Crowquill's Metal Desktop CP

[Crowquill]

While I'm waiting to get my cabinet here from my parents' (200 miles away), I started a desktop CP. I wanted to keep it metal for four reasons:

1. Authenticity. With only a few exceptions, all the games I remember playing had metal CP's. Also, the weight should make it feel quite solid.

2. Practice. I'm probably going to have to "convert" the existing panel of my "Krazy Kong" cabinet. I haven't worked with metal that much so this will be good for checking out both the drilling operation and button layout that I have in mind (even though it's taken from the Capcom 6-button template PDF).

3. I have very little wood-working experience/tools. The metal should have a good finished look to it.

4. No-one else has documented it. Unless I missed it somewhere I can't find any examples of a desktop that are metal. Anybody know of any?

The basic concept is that it's going to be half of the average CP of a converted Street Fighter II. I'm using a 12" x 18" plate of 16ga. sheet metal ($10 from Lowe's). It'll be 12" wide with the 18" being bent into the shape of the panel. The bottom will be open and attach to a wooden base of some sort where I can mount a hacked PS Dual Shock pad ($4 at EB). I have some Happ buttons I'm going to use, and an unidentified joystick that was salvaged from a Rim Rockin' Basketball CP (free). It's standard 8-way microswitch and feels really loose and broken in.

The top is going to be 12"x8" and covered in plexi. The artwork for my cab panel is going to be a repeat pattern of most all of the game company logos. I've downloaded all that I can in vector format and I'm adding more. i'm not done but I have enough to put it together for now.  I'm covering the rest in dark gray "hammered metal" spray paint.

I may just leave the sides open. I can't see much danger in it. The edges of the metal should be covered to avoid injury and the best I've found so far for covering it is the rubber edging you can buy for car doors.

The plans are shown below.

[HaRuMaN]

Cover the sides in clear plexi, and put one of those cool cathode tubes in there... that'd be tight! 

Cool idea, though...  the first desktop I made was too light, and tended to move too much.  The second one I made completely from 3/4 MDF and it's plenty heavy, doesn't move around.

[Crowquill]

That's not a bad idea. On the other hand, I'm guessing my wiring is going to be so messy that I really don't want to call attention to it.

Got a decent bit of work done on it sunday night. I'd bought the bending brake to shape the sheet metal on saturday ($21 from Harbor Freight), but I'd never used one of these before.

I was determined to bend curves instead of just straight edges. I figured out a way to do it, but it took some time, trial, and error. I cut down a 1" broom handle and attached it to a scrap 2x4. I clamped this down on top of the sheet metal and the brake, so that when I bent the metal up it had to wrap around the broom handle as it bent. It took a little more effort than bending a straight edge and if you look really closely you'll see that the bend isn't quite as sharp in the middle as it is on the sides. It should be fine for my purposes. It turned out pretty much just as I'd planned and even in this state has quite a "finished" look.

Drilled the holes without too much effort. I had a new bi-metal hole saw and a fresh battery in my cordless drill. Cordless drills are usually not recommended for this, but it is a 18V DeWalt.  LESSON LEARNED -- don't waste time bearing down too hard on the metal; just hold it in place and let the saw do the work. Even so, I made it through 7 holes before the first battery died.

As for the error part...I miscalculated the first bend by about 1". So I made adjustments and now the metal shell's height is about 1/2" shorter. It's going to make things fit tight on the inside, but it should still work.

Finished tinkering with the artwork. This'll be fine for this panel, but I'll probably reduce the logos down a bit and change colors for my cab's overlay. Buttons tend to block out some of the logos.

[JonnyBoy]

That is slick

[RoboG2]

Very nice job on the cp.  Would you mind posting a pic with the controls installed, but without the artwork?  Thanks.

[Witchboard]

Just a question I have to ask... why are you putting plexi on it again?  If it's just so you can put artwork on it, why aren't you using back printed lexan?

[Crowquill]

The plexi is mainly for authenticity's sake. Most of my "arcade years" were from probably '87-'94. I think it's funny reading about all the crappy conversions that people find since that was what I was used to playing. The SF2 machine that I played mostly was an OK conversion, but beat-up plexi was part of the equation too. Besides, it makes the artwork easier to mount. The other factors are that it's quicker and less costly. Although this is turning out pretty nice, it started off as something to hold me over until I get my cab moved.

I'm seriously thinking about using the "mostly generic" Tecmo CPO I have. I bought it for the cab, but it'd be pretty easy to make a second panel for my friend now that I have the tools, and I could split the CPO between them.

I'll get pictures of the base with controls tomorrow.

[Samstag]

That's a great bending job considering that you got nice rounded bends out of a straight machine

[Setabs]

That is freakin awesome.  I have wanted to do some thing similar for some time.  I'll have to look into getting a bending brake.  Is that your first time working w/ metal?

[Crowquill]

Painted the metal yesterday. I rushed through it so now there are a bunch of runs. The obvious, ugly kind too. Being that it IS metal, I think I'm just going to sand off the paint tomorrow and re-do it. I also need to cut the wooden base and wire up the controller so that once the paint is dry I can start putting it all together.

Before I started I took the picture of the bare panel with the controls. I'm still trying to figure out where my missing yellow button is.  It's around here somewhere...

BTW, RoboG2, the CP artwork (in gray instead of blue) is what would go with the Mame-X marquee that I put up back in the Token Taker marquee post. My cab was going to be dark blue, grey CP, and mostly blue/green logos and artwork. My wife decided that red would be a better color for the cabinet (never saw that coming). I'm now having to re-think all of the art except the CP.

[Crowquill]

As far as the metalworking goes, I've never really done that much. It didn't seem like it would be too difficult, but it seems that everybody avoids metal CP's like the plague. I've only found a few arcade-specific sites about dealing with metal. Most just talk about how to patch holes. The one exception is this one:

http://www.snotmonkey.com/content/controlpanel

The brake just gives you something sturdy and leverage. Since I couldn't find much describing how it works I made some simple diagrams. Basically, it's just two plates that normally just butt up against each other. On one half you clamp down the sheet metal and a metal bar to bend against/hold it in place. I subbed out the flat holding plate (my term BTW) with the broom handle attached to a 2x4. The other half just pivots up and bends the sheet metal that's in its way. The trickiest part was trying to get my cheap C-clamps to not slide while bending.

This is the bending brake I bought. It's only 18", but was cheap enough to justify buying it for the project. 16-gauge steel is the most you're supposed to bend with this tool. If I did it again, I'd probably get a thinner plate of steel.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/Displayitem.taf?itemnumber=39103

I planned out the thing to use the whole pre-cut sheet of steel I'd bought. With the tools that I have, I can't imagine cutting 16-gauge steel is easy. Hope this helps explain it in more detail. I'll post the progress I make tomorrow.

[RoboG2]

Looking good so far.  Thanks for posting the pic.

[Setabs]

Thanks for the links, pics and description.