Day 9 - Spiritual Enlightenment

Today I got my calling. It's fine cabinet making, and all I need now is some kind of ability.

At the end of the day I have all the batons on and bar the odd half-millimetre in two of the batons, both of the sides match up. It's only the alignment that counts not whether the batons are the same length.


Just a quick description. The top three pieces (2,3,4) constitute the marquee, 12 (yes, one is missing - it was tea time) is the speaker panel, 13 is the screen/bezel, 11 is the mount for the TV, 9 and 12 is the control panel (and possibly a shelf for a monitor stand - the gap being where the panel will lift out as the hinge will be at the front), 8 and 14 are part of the control panel (more later), 7 and 15 the kick-plate with a gap for a drawer.

It's really quite pleasurable spending a day being anal and meticulously following your own little rules, tinkering with wood then seeing the results unfold. That is what the enlightenment I mentioned at the start was about.

The rules were to measure multiple times, cross-reference where necessary (i.e. especially doing the second half), secure everything and take it slowly. This is the very first piece, and while it's the back panel that nobody sees, I tried to be millimetre perfect.

First up, I made sure my screws were the right size and set the depth of the drill bit (it's 1mm narrower than the screw - 4.0 x 35mm.

Then I created a little measuring device which is half the width and half the depth of the baton to make it quick and easy to space and positions things.


 I also made use of my countersink bit (for the first time in 10 years), and I don't know why I never used it before - drill the hole, create countersink, screw. Perfect flat, unsplit result every time :)

In the finished picture I've made a (deliberate) mistake in that I'm putting in a door at the back so the rear vertical baton on one side needs cutting to make way for the hinges.

Notice I'm screwing into the batons, this is to not have holes on the facing side for my crap filling ability to spoil it - and to avoid having to fill in the first place. I never went past torque level 2 on the screw driver for anything and this meant the screws never went too far in and stopped dead flush.

If you recall from Day 1 or something, I got the three pieces of MDF pre-cut to 730mm wide for two (the sides) and 660mm wide for one (the middle). Measuring up I can fit the back panel, kickplate and drawer from this perfectly sized piece. The other 'off-cuts' will do the rest - I'll just cut 660mm off each one then cut to the right height.

Once I'm happy, the screws will be off for gluing the batons.

Getting the plans is just the start really, you've got to tinker and make adjustments for your kit as you go along, the prime example being the monitor and bezel positions. I'm thinking now of some marvellous Heath Robinson device to rotate the monitor as if I leave it on it's stand (rather than mount it) it can do this (some kind of lever at the back of the cabinet attached to a rod connected to a clamp on the monitor) ;)

This is where I came across my first problem - I'm planning on using 18mm aluminium right-angled quadrant to hide the edges, make the marquee retainer and generally look nice. However the perspex on the control panel will probably be 3mm meaning the bottom 3mm of the MDF will show and as the control panel surround is angled it won't fit properly. The design is as follows (which may or may not work):

The idea is to make the facing panel removable with dowels or those metal expandable clip things with rollers on (forgot name), which then allows access to flip a simple wooden lock allowing the control panel to flip open hinged at the front. This allows the aluminium edges to fit nicely and the location allows the glass to fit nicely too.

Obviously you've got to think in 3D for the location of the wooden lock and hinge. Needless to say, this will have to be verified by Harry the Builder.

Oh, and I'm going for (cost permitting) slightly smoked tempered 4mm safety glass not perspex on the assumption it'll be cheaper and look nicer and won't require screwing.

Now, onto cabinet designs. I decided my vinyl sticking skills will no doubt be rubbish so I'm not going for a full size side art and instead a nice piece of art. This means the cabinet will have to be coloured. Here are the colours (kind of Neo-Geo red, donkey kong blue, a racing green and a darker blue), which I knocked up in a few minutes with Google Sketchup:

The votes were in (friends and family) and the unanimous winner was red. Though I may make it darker that Neo-Geo/SNK red and if I spray it possibly a metallic.

For the side-panel art I thought of the following choices:

From left to right they are Varkon (the blue should be red), the thing from Space-Invaders (yellow to be changed to whatever colours are on cabinet), Rolling Thunder and a Pac-Man insired art (the 4 ghosts and a bottle of pills -I added the blue outline to represent the maze edge).

Now I thought The pac-man picture was perfect, but everyone else seems to think the thing from Space-Invaders, despite it being done to death on a million cabinets....

I suppose if I went for the space invader thing then at the bottom of the sides I could put a few bases.

For the kick-panel, it'll be plain black but I'm thinking of putting a couple of tiny little randomly rotated sprites on, e.g.

That's about it really for this blog. If anyone's reading while I'm posting (doubtful) leave a comment with your preference to the art.