Using metal frame instead of wood for light cabinet?

[bji]

Hi.  I am embarking upon a mame cabinet build and am looking for some advice.

This is my first construction project of any kind.  Well unless you count the mailbox I made in 8th grade shop class.  I hope I am not getting in over my head but I have some design parameters that are pushing me into some unusual places.

I would like the cabinet to be relatively portable, meaning that I can disassemble it and re-assemble it somewhere else in less than an hour, and that the component parts be light enough to be transported without too much difficulty by one person (because I move frequently, and because I would love to be able to take my cabinet to a party if I wanted to).  And I want to do a full-size cabinet, modelled after the Atari/Namco Assault cabinet shape, but a bit wider to incorporate more controls.

I understand that pieces of wood at the size of most cabinets would be quite heavy, and the fasteners necessary to allow disassembly and re-assembly may be tricky to implement.  So I was thinking that maybe I could use a metal frame with light plywood (or even plastic?!?) outer "skin" panels that "looked" just like a real arcade cabinet but was constructed very differently.

I'm no metalworker or woodworker so I'd have to hire a shop to build the frame from my design (I think I could handle cutting the panels myself).  Just wondering if this is feasable, and if it would be prohibitively expensive?  I'm thinking long pieces of square-cross-section hollow metal bars (I don't know how else to describe these) maybe 1 inch on a side with holes drilled at intervals that posts (hanger bolts?) from the panel pieces would bolt into.  Aluminum sounds appealing because it is lighter weight but it's likely very expensive to buy and expensive to hire someone to weld, right?

If a metal frame is out of the question, then what about those fasteners that come with "assembly required" office desks - I don't know the name, but they are little metal cylinders with a hole in them that you insert into a hole and then screw a metal screw into from a perpendicular direction.  I had a really heavy desk once and they held it together very tightly and were pretty easy to put together and take apart.  The only problem is those metal cylinder things usually require more than a half inch width for the hole, and I don't want my panels to be that thick/heavy (although I will likely make them "hollow" so as to have the same apparent thickness as a real arcade cabinet).

The case wouldn't have to support much weight - just itself, a marquee box on top, the controller panel, and probably the computer as a bare motherboard screwed into a piece of wood.  The display (I am still deciding between a cheap trinitron and a real arcade monitor) would sit on its own platform that I would "slide in" through the back of the cabinet before putting the back panel on.

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give!

[Erik]

IMO I don't think a wood frame would be that heavy or hard to do.  You could use 2x4s ripped in half for the whole thing.  Most folks don't build a full frame and instead make MDF panels structural with chunks of 2x4 for bracing.  An internal framework would be stronger and easier to move as the panels could be easily removed and reassembled.

It would be interesting to see what you could do with plastic for the panels.  There's some stuff made for boats called Starboard that might work.

[bji]

Thank you for the suggestions.  I never considered using a wooden frame, I assumed that it would be heavy.  But now that you mention it I can see a wooden frame that can be taken apart being not too heavy as the individual pieces wouldn't be very big.  It would be much easier to work with a wooden frame as even I, with my lack of woodworking experience, can probably cut 2x4's without too much difficulty.  So I will definitely keep the idea on my short list as I design the frame.

As to the Starboard, is this what you meant:

http://www.kingplastic.com/Products/KingStarBoardST.aspx

I haven't had a chance to look in detail but I will spend some time investigating this material.  Thanks for the pointer.

I got 2 Mag-Stik Pro joysticks and a bunch of buttons, and two I-Pac units, from Ultimarc in the mail today.  Time to start figuring out how to put all of that together as well.  I am not liking the loud clicking from the microswitches, especially on the joysticks, so I may investigate some of the quieting hacks that I have read on these forums (zip ties, etc, as internal bumpers ...)

[bji]

I have found that Extruded Aluminum Bare Square Tube is approximately $17 for a 6 foot length at 1 inch square and 1/8 inch wall thickness.  I'm assuming that this would be strong enough to hold up ~30 lb side panels (which is the weight I hope to get - possibly using two pieces of plywood with stiff foam sandwiched in between) when constructed as a box frame.

I'm so new to this stuff that exciting for me just to learn what the names of these thing are ... it took a long time searching on google before I finally found that the shape and size of the type of metal frame I want is called 'square tube'!

[bji]

Of course I just did a check and 2x4 pine is quite a bit cheaper ... like $2.25 for a 2 inch x 4 inch x 8 foot board.  I just think that metal would be more durable if used in an application that required disassembly and re-assembly ...

[apfelanni]

i used an aluminum frame for 2 cocktail projects some time ago . the reason i took it was coz its lightweight , durable, stable , 100 % angled , fast and easy 2 mount. it comes cutted in 1, 3 and 6  m pieces and predrilled. its assembled with ready 2 go plastic corner brackets of any kind .  the same undrilled 2,5x2,5 cm tubes are used for outdoor bird cages and not much more expensive than a frame made of smooth 3x3 cm pine wood.  its also available in 2x2 cm and 3x3 cm here.

[Yvan256]

i used an aluminum frame for 2 cocktail projects some time ago . the reason i took it was coz its lightweight , durable, stable , 100 % angled , fast and easy 2 mount. it comes cutted in 1, 3 and 6  m pieces and predrilled. its assembled with ready 2 go plastic corner brackets of any kind .  the same undrilled 2,5x2,5 cm tubes are used for outdoor bird cages and not much more expensive than a frame made of smooth 3x3 cm pine wood.  its also available in 2x2 cm and 3x3 cm here.

Can I ask where you got the aluminium and corner brackets? Is there a brand name?

[EightBySix]

  those fasteners that come with "assembly required" office desks - I don't know the name, but they are little metal cylinders with a hole in them that you insert into a hole and then screw a metal screw into from a perpendicular direction.

Cross dowel nuts. They come in all sorts of sizes. Or google "knock down fittings" for more ideas than you can shake a stick at