I need help before ruining all his nice work.

[Locke141]

I'm finished with all the funny angled cuts for my CP box. Getting every thing right takes a lot of measuring, time, measuring, patience, measuring, and did I say measuring. Some guys here make it look EZ. My head hurt by the last cut. 

Question about attaching/ gluing all the MDF together. On what I'll call the lateral face, see pic, should I glue and put it all in place and use a ratchet strap to hold every thing together? After all the work and measuring to get every thing just right, I'd hate to mess it up now.
     
I glued the back peace and one side. The problem is when I just used clamps the peaces all angled, it took a lot of clamps to get it right.

I posted this question on my project announcements on Friday, but I did not get any feed back. I guess I should not post every little bit of progress made so people read when I do post. If you need more info there are lots of pictures on that page.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,134515.0.html

Any help would be appreciated.

[drventure]

Well, first, I guess I'd ask if you're planning to glue the lateral face (ie the sides of the CP) to the top or not. I'd HIGHLY recommend you do not do that! That's what I did, I regret it to this day.

Instead construct a box of the bottom and sides of the CP, then attach the top via a hinge of some sort (piano, cabinet, whatever works). That way, you can lift the top for maintenance easily.

To construct the box, cut your bottom piece as appropriate (usually it'll be the same shape as the top, but a little smaller, so that the sides are attached to the EDGE of the bottom piece, so it's edges don't show.

Then, use glue, screws, nails, whatever to attach the sides to the bottom. You can fit it all together before hand easily to test the fit and your angles.

You can also use metal or wood braces on the INSIDE to reinforce the corners, instead of just relying on glue.

[Malenko]

use L brackets attached the the bottom board and the back of the "lateral face" ?

[kahlid74]

Furring strips and screws.  They will hold the lateral pieces straight and to the bottom at the angle you need.  Also you'll need firing strips or some type of 90 degree right angle for the load.  Remember, people will be leaning on the control panel. 

Here's how I do mine and it works pretty well:

• Find a furring strip that is a little short of the piece of wood being attached.  (I use 3/4" by 3/4" furring strips or larger but you don't need more than 1" by 1"
• Line the furring strip up so it is flush with the edge of the bottom.  Do this so it looks right and the furring strip isn't bent or warped
• Apply wood glue to the bottom of the furring strip and use a putty spatula to evenly spread wood glue
• Line up the furring strip again and use a 1" Brad nailer to nail the furring strip into place.
• Drill two holes from the top down
• Screw in two 1 and 1/4" screws so the furring strip is pulled down hard against the bottom piece
• Use your finger and make sure the furring strip is still flush against the bottom piece.  If one side is sticking out a little sand it down.  if one side is a bit too far in, you may need to redo it
• Glue the side of the furring strip and side of the bottom piece.  Use putty spatula to spread evenly (Glue the side of the previous piece when adding the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and so on)
• Line up the piece of wood to be affixed.  Make it flush is all the sides it needs to be.
• While holding it in place, use 1" brad nails to affix it
• Check again for flush on all sides that need to be
• Drill two holes from the outside into the furring strips
• Countersink said holes
• Where material is 3/4" I use a screw 1 and 5/8" long to pull the outside piece against the furring strip

The first piece you do the above, for every subsequent piece you do the above and then do tbe below after.

• You glued the stationary piece in the above steps so when you put the second and third and so on pieces on there is glue along their seam
• Push the pieces together with your hands, hold them best you can and brad nail them
• At this point you can do a few things.  if you have a 15ga nailer you can use those as they are considered load bearing.  If you don't, you can either affix furring strips to the first piece and then drill through on the seam with one screw close to the top or you can drill right into the other piece.

If you take your time, no clamps are needed and you have a very strong box in the end.  I've done this now 4 times and each time I get better.  I did the first without a brad nailer and it's tough to hold and drill at the same time.  The brad nailer is a huge asset for building structure.