get a much smaller paddle/forstner/twist bit and drill a hole inside and tangent to that cut. For a 3" hole saw I would use like a 5/8" or so. That lets all the dust escape and doesn't clog your saw, eliminating the heat.
jthompson:
Nice tip, thanks!
system01:
Wood Assembly – The Bottom/Sides
Everything was looking all shiny and purdy now, time for glue-up. Almost… forgot to mention that before I got to this step I cut all of my t-mold slots. Muuuuch easier in pieces.
Nothing really fancy here, I pretty much followed the Lindstrom plan again here. I biscuited all the joints with #0 and #10 biscuits and glued with Titebond II. If you re gonna try this stuff, you might want to try the III or the I. The II starts skinning over pretty quick and doesn't let you adjust much once your pieces are together.
After clamping I piloted and screwed in corner gussets made of clear pine. I used more than Lindstrom recorded cos I wanted to have my way with this thing when I was done.
I ordered a piano-hinge from Rockler (19431 http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=283&filter=piano%20hinge) and cut to the full inside length of the back piece. I pilot-drilled all the holes for both the upper and lower back pieces and then attached the hinge to the lower section.
After I let everything dry, I ran a straight guide and my router across the top to knock off the parts of the CP sides that were sticking up.
The top assembly will come later.
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