Casters and yellow

Painting is as fun as... wiring. While yellow symbolizes sunlight, it also symbolizes the end of painting. After I was done painting the sides yellow, it was time to put all the pieces together. And in doing so, the sides got all messed up and needed to be repainted with many coats.

Also before putting the junk together, I put the casters on the base, under the base I mean.

In the next post you'll see the assembled pieces. But since this is a blog and you're reading backwards through time, you already know what it's going to look like.

Wiring is boring

Hmm, what could be the most boring thing I could show. I know! The control panel wiring. Not only is it boring to look at, it was boring to install. Strip a wire, crimp a wire, cut a wire, over and over. And I don't even have that many controls.

The Ultrastik sends both the joystick and button data to the computer through USB. That's why all the button wires end up going right into the ass of the joystick.

Top of the control panel

Once the control panel and front panel were painted, I could put the laminate on them. I assume that the adhesive will stick better to paint than wood.

Lower angle:

I've been waiting a while to actually install the joysticks and buttons, I got them before any of the real work began. They still need to be wired up.

Painting

Since I'm making a cabinet that looks like a Q*Bert cabinet, the color choices are easy: The sides are yellow, everything else is black. Rather than put the cabinet together first, I painted it first. This way it takes more time and is more annoying.

The primer goes on first:

Then a couple coats of semi-gloss black:

The previous picture shows the control panel and front panel, which will be covered in laminate anyway. But they still get painted for some reason.

Subassemblies

I liked how the retro-arcade.net site had assembled the cabinet using subassemblies. I incorporated that into my design, it's more flexible. Here is the subassembly for the top:

Here's the front panel:

Here's the top of the control panel:

Here's the subassemblies resting near where they would really go. Except for the drawer, which was being lazy and just sat around in the wrong place.

Wireframe view

The previous image of the 3D model was shaded in, but I thought it would be cool to see it in wireframe:

Now how is that LCD monitor going to be mounted? That was a mystery.

The profile has smooth curves rather than the sharp angles in that image. Even though I was able to get measurements from a real Q*Bert cab, I later found a website that has dimensions: jakobud.com. The distance between the two side panels is 23", which makes for a total width of 24.5".

Cutting the wood

It was time to cover the whole garage in layers of sawdust. The plywood was first rough-cut with a circular saw to get near the lines. Then I used a router to accurately get right up to the line. The cabinet sides came out looking like this:

Both side panels are exactly the same because I used a router template bit to cut the second one, using the first one as a template. So that didn't take much time, but what took too much time was the billion little pieces for each subassembly. A table saw would've been ideal, but I don't own one.

It was time to start putting the pieces together.