I'll preface this part with a warning. If I did it again, I don't think I'd do it this way.
The first thing I did was stack the frame, control panel, and the sides together, then I glued & screwed them together. Then I attached each individual panel I'd previously built, along with furring strips to secure them in place
 |
My badly-planned initial assembly step |
If I do it again, my
first step would be to attach the furring strips to both side pieces, and ensure that they are placed symmetrically on both sides. The problem I ran into was that it was difficult to perfectly line up the furring strips on both sides. On my final assembly, I have some panels that are slightly crooked. I'd guess that I might be the only person to notice it, but it's annoying nonetheless.
For my assembly, I countersunk and screwed each piece into its respective furring strip from the outside. Then I had to fill & sand each screw hole. I'm sure other people could find more intelligent ways to do this without needing to fill dozens of screw holes.
 |
Rear view. I used the button-hole drill bit to add ventilation holes. |
There's a computer living inside the cabinet, and computers create heat. So, I also made sure to provide a bit of ventilation.
 |
Front view. Assembled and prepped for painting. |
Once everything was assembled, I also routed the slot for the T-Molding. I used a 1/16" width & 9/16" depth bit. Because my router was old & rickety, I had to constantly keep an eye on where the slot was being routed, since my bit wanted to keep walking out of the collet.
 |
Routing the T-Molding Slot |
I had previously attached the artwork to the admin panel, so I made sure to tape this off before painting the entire cabinet. I also previously painted the base. I don't know why I previously painted the base. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
With everything prepped & assembled, I first primed the entire cabinet with Kilz primer...
...and then I painted it with two coats of Rustoleum black satin paint. I chose Rustoleum because it's enamel & not a latex paint, which means it's more durable once it dries. Also of note: when painting & priming, I used foam rollers for the easy-to-paint areas, and a spray can for the not-so-easy areas with lots of edges & corners.
Below is a grab-bag of random features I included in my design:
 |
The control panel is removable and can be placed on top of the cabinet. |
 |
I included a plain flat version of the control panel to allow mouse & keyboard gaming. This also fits on top of the cabinet, and is swapped with the button-and-joystick panel. |
 |
The back access door has a bottom-hinge which is a pair of 12-inch piano hinges. Note the power button. More on that later... |
 |
A window sash latch is used to keep the back access door closed. |
 |
The front access door is hinged on a pair of Euro hinges, so the door can be inset from the front of the side panels. |
 |
The PC inside the cabinet is powered on/off with a regular arcade button. To do this, I cut male/female patch panel wire in half, and soldered both halves to a single wire. The other end of the wire has a connector for the arcade button. The patch panel wires plug directly into the motherboard/case connections for the PC's power button. This allows me to power on the PC with the button on the back of the cabinet, or the PC case's power button. |
 |
A shot of the final product in action.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment