Real glass instead of plexy / lexan

We tried to put the lexan glass pane we got ourselves when we started the project in the cab and it was a quite unpleasant surprise to see how much the lexan bent in the middle, That was an absolute show stopper, so we decided to go for real glass, which was surprisingly cheap. A glass manufacterer in our hometown cut the 6mm glass for us and it was just 50 euro for a 1040mm x 605mm glass pane.

The first thought about mounting the cab's glass pane was to install some aluminium angles to the side walls, which turned out to be a bad idea, as the TVs mounting rails are as wide as the cab's inside and the would collide, so getting the TV out of there would be a major PITA.
So we were quite happy to have the possibility to correct that design flaw by routing 6mm deep, 10mm wide rails in to the cab for the glass.

That was really hard to route, so forbear with the outcome. Fortunately the rout will be covered by the siderails anyway and no one will ever see it.

We took the opportunity and fired up SketchUp

Routing for the glass pane

The glass in the cab, it's just gorgeous! Here goes our extra motivation to finish this project!

Priming

Due to being kinda in the middle of something it took a little time to post something new. That something we're still in the middle of is PAINTING the cab. 

This so far took and still takes the most of our time we've invested in our hobby. This is because of the variant we decided to do this.

Online there's no straight information how to achieve the best result or erm... let's say there's millions of different opinions but never a conclusion wether or not it was actually a proper way to paint an MDF cab so it will look like it never had a different colour than the one you want it to have. 

So what did we do? We decided to go for a 2-component woodprimer, which we coated the cab in twice. 

Where we live the weather in April ist pretty unstable, so you never know...could start raining every second. For that reason we covered the floor of our dining room with papers and enjoyed inhaling some fumes. 
Kidding...but even though we carefully paid attention to keep the premises aerated well, we couldn't avoid 'tleast the intense smell of fresh paint.

Between applying the primer you should not forget the sanding. After the first coating we used 180 sandpaper and cleaned the surfaces with a moist towel. After the second coating we used 240 sandpaper and cleaned again. 

Some side-note: For all parts to be painted twice we needed about one and a half litres of the primer. First we got only one and so had to fetch a new can. 
Sadly the store ran out of the 2-component primer too. That was when we went for half a litre one-component primer. 
A bad choice as we think, because that one doesn't cover half as well as the two-component one. Luckily we've had done all the important/visible parts already and there were only the down- and some inside parts left to paint.

After a week of everyday painting, grinding an cleaning we got surfaces that are without exagerating...smooth as velvet.

For the actual coating we bought a one-component black paint. Let's hope the wonderful primer-layer already did the trick, so that a one-component paint will suffice.

Filling done!

Finally we're done with filling and sanding! The speakerpanel was the only part which needed filling and will be visible (not covered by decals) after painting, so we took extra care of that part and gave it 6 layers of filler. The gap between the bottom panel and the speaker panel was just a fraction of a millimeter, but we wanted it to look like on piece. No transition is visible.























We also finished the holes on the backbox door for the 200mm fan and the for the keyhole. As always, here's the plan and the result.

With all the prepartions done, full steam ahead for painting!

Backbox assembled

Today we've assembled the backbox. Ok, not everything. The door is still missing because we still have to cut out a hole for the fan. and it wouldn't make sense to attach it now, as all the hinges have to be removed for painting anyway.

The cab just looks amazing with the backbox attached! We're so happy with it so far!

We used strap hinges for the top and for the door. The top panel is just mounted temporarily, so we could place the top bar (the one with the holes) correctly. It will be removed for painting soon. The hinges are about 3mm high, so we made both the top bar and the door 4mm shorter for the hinges.

Here are the adjusted plans.

That's what the hinges look like.

Filling done on one side

One of the new side attachments is done. We filled and sanded it 4 times now. Should be good enough even for painting, but it'll be covered with a decal anyway.

The PC drawer is now also done. Filled and sanded 5 times  and ready for painting!

The other side attachement's now also done and ready for filling.

Cutting and routing done

Today, we finished all the parts necessary for the backbox itself. Next step, assembling the backbox!

We cut out the hole for the bottom panel of the backbox. It's not too precise and we didn't care about sanding because it will be hidden in the backbox.

Hole for the 19" DMD monitor

We used a parallel fence with the router, set it up for 5mm depth and cut out the path for the lexan glass on both sideboards for the backbox. Unfortunately i got a little impatient when i removed the router at the end of the path as you can see at the picture. Fortunately, it happend on the inside of the backbox and can't be seen on the outside, so no filling necessary.

Paths routed for the lexan glass pane

To have the holes for the DMD as exactly as possible, and to reduce sanding to a minimum we've tried to cut the DMD hole with the router. It takes much longer as with a jigsaw, but the result speaks for itself. With the edges rounded it looks almost perfect. We're absolutely happy with the result.

Holes cut for the Speaker / DMD panel

And with routing done

And the small board at the top of the backside with the holes.

The wood has arrived and the Cab's too small for the lockbar

Good news, everyone!

The wood has arrived! Everything cut and just waiting to be put together. It's gonna be a pretty busy weekend.

Look at all this wood!

The bad news are, the isn't wide enough for a standard Williams lockbar. A friend of mine said he's gonna make a custom lockbar for me, but this didn't work out. At all! So we decided to use a standard WPC lockbar, which is 633mm wide on the inside. Bad thing is, our cab is just 617mm wide, as we didn't pay any attention to standard sizes. I talked to Sven, the owner of www.vpin-shop.de and he told me, that he makes his cabs 630mm wide.
It didn't took long for us to come up with a solution. We decided to put a 6mm MDF board on each side, so we'll have a total width of 629mm.

6mm MDF boards

We screwed the board to the side of the cab and used filler on the holes. Two passes of filling and sanding will be enough, as the sides will be covered with the decal anyway. When we're done we'll have to adjust the holes for the legs a little, but this won't be a problem.

The side filled and not sanded yet

The side board fits almost perfectly

The front part filled and sanded 4 times now and it's almost perfect. We won't do anymore on this, as it'll also be covered with a decal.

The PC drawer and the hole for the power connector were sanded and filled 5 times. This needs to be as close to perfect as it can get, as the backside will be painted glossy black.

The 2 component filler we used.

Backbox Cutlist, measurements and details

We've finished the cutlist and tomorrow we'll go and see the carpenter for MDF, wood and other fun stuff like hinges.

I really like explosion drawings, so I couldn't help but make one. Besides it reveals how many small parts are used for the mounting.

Explosion drawing

Here's the preliminary cutlist. It might change, depending on the size of the hinges. We don't have any hinges at home, so we'll have a look at them tomorrow at the carpentry store and adjust it on the fly if necessary. In that case we'll post an update here of course. 

The hinges are 3mm high, so to be sure, we left 4mm space. 

All 16mm parts for the backbox

All 20mm x 30mm and 30mm x 40mm wood bar pieces for the monitor mount including the support beams, the locking mechanism for the backglass monitor mount and of course the DMD mount

30mm x 40mm and 20x30mm parts

All 20mm x 20mm wood bar pieces for the DMD mounting stand and of course the wood locks themselves. 

20mm x 20mm parts

And last, but not least, the 26mm high speaker stand plates, so the speakers will we centered in the holes from the speaker/dmd panel. They don't have to be MDF, we'll ask for any left-over wood pieces tomorrow that we can use.

Speaker stands

We created detail views for any wood piece that has holes or where anything needs to be cut out. 

Let's start with the speaker panel. We tried to stick closely to the original Williams speakerpanel, but as our cab's gonna be a custom one, so will be the speaker panel.

Speaker Panel

The bottom panel will have a hole of the same size for the 19" DMD monitor as the cab. 

Bottom panel

The small beam at the top of the backside will have a few holes for air inlet which will be supported by an exhaust fan in the bottom area of the backbox door. Don't look for a hole for the fan, as we don't have bought one yet, so we don't have the measurements. It is also needed for the hinges that will allow us to open the top panel.

Top element

That's it for the backbox part. Now let's have a look at the monitor mounts.  The LG 32LB56's mounting features holes for M6 screws with 200mm distance to each other. The TV will be hold in place by 2mm thick 30mm x 30mm aluminium brackets, so we'll have to cut out a path for them. As we don't know for sure if the countersink for the screws will be deep enough, respectively if it's possible at all for us to countersink them, it's gonna be 3mm deep. It'll better to have 1mm space for the screwhead if the countersink isn't working out.

Backglass monitor mounting rail

There are additional counterparts for the locking mechanism, where the monitor can latch in and will be locked in place. This parts will be screwed against the wall of the backbox. For more details see the last post. 

Backglass monitor mount counterpart

The wooden "locks" themselves will be made out of 20mm x 20mm wood. They're smaller than the wood bar they're mounted at so they can rotate around their pivot point without any hassle.

The wooden locks

The mounting rails for the DMD will consist of 2 pieces of different length, as one will overlap the hole for the DMD monitor. The 19" Samsung Syncmaster 901B monitor features holes for M4 screws with 100mm distance to each other. 

Upper mounting rail for the DMD Monitor

Lower mounting rail for the DMD Monitor

DMD hole cut in the cabinet

Just a small update. We cut the hole for the 19" DMD monitor in the cabinet. Currently we're filling all the holes and sanding. (and over.. and over again)