Brackets and a hatch
As stated before: I taped the monitor sloppy and two corners were coverd with tape. Anyway -I reckon on my marquee design, to camouflage the flaw. Overall the dull black fades well inside the cab, so you can’t see any monitor contour.
One thing that is obvious when it comes to cab building is the need to access internas from both sides. Mostly the cables, connections and plugs are located on the backside and so a service door/hatch, just like those in the big ones, is needed.I unscrewed the backplate and cut it in three parts. Using a buzz saw from Aldi left me with a big surprise. Although the cut was quite clean and accurate, the blade I used left a 4 mm slot. Hence I had a 8 mm slot when I puzzled the back together again. Fortunateley I had some brackets left and made a nice rim protection and filled the gap – almost. Maybe I will add brackets to the door itself.
Certanly a service hatch needs a lock. I ordered one from Arcadeshop.de, along with some other parts, like Sanwas stick and the long awaited t-molding. I had never installed a lock before and I had to do it three times on a spare mdf plate before I got it right. The tricky part was that the locks winding had exactly the same thickness as my mdf, leaving no space to put on the check nut. I drilled two holes. One that closely fits for the lock and a larger one from the other side, that is big enough to take the check nut. The result was quite pleasing.
Further, I finally installed 2cm big brackets to keep the marquee where it is meant to be, but I still think they are too fat and tanking away too much of the marquee graphic. Looks like I will have shorten them on the front.
In the end I couldn’t resist to test my creation so far. With no controls in place, yet and the xbox hidden behind the marquee, it is a bit of a torture to turn that thing on. I, for one had to do it and start a round of Metal Slug4.
That’s it for today.