Build Your Own Arcade Controls Forum
Main => Main Forum => Topic started by: OnigumO on April 16, 2003, 05:59:00 am
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Hi, I'm new to this community and had a few questions regarding lexan and Melamine-Laminated wood. I plan on building a joystick and wanted to know if anyone had experience cutting melamine-laminated wood. What type of blade should I feed it into the blade fast or slowly. When dealing with this wood as well, how would you go about painting it? Is it the same as MDF? My other question was regarding lexan and wanted to know how thick to buy it. I want to use carriage bolts and I have no idea of about these bolts what-so-ever so I'd appreciate if someone could tell me the tool to install/remove them. Lastly, I dont want any screws to show from the outside so I decided to use L-brackets and I wanted to know if there were any suggestions on that, is it fine? is there a better alternative? Thanks for your time and I hope to learn a lot.
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Hey man, welcome aboard. I'm just starting my cab. I've got everything and construction has just begun (very slowly, I'm no woodworker). You've got some good questions, though.
Melamine: This is an industrial strength particle board that is laminated on both sides. That's right, it's already got a thin formica like laminate covering both sides so you would not paint it....unless you were talking about painting on some side-art or something....otherwise you would just buy it already laminated in a solid color, and once again it is laminated on both sides. Melamine just happens to be what I am using to build my cabinet and I just purchased a few 4'x8' sheets of it which brings up another point. It's heavy. 95 lbs. per sheet. This wouldn't really matter so much if you were just building a joystick and not a whole cabinet, but seriously I'd just use plywood if I were you. It'll be much lighter and much cheaper and much easier to find.
L-brackets will work fine but an alternative would be to use 1"x1" blocks of wood that you stick in the corner where you would otherwise have used an L-bracket and screw both boards into the 1"x1" block. Surprisingly this is actually a stronger method than the metal L-bracket. For an example (and to just learn a hell of a lot of info in one nice place) check out:
www.1uparcade.com
He also used (black) Melamine to construct his cabinet and then laminated over it on the sides and front to make it yellow. Click around his website and you'll see the 1"x1" lenths he used to fasten the side panels and back panels, etc.
As far as cutting Melamine goes what you really need to worry most about is chipping the laminate as the blade enters and exits the wood. There are special blades made especially for cutting melamine for table-saws, circular saws and jigsaws. I haven't cut my wood yet, but I've got blades for my circular and jig saws (the jig-saw ones were like $5 for a pair so I figured I'd get them and see how they do). The best way if you want no chipping is to cut outside your line and then use a router to shave it down to your cut-line. Since a router spins WAY faster than any saw it makes much cleaner cuts. Oh yeah, it was recommended to me to tape the wood with masking tape over the cut line on both sides to supposedly cut down on chipping. It can't hurt.
For lexan most people seem to be using 1/8" to cover their control panels and marquees and 1/4" to cover the monitor area. This comes down largely to personal preference, but those above figures are by far the most common, I think.
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Thanks a lot, plywood huh? Is that whats most commonly used? And for a finish, would a normal hardware store like Home Depot carry laminate and what would you need to apply it because im on a tight budget and I dont want to buy more tools. Thanks.
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tight budget I wouldsuggest MDF and satin Rustolem paint. Easy to cut easy to paint.
Use lexan for your CP and plexy/crystal lite(homedepot version) for your monitor cover. See the lexan seems to jump in price at 1/4 thick.
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I was thinking plywood cos it's light and strong. MDF is heavier, but AX is right. If you're going to paint it MDF will be better for you. It's got a really smooth absorbant surface.