Speaker grille in wood

[Frank Drebin]

Picture is from macattack's thread:



http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,134186.0.html

The question is how does a guy make one of those speaker grilles like he has on his CP?  Is it just a matter of clamping and moving fences, or is there an easier way?

[JDFan]

Here's a repost of a post in PixelPauls build thread that details the process well :

Time for the front speaker panel. This is probably one of the most distinct features of a Nintendo cabinet, a one of the things I wasn't really looking forward to doing. There are a number of ways that one could go about making the cutouts, the easiest probably being to drill holes at the ends and then cut the straights with a jigsaw. Very doable this way, but in my quest to avoid as much sanding as possible, I decided to use the plunge router.

First draw out the dimensions onto the MDF panel. Just need the centerlines and stop marks on both ends (sorry, crappy pic).



The router needs a spiral upcut bit, this one is 1/4" diameter - the same width as the cutouts.



Set-up the plunge router for the first cut. The silver guide attached to the router references the straight edge of the board to keep the cut nice and straight. The wood strips clamped to either end keep the router from going beyond the correct length for the cut-out. The router bit is lowered an additional 1/8" per pass until the cut goes all the way through the board.



Need to reposition the router edge guide and stop blocks for each of the 7 cuts. It takes a bit of doing, but the finished result looked great!



Finally attached the speaker panel to the cabinet with some yellow glue and screws. Finally starting to look like something!

[dkersten]

I did a jig with 1/4" MDF (after doing a few with guides and pencil lines) and it worked out pretty good.  I used a guide collar on the router with a 1/4 upcut spiral bit.  The slots in the jig are the same width as the collar I used.  So I just clamp it in place, set the plunge depth on the router to about 1/4" below the bottom of the collar, run the router through the slots, blow out the dust, set the plunge depth another 1/4" deeper, rinse and repeat until done.  The only problem with it is the dust clogs the slots fast and you sometimes have to stop, clear the dust, and finish the cuts.  I made the guide the same way the slots are made in the post above, just with two passes with the 1/4" bit to get the width for the guide right.

In this pic, the left speaker grill is already done and the right one is just the jig clamped to the board.  It is hard to see but the jig's slots are wider than the finished slots.