It's that time again.
Had to buckle down and cut some speaker holes. I wasnt sure which direction to go with them at first. I orginally thought I would just cut out rectangle-ish, and make a cover using speaker mesh. I also thought about using some sort of unique cut out design, but in the end I figured it woulder be easiest, and also the most authentic to go the way of the traditional slot cut.
Took a bit of thinking to figure out how to make a perfect straight line, but I 'duh'd' a bit after when I saw the router had a straight edge, so I just clamped down a straight line, and followed it, chewing out the holes.
While I dont think it came out perfect, it wasnt as circlish as I would have liked, and there are some slits jumps in it, but after sanding it doesnt look too too bad.
Finished shot. After a little more sanding, and paint, I doubt anything will be noticable. Also going to put some speaker mesh behind it so you cant see through it, as well as something to keep the marquee light from coming out.
I also had to figure out a way to mount the control panel base to the cabinet; I thought about using a latch, or something, but I came up with this idea after some pondering. This furring was mainly just used for support, and it didnt even occur to me to use it in this way.
So what I did was just drill a hole through it, use a 3" bolt, a washer, put it through the hole, another washer, and a bolt to keep it in place. The other two nuts are used as washers, and also help it keep the base in place.
Pic of both of them.
I drilled a hole in the base, and was lucky to see how perfectly it matched up. There were a lot of things while working on this project that just worked out perfectly without any advanced planning, I couldnt have planned a lot of things better even if I wanted to.
When dropped down, the nuts are tight within the hole, and keep the base from moving around.
With another washer and wing nute, it keeps the base from popping up.
View of both. It really worked out perfectly, and holds flawlessly, it doesnt budge at all.
I waived back and forth if I should fill this gap in front, it did look quite good, however it doesnt give a finished look, so I decided to fill it up. I didnt want to use all my bondo on this huge hole, and it would be hard to get it in such a big space, so I filled it with some random caulk I found in the garage. I let it harden for more than a week, and it more or less hardened fully.
So I globbed the bondo over it, filling it the rest of the way, and the surrounding area. Doesnt really matter what caulk I used, the bondo just needed to use it as a mold pretty much. Itll be set in stone forever. I love bondo, going to use it on everything now.
Sanded it up, and looks pretty good, just needs to be smoothed down a bit.
The other thing I needed to finish up was the control panel. Firstly I had to fit the button holes a bit better; I was a bit sloppy in my drilling so I had to do a bit of sanding to have the mdf and plexi match up, but oh well, it fits fine now.
The other thing I had to do was to route out some of the back so the joysticks andstrack ball fit properly and had enough length up top. The track ball fits perfectly with the trim on, but the joysticks still may be a bit too short for some people that use an under grip to play, but im not using ball tops for 1/2p, so it shouldnt matter. Im mainly worried about the the 4 way stick up top, it has a really short shaft, so I routed out a bit more than the other two, hopefully itll be fine. The other thing Im slightly worried about the the strength of the panel now, I think itll be fine, and I can always reinforce, but with rough playing, I dunno. Ill take that in to account later.
In order to mount the sticks, im using T-Nuts to give it a flush front, so I had to drill out a bit of relief for it to fit, yet again another thing that may weaken it slightly, but hopefully that wont be the case. Ill have to be very cautious when hammering them in. The trackball is mounted with blind nuts, so no need to drill through that.
Here are the TNuts with the bolts. Some 3/4 and 1/2, and I may need to use some washers and enlarge the holes on the sticks. I just couldnt find the right bolt that would fit properly. All of this work will be finished after I get painting.
Yet another thing I had to figure out was how to mount the glass. I thought about various ways, but was still iffy, so I asked my uncle for an idea, and he simply suggested a frame. Duh, I think I thought about it before, but quickly wrote it off for some reason I dont remember, so it never crossed my mind again. So a frame, plus a peice of hardware pushing up against it from the back will keep it in place. Ill also need to make a bevel to go behind the glass and in front of the tv. Of which ill have to slip the tv in from the back from now on. I didnt glue down the rear panels in anticipation of maintenance.
My miter work has always been iffy, and I had always done it the old box and saw way, but the box went missing, so I found an old home made one and it seemed like the angles were right on it. Took a bit of time, and a lot of sanding to get everything to fit right because of the different slops, but I think it worked out.
I bondo'd it up, covering the nail brads, and corners, and then sanded. I may have to chisel out the back flat side a bit to get the glass to fit flush against it
I think it came out pretty well. I like the rounded corners better that the sharp angles too. Again, just a bit of finish sanding should do the trick.
Annnd I also had to figure out how to mount the control panel to the base, so I figured a piano hinge would work best. I thought about just using some random hindges, but I think this way works best, and it did. Very strong, and I only had 4 screw is out of the like 30. The front panel of the base has just enough of a gap to perfectly fit the hindge. Again one of those mistakes that worked out for the best.
I thought about using some sort of wire strand between the panel and base to keep it from going forward to much.. but here it is with just 4 screws, and no back support, and it's doing well, so I may not add anything. It will rarely ever be in this position anyway.
I then had to figure out how to keep the panel from popping up and down when playing, so again I thought of using some soft of hand applied latch, but yeah, id have to be able to get my hand underneth to get access to it, or drill a hole underneth to reach it. So the best way I figured out was to just use a blind roller latch. Mental tongue on the panel, and the roller latch on the base, and they just snap together very fluidly, and it works perfectly.
I had originally planned to leave the speaker panel ungluded to be taken off for maint, and easy access to the speakers and lights, but when putting the frame in, I realized that wouldnt work. So I ended up gluing it up, and bondoing the screws.
I had the TV in to figure out how to mount it from falling out, but when sat it, it his the back panel and keeps it in place, so I dont think Im going to be latching it down since it sits in there nicely. However another issue is, is that the angle of the screen and the angle of the cabinet wernt even so I had to raise the tv front up a bit to get them even. I toyed around with a few ways to do this.. but a simple 26"x1.5" strip of mdf holding it up does the trick no problem.
Just a random shot. Ive been so busy with all these little things, that it just made it kind of unfun to work on the thing. Im a very meticulous person, so instead of measure twice, cut once, its measure 20 times, think about it in different angles, then cut, and then some other stuff. So things that would take someone who does this daily 5 minutes, itll take me 2hrs. But in the end I know itll pay off. One thing ive seen with some of these homemade arcade machines is that they looked real rushed, and no real care went in to them. I wanted to make this with the best of my ability (minus a little). There would be a few things I would do differently, but nothing really enough to drive me crazy. I think it all turned out well.
Wait, that sounded like a wrap up. Does that mean im done? Yup, I think I am, ive completed all the construction of the cabinet. There are some slight additions ill need to add like glass retainer, a bevel, the marquee back lights, and speakers, but all those will have to be done after painting. Yes.. painting.. since im done with construction, the next step is priming after a bit more sanding.
And then it came down to the design.. yes the design.. something ive been thinking about before I bought the first peice of wood, however I think I finally came to a decision. I printed out the template I made, and saw that I was off, so ill have to keep that in mind. I dont know how I made this mistake when cutting the mdf to be off that much, but it should be fine.
This is it! Well, sort of. Just a quick mock up. A few months back I decided I wanted to go with a griffin theme, and found this really cool griffin design, but I had no idea what to use as a background. So I just was randomly looking around and realized that yeah, I like me some old japanese/chinese art, and started looking around. After awhile I managed to find this very old japanese drawing, and I think itll work out fine. Obviously I have a lot of tweeking to do, this wont be the final design, dont worrk. Plus I still have to work out the details of the control panel overlay, and the marquee. But at least I know which path im going. And a name to go with it? Ill be calling the machine, 'The Griffin'.
Material List and Total Cost at the moment.
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Topic: "The Griffin" - Finished August 28, 2010! (Read 28967 times)
