I've also been looking at a solution for the front of the cab. This is quite a large (heavy) section - which some people hinge as a big door - whilst others fix the whole section to the front of the cab with a hole in the middle for a coin door.
Its the hinges that have caused the first real DIY headache on the project. If people do hinge, then they normally use what are known as 'European Hinges' - which are large metal hinges, sunk into the wood that you would most probably have on your Kitchen cabinets. I did not feel competent enough to start drilling out large holes in the side of cabinet though as I felt I may go through the other side - ruining what I had done so far.
I looked at a variety of hinges and finally settled on some 'hidden hinges' - which when I got home and gauged the weight of the door, realised they would probably just rip out of the sides...
THE BAD IDEA
Hmmm... in a flash of madness inspiration, I decided to slice the big panel into 3 pieces. One at the top for a keyboard drawer and the remaining 2 pieces to be smaller hinged doors which the hinges would support. Ok - good... or not. My door hanging expertise leaves a lot to be desired and after plenty of swearing, I ended up with this abomination...Damn, that sucks. By deviating from the plan, have I started to get ahead of myself? What was I thinking - am I some sort of 'Carpenter Freestylist?' Luckily I have enough spare MDF left and decided to trash the doors and think of a new solution.
THE NEW IDEA
So a new plan was needed - I decided to go back to one solid piece (but still with a keyboard drawer) and have it affix to a frame by - dont laugh - velcro... I'm sure this is a good idea, yes, this is a good idea, there is no way that this is a bad idea.
So I cut the wood again tonight and I think its going to be ok. This will also be stronger as I am making a frame for the panel to sit in that will be glued and screwed across the sides of the cab front. Also, you may be able to make out a thinner piece of baton that will sit between the new lower panel and the keyboard drawer space - on here, I will affix some 'Credit Buttons' to mimic the coin buttons on a real cabinet.HOLE-Y SPEAKERS
The final piece of this bloated update is that I have started work on a speaker shelf idea. Most people (i think) just cut a space in the shelf to put the speakers over and then cover the hole the other side with a grill or mesh to make it look nice. I had an idea of just having holes for the sound to come through in the wood and whilst browsing the arcade forum I found this solution which is perfect.
Drilling the holes is a boring and arm aching job, but I think its going to be worth it once painted!
Thats all for now (folks) ...
2 comments:
Why do you need a keyboard draw?
If you needed to access something after the arcade is setup, you could just install remote desktop software and access it from your computer.
That's what i've done with my arcade, works a charm =)
A keyboard and mouse drawer is useful if you want to use the arcade cab as an "internet station" or if you want to play PC games. Thats what I do on mine anyhow !
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