Time to build me a Vewlix

[kingchimp]

Or die trying. 

So very briefly, my account here is about three years old and I lurked accountless for probably about as long again, before I caved in and signed up to make it easier to keep track of what I'd read already.   The sketchup file I'm using as reference is about two years old, and not the first cabinet I've virtually built in that software.  So we've established that I can procrastinate, the interesting part will be seeing if I can actually get anywhere close to the vision outside of a computer.

This is what I have in mind:



The screen will be a 32" tv, the body will be a combination of 18mm and 12mm mdf.  Somewhere along the way, the legs and adjustable feet you usually see on one of these things disappeared from the design.  They will be on there. (See below for an an idea of some of the revisions I went through.)



I'm aware this is hardly an original build, and I've taken ideas and inspiration from more people that I would care to mention in the design process. (Not just previous Vewlix builds for that matter.)  I would however be remiss if I didn't at least name check Donovan Myers and SpaceHedgehog who have both done awesome work and put a lot of useful information out there.

I'm going to start with the base, then the control panel before moving on to the top half, and intend to try to make it so the top and bottom halves can be separated when they need to be moved.  My plan for this weekend is to go out, buy some wood and get started on the bottom half.  This is where I start looking for some input if anyone is feeling helpful.



Structurally I'm thinking about building a base from 2"x2" timber (or as close as I can find in England) then glueing and screwing the four sides on to that.  I've put additional smaller strips of wood in the design (1" square) attached to the sides (furring strips?), but thinking about it are most of these superfluous (excepting the top one and the slanted rear one), or worth keeping for extra structural rigidity?

I'm going to replicate the vertical coin mechanism, large front access door and the two coin doors on the front from the original cabinet, but I'm struggling slightly finding useful looking parts.  At the moment I'm leaning towards using two of these http://www.arcadeworlduk.com/products/Black-Cash-Box-Door.html leaving the bottom one as it is and hacking the top one about to incorporate a coin return slot and reject button.  For the coin/token mechanism am I right in assuming I need something like this?  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/250895550785

If anyone has a suggestion about what I might be able to get for the top coin door that won't involve me failing miserably at metalwork, I'm all ears.  Equally if anyone has a suggestion for some decent castors I can use (ideally from a UK source) I'd be interested to hear about it.

Anyway, that's enough of your time wasted for now, I shall have photos of something for you by the end of the weekend, even if it's just a large and slightly sad looking pile of sawdust.

[SpaceHedgehog]

Thanks for the mention and best of luck with the build. If you want to discuss anything, just shout 

Edit: if you're looking for a coin acceptor for the top of the panel, here's one I managed to locate:

http://www.giz10p.co.uk/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=310

[sabreerbasAlpha]

Very few have managed to pull off this build and make it look pretty much like the original. I'm going to be watching this one. And ill say this I hope you knock it out of the park. I'm one of the lucky ones to have owned an original Cab when I lived in the states, But now my business is based in the Uk I had to leave it there.

Good luck mate. 

[kingchimp]

Thanks for that link and the kind words SpaceHedgehog.  I've now ordered that coin slot (and a couple of random stickers to take the order above the minimum £10 spend  ).

I'm sorry for your loss sabreerbasAlpha  cheers for the encouragement.  I know it's not going to be easy, but I'm just going to take my time with it and hopefully it will pay off. 


Not much of an update, but I finally have some wood to play with.  I had the choice of going to a large B&Q about 10 miles away, or heading to an independent timber merchant about 15 miles in the opposite direction.  I figured I'd take a punt and try to support an independent business, particularly as they had a smaller B&Q just round the corner, so I could use it as a backup.

The timber yard only had two small sheets of 18mm MDF in stock, and the B&Q near it didn't have cutting facilities. (The boot of my Mondeo is pretty large with the seats down, but it's not going to fit a 2440mm x 1220mm sheet in there.)  So one slightly frustrating drive back past my house (country roads, tractors and lorries always fun) and off in the opposite direction and I have the wood I should need to build the base.

That's the easy bit out of the way, next stop sawdust.

Edit:

With the power of random late night/early morning rum fueled web browsing I've found a likely looking candidate for a coin reject button.  (Although I was actually searching for a 100 Yen sticker, I guess that's where the booze gets you. >_<  )

http://triplemoonstar.brinkster.net/theshed/default.asp?stockid=168955507

(edit: Turns out giz10p also sell those, that's what I get for not looking properly the first time round I guess.)

He also seems to be selling the coin entry dooberies, but I ordered one of those already.  No idea how reliable this guy is (the shop URL does not instill confidence), I'll let you know how it goes.  Now I just need to find the little coin reject flap/assembly and I'll have sourced all the parts for my ghetto coin door.

Update: 14/05/13

Both the giz10p order and the stuff I ordered from AGS turned up today, so great service from both as far as I'm concerned.

[Unstupid]

A viewlix style cab is on my short list...  Ill be following this thread for inspiration/education...

[sabreerbasAlpha]

A viewlix style cab is on my short list...  Ill be following this thread for inspiration/education...

For me its one of the best looking Cabs there is. Getting the Curve at the top of the Cab right is key to making a replica. Like I said very few have done it. Unstupid will knock one out on his 500K cutting machine that makes me sick every time I see it.  or should I say jealous  

[Brian74]

I would love to build one. I would have to get rid of one of my other cabs.

Sent from my SGH-T989 using Tapatalk 2

[kingchimp]

I intend to cheat a bit with the top (and probably the control panel).

I have access to a laser cutter at work.  Nothing crazy, but it will do 6mm ply and quite hefty lumps of perspex, so I'm thinking about making myself a routing template on that and then just going to town with a flush trim bit to get the arches I need.  I don't think it's quite wide enough to do the whole thing, but I should be able to make a template in two halves fairly easily.

Progress has been somewhat limited today, so I apologise in advance for the weaksauce update.

The promised dry weather failed to materialise, so I ended up doing some work in my rather cramped (full of rubbish) garage.

I cut the bottom panel, and the strips of wood that are going underneath it.  Then I attempted to assemble them.  Things got interesting straight away.  Looking down the length of the wood kind of reminds me of the intro to the Twilight Zone as it looks like it goes through about as many rotations as that door...

I got one of the shorter bits glued and screwed down, when I went to put the front one on the screws were not up to the job.  I've bunged a bunch of clamps on it and am waiting to see if it's going to be usable once the glue dries.



Sadly that's most of the clamps I have (note to self, get more clamps) so I'll have a look at it after work tomorrow and see if I can at least get that part finished.

With my mission for the day derailed, I thought I'd have an experiment with beveling some scrap wood, seeing as a lot of the next panels I cut will need one or more beveled edges.

That's when my circular saw started giving me some grief.  There's a guide (I presume it's a guide) that sits behind the blade.  The problem I'm having atm is when I adjust the depth of cut and tighten it enough not to move, it seems to be forcing that guide over to the side. (See the bottom right of this photo.)



I assume that's there to help keep your cut straight.  Anyone know if I can safely yank it out of there?  I'm running the saw along a clamped guide rail anyway.

Looks like I can just undo the bolt in this pic and remove it quite easily.



I'm half way tempted to just cut it all straight and pick up a comedy giant 18mm chamfer bit for my router.

Edit:

Looks like the glue + clamps did the trick.  I'm hoping to get some time on Wednesday to cut out a few more of the panels.  I'll update properly then if I do.

[SpaceHedgehog]

... or you could go the whole hog and get a 25mm chamfer bit 

Prepare for a dust storm if you don't have a dust vacuum attachment though.

Keep the pics coming 

[kingchimp]

My router only has a 1/4" collet, it's a struggle finding companies suicidal enough to make bigger cutters for them, let alone someone suicidal enough to use them.   

As far as the dust storm goes, cheers for the heads up, but I learned that lesson the hard way. (Attempting to hoover MDF dust off of virtually everything in a cluttered garage is no fun at all.  )  Any router work is going to have to wait until the rain buggers off and I can set up in the back garden.  I can strap our old Henry hoover to my circular saw, but the router has no such luxuries.

[kahlid74]

Basically, and I'm not an expert, but you're looking at at riving knife on the back of your circular saw.  It's purpose is to keep wood from "pinching" the rotating saw as you cut forward.  If you were to say rip a 4 foot section of MDF/Plywod, there's a chance as you get 2+ feet in that the wood, in it's natural form would pinch back on the blade.  When this happens on a table saw you get kickback, where the wood flies back at you, generally into your stomach.  On a circular saw I would imagine the saw unit would catch the wood, and instead of cutting it push itself into the air in a backwards fashion back at you.

So no, I would not remove that part.  Instead I would "FIX" it so that it's always true to the blade.  This is no different than using a caliper to adjust a table saw.  The more you use a tool to cut the more it loses it's accuracy.  Time to re-align it!

[kingchimp]

Roger that, it stays on there.

The issue seems to be that as I tighten and loosen the clamp to hold the height adjustment in place the riving knife moves laterally.

I'll have a play with the adjustment to see if I can get it centered when the clamp is on, doesn't matter if it's a little wonky when I'm adjusting the height I guess, as long as it gets pushed back to center when I lock it in place.

Thanks for the help. 

[kingchimp]

After some experimentation with the circular saw, it seems that it's possible to set the lever for the blade depth just right so the saw won't move up or down, and the riving knife isn't pushed so far over that it doesn't go into the cut.  I can't see any way of adjusting it laterally, so I'm just going to have to be real careful when I adjust my blade depth.

I spent a bunch of my time today doing test cuts on scrap wood, so not a huge amount of progress has been made but here's where I'm at for now.  I should be able to sneak in a few more hours tomorrow to see what I can get done.
As you can see from the picture below I got the base glued, clamped and finished up in the week. (Barring a quick lap with a flush trim bit to slightly trim the mdf on two sides.)  In front of that is the front panel I tried to cut today.  It mostly went OK up to the last cut, when I clamped my guide to the wrong side of the line and the panel ended up about two inches too wide.    Still, better that than too small I guess.  Tomorrow I'll see if I can trim it appropriately, failing that I'll cut a side panel out of it instead so all is not lost.



Some toys turned up in the week, in the picture below there are five locks keyed the same, two coin entry slots (Less white than I'd like, so I may have to have a go at painting one.  I'll probably also try cutting/filing the slot a bit bigger so I can fit tokens through it, failing that 20p coins seem to go through just fine.), an insert coin sticker (I know it's the wrong one, but I have yet to find the correct one and I needed something cheap to bump myself up to the minimum order value from one of the vendors.), a coin reject button, and my top entry coin coin acceptor.




A couple of thoughts I'm mulling over in case anyone has any suggestions.
The big door in the front.  Any thoughts on how that might be achieved?  I'm imagining a drill and a jigsaw may well be involved, and possibly a separate piece of wood for the door afterwards depending on how much of a mess I make getting it out.  Is it likely to make the front panel too weak/is it worth just skipping and sticking to rear access? (Front panel will be 18mm mdf.)  I'd like to put a door there if at all possible.

Either way I still intend to put the two coin doors on the right hand side. (Picture below for those unsure of what I'm talking about.  I eventually managed to find both parts of the pdf copy of the Vewlix manual the other week.)



While we're on the subject of doors.  If I do get a plain one to cut up and install the reject button/bodge in a return slot, any thoughts on how to attach the mech to the door?I imagine doors designed for mechs have a bracket welded to the back or something (not really an option for me).  I'm still unsure on the coin return section too.  At the moment I'm thinking about cutting a hole with a hacksaw, maybe edging it with something so I don't cut my fingers off getting coins out, and just building something behind to hold the flap/catch the coin.  Any advances on that? I guess if I box in the cash box I could build on top of that, which might also help solve mounting the coin mech. (As opposed to mounting it to the door.)

[kingchimp]

OK, so I may have spent some money.  (Note, I'm not trying to blame my old saw for anything here, but this quite nicely minimises the impact of me being bad.    )  It showed up this morning and I already fricking love this thing.



I fixed the width of the front panel then got both sides, the top and the lower back section cut out this afternoon.  I still need to cut out the panel for the slanted back section, but I'm going to need to pick up some more mdf before I can do that.  I'd stick the batons on today, but I'm off to Nottingham shortly to see Bill Bailey. 





I'm off out to a "Living Heritage Game and Country Fair" on Sunday, but I should hopefully be able to make the most of bank holiday Monday and get some more of this done.

(The new toy also answers my previous question of how to cut out the door on the front for me.    )

Update: 27/5.

I spent quite a lot of time today sorting through the 432 photos I took yesterday. (Largely of falconry displays and horse boarding, which turned out not to be a method of torturing horses but in fact a bunch of people running time trials on those off road skate boards while being towed by a horse.)  I managed to nip back to B&Q and pick up all the sizes of MDF under the sun (if you ignore anything that isn't 18mm, 12mm, or 6mm), along with a couple of extra clamps and a set of drawer runners (thinking about using them for a removable PC shelf).



Progress is continuing slowly but I managed to get some batons cut and attached to the sides today, as well as swiftly running the router around the base to trim off any excess mdf.



I'm not sure how much time I'm going to get over the next week to work on this, but hopefully when the next update comes it should be starting to take shape.

[kingchimp]

Although you could be forgiven for wondering.

A combination of messing up those sides with all the furring strips from the previous post (I measured everything correctly, but had failed to re-draw the plans after changing saws and as a result they ended up 18mm short    ) which took the wind out of my sails, and June being the month of all the birthdays in the world (too many parties) conspired to cause 6 weeks of downtime.

Anyway, a free weekend and some lovely weather seemed like the perfect excuse to get back at this.  It doesn't hurt that my back garden makes a much better work space than my cramped garage either.




I wasn't quite ready to re-tackle the sides (that's tomorrow's job) so I decided to get my hand back in by starting work on the control panel.

I put a good 5-6 hours in today (believe it or not, turns out I'm not the fastest woodworker in the world).  I have most of the CP parts cut out and have started gluing bits together.  I also have some thicker panels glued together ready to cut out the angled sides to the cab and cp.





Barring catastrophe I should have another update tomorrow.

[SpaceHedgehog]

 Looking good mate. Get out there while the weather holds! 

[stavros693000]

dude you upgraded to a festool you could have gotten by with a black n decker for $40 lol
..............im just jelous I cant afford a festool .............they are friggin awsome

[kingchimp]

Yeah not saying I needed it, but I got a new job in March and I figured I could afford to treat myself. 

I can say that without it I would have got a whole lot less done yesterday.  I'm not very good at this stuff and the combination of the rails, controllable plunge depth and the built in bevel gauge make it so much easier.

Anyway enough of the infomercial, I'll be back at it shortly.  I'll report back later.

[kingchimp]

If you've read this rest of this post, the following photo may look oddly familiar to you.



These sides actually extend slightly past the base to encompass the back panel though.

The front panel isn't currently attached, I just propped it up there for this photo to see what it would look like.  I want to cut some doors in it before I secure it on there.



I have since discovered that I suck ass at transferring drawings from computer to paper.  Apparently I had planned on having the top furring strip 18mm lower so that the top panel would sit inside the front and sides.

I'm not going to start again, so I guess I have 2 options.  Either shape a top panel to sit on top of everything assuming that the extra 18mm height isn't going to throw the control panel out too badly, or take a router to the two furring strips and take a lump out of them so that I can continue with the original plans.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions about this, I'd appreciate the input.

I finished up by doing a little more work on the control panel.  Here is a reverse angle photo.

[SpaceHedgehog]

Re the mistake: I had to do something similar when re-styling mine. I used a chisel. It wasn't too pretty on the inside after that but it did the job. Just a thought.

[kingchimp]

I like that idea better than trying to balance a router in there. I'll add it to the list of things to ponder.  Thank you.