Ok... so I hee'd and haw'd around trying to decide what I was going to do about the Control Panel. I had a couple dilemas. First off - I was waiting on a few parts to show up. The T-molding, artwork from ClassicArcadeGraffix.com and a blue trackball - and my work came to a standstill waiting on them (Divemaster shipped the trackball out quickly - I was really waiting on the t-molding and art).
The second dilema was the fact that I decided to use plexiglass instead of polycarbonite. I had already created a control panel that was 3/4" and the added plexiglass would bring the total thickness 7/8". My t-molding is 3/4" and wouldn't cover the total thickness. I spent my free time looking for a 2' x 4' sheet of 5/8ths plywood (5/8" plywood + 1/8"plexi = 3/4"). I must've spent $20 in gas looking for this at all the various lumber stores. Wanna know what I ended up doing?
Yeah, I bought a full sheet of plywood to cut out a new CP... great. I'll figure out what to do with the rest of the wood later. I screwed my 3/4" CP directly to my 5/8" material and I used the flush trim router bit and created a duplicate of my 3/4" CP.
That turned out ok. I finally brought everything inside to start working in the house.
Now for the part I've been dreading. I got the new art and I bought a brand new x-acto knife. I laid out my artwork and did a practice cut of the trackball hole. I used my template I created earlier to cut the circle. I changed blades just to make sure I had a sharp one and I cut the real thing.
Notice the extra hole in the bottom of the CP. That was my test cut. One thing to be careful of if you decide you want to flush mount your trackball. Cut the trackball hole first and then cut your CP out. Then, you can center everything up and trace around your CP with the x-acto knife.
Next step was to cut out the button holes and joystick holes. I countersunk all the carriage bolts in an attempt to clean up the CP. In fact, the artwork is self adhesive, but because I have so many carriage bolts I didn't peel the backing off.
Here is where I stand right now:
The plexiglass isn't holding down on the edges (probably because I don't have any buttons or anything to hold it down). I'm going to add 4 carriage bolts to resolve that. I didn't want to have exposed carriage bolts but I don't see another way to do it.
I need to:
- Wire up CP
- Install Coin door (spray paint it)
- Install Smoked Plexi
I'm leaving out of town next week, so it looks like I should be able to put the finishing touches on it when I return.
For a while I wasn't real happy how it was turning out, but I'm starting to dig it now. It sort of kept it's original Xenophobe look.