ALL THE EUPHEMISMS

YES! I know I said I was going to get on with making an arcade control panel to go into the new desk modular slot, but I decided to aim for an easy win first. There were reasons...

The arcade panel I want to make will be two-player. That means at least 550mm wide and probably more. The desk, for reference, is 1000mm wide. The steering wheel was very sturdy in its slot, but I was concerned that a two-player panel, being wider, and having two idiots whanging about on it,  and leaning on it when getting up, would probably need extra support. 

So the first picture you see here is the two pieces of wood that go under the front edge of the desk. On the right, you can see the original slot and in the centre is a whole new slot! This one is smaller and will be on the right and left of the larger centre slot. I cut the outside of the slot with my table saw and carefully chiselled away the rest of the wood. 

Test fit time. It took a while to get the wood to fit correctly. I wanted another super tight fit. I had erred on the side of caution when making the initial cut which left quite a lot of wood to remove with a file and sandpaper. 

Worth the effort though. Still needs more removed here.

And with the parts put back under the desk here is a test fit. It is really tight. I got bored of filing the slot, instead I turned to my hand plane and made the pieces that go into the slots thinner with that. Still, a lot of work to get it right, but in the end...

... they fit perfectly.

So this is the configuration I am shooting for. Throttle to the left, stick to the right, keyboard in the middle.

I cut some spare bits of MDF to the width of my desk. There will be a join in the centre but I intend to cover this whole thing in vinyl so it shouldn't matter. Need these edges rounded off. All the shelves and side desks I have recently installed I have done in this same way, with rounded edges. I will regret this later when I come to stretch the vinyl around that curve!

I jigsaw the curve outside where the dust can blow away. Then go around all the edges with a round-over bit in my palm router.

Here's the centre join. Looks bad there!

Started to round over the edges then remembered I had not sanded the curve to be smooth. Makes a difference as the round-over bit rides along the edge and any lumps and bumps are left in the end result.

Planning where to put the stick and throttle. I decided to move it all left and leave a space on the right side for my mouse. Behind you can see some long narrow boards, these will be going under the front and side edges to keep everything from flexing. 

A long time ago I made a mounting system for these sticks. Totally forgot that I had 3d printed some inserts to go into the holes where the rubber feet used to attach. There are only two on each. 

Here is a closeup. I glued these in place with superglue. Some of them have worked loose and will need fixing before I attach these. I ended up using epoxy resin to fix all of them in place. I don't want them to work loose again.

A template for drilling through the fixing holes.

Here is one of the inserts. The nuts are actually cut from an old electrical outlet or light switch socket. The screws I will use are an unusual size, 3.5mm, basically what you use for power sockets and light switches. I have exactly four of these handy (without robbing them from around the house) and they are all very long. A few minutes with a hacksaw and a file and we are good to go.

The base support ready to glue. MDF is tricky, the edges are very porous, and a good trick is to work some PVA (not mustard) into them and let it dry for a while. Then stick it as intended. I didn't use any fixings for these parts, they are not bearing any weight. Glue on its own will suffice.

Glued these side parts in place first (after very careful measuring). You can see a couple of holes in each side of the tops here, they are for cable management. 

After leaving the sides to dry overnight I glued the front edge the next morning. All the clamps!

Added a small board, behind the centre of that front edge, to give that part some strength over the join. 

The centre support ready to be glued and screwed into place. This will be taking all the weight. It will also be holding the two halves together so all the fixings!

Now that's done...

... a test fit. All good so far. Only has the centre slot in play here though. It would probably be strong enough like this, but I don't want it to probably break.

That centre join is worse on this side than I realised when I fixed the parts to the other side. That will need addressing.

I carefully placed the side supports in place and screwed them into the back of the extension desk. I didn't glue these. If this expands with weather and ageing I want to be able to get these off easily to move them if I need to. The first time I slotted this into the desk it jammed. I yanked it out and gave the supports a rub over with some Briwax. Lovely stuff. Now they slide in and out like butter.

Crappy polyfiller. This dried in seconds. 

A couple of quick coats of primer. Mainly on the front and side lower panels. Gave the rounded over edge a coat to give the vinyl something to stick to. The top surface already had a coat of PVA and a smoothing rub down. 

I picked this up on clearance from B&Q ages ago. Cost £3.50. Bargain! Finally found a use for it.

Not exactly a dust-free area. But I am not after perfection here, a few small bumps won't bother me. 

One edge peeled up. I managed to cut it a little short in length and ended up stretching it a little to make it fit. 

A hairdryer to get the corners looking neater. They will never be perfect, I don't have the patience or skill, but they will pass casual inspection. 

Starting to like what I see.

The cable holes. I stretched them with the handle of a screwdriver and lots of heat, then sliced a star into the middle and stretched that down and round. Had to cover a few small bits with scraps of vinyl but it looks ok.

And done. Cut out the holes for mounting the stick and throttle.

Looks pretty bloody good I think!

I think it might be time to get Elite Dangerous installed again!

A few pics of the final result.

The last job, cables tidied up underneath. The USB lead is exactly the right length to reach my PC front panel ports. 

Ok. I promise. Arcade panel is next. 

Probably.

SIDEQUEST COMPLETED BUT BONUS OBJECTIVES STILL OUTSTANDING

A while ago I posted this pic on twitter and hinted it would be part of my next project. That was almost true. 

What you are looking at is some salvaged wood from a hardwood breakfast bar. The top I have used to make a new desk. When I took this pic I intended to make the slats into a nice box in which to mount arcade controls. That didn't happen. I realised I needed a way to mount any controls to my desk first.

So I made the desk. It's not finished in this pic, this was very early in the rebuilding of my computer end of the garage. 

Here you can see I have put up a load of shelves on the right-hand side, as well as desk space to either side of the new desk. Once that was done (lot of work!) I moved on with the main plan.

Under my pedals are the slats from the first picture, now removed from the frame they were in. To the right of them are two of the legs from the breakfast bar. I cut rebates out of the end of two of them...

And fixed them, end to end, under the front edge of my desk. They are held in with clamps for now...

... so that I can test them with one of the slats. I took three of these slats and trimmed the edges on my table saw so they were flat , and then glued them together.

Once the glue had dried I planed them down till they were a good, tight fit in the slot.

A couple of holes drilled in the new board and my Logitech G27 attached with a couple of bolts. Very surprised I didn't need to cut the bolts down, there's tons of room inside the wheel's casing.

I left plenty of board to go under the desk, I felt it might be important for stability and strength. On the flip side, I would need to make sure that whatever the board was sliding into would be strong enough to take the leverage this length would exert.

I added a second slot further back beneath the desk.

They are both a perfect fit for the thickness of the board, but I had left the width a little loose. Wood tends to expand across its grain so I thought it would be a good idea to leave some room for it to breath. Unfortunately, this left the board slopping around in the slot. 

I added this bolt (this used to be one of the bolts I used to fix my wheel to my old desk when I just drilled holes right through), but this only stopped the slop at the back.

I could have added another one to the front but that would leave a large bolt sticking down where my knees usually go, so that idea was out.

I mulled it over for a while and then came up with the idea of using a cam type lock. I took another scrap of wood and rounded one corner so that it could rotate against the back side of the front edge.

This wood is really nice. It's a hardwood, probably beech, and is very strong and really nice to work with.

Bolt, spring washer, flat washer, camwood, washer, hole drilled into the underside of the desk that is threaded for the bolt.

Test fit, the marks along the edge are where I need to file off some wood to make it slide against the board.

Filed.

Added a handle, almost got it stuck on a test fit so this seemed a good solution. Glue and a few brad nails fired in. That handle is the same as the wood that supports the other side of the board.

And will it work?!

Success! It works really well. I dropped some superglue into the bolt hole and screwed it down fairly tight. If that doesn't hold I will use some epoxy resin. And if that doesn't hold I have some threaded inserts I can glue in there. 

Wheel attached.

It's so easy now. I used to hate having to sort all the wires while trying to clamp the wheel to my desk. Now I just slot it in and pull the cam lever tight.

I am really pleased with this. I will cut a hole at the end of the board so I can hang the steering wheel up on the wall out of the way. Will probably make some sort of bracket for the pedals so they can be stored in the same place.

But what next! Well then, there is nothing stopping me getting on with the modular arcade controls! I need to think about what I want first. I might make a two-player setup with fight stick button layouts. There's no reason not to put pinball buttons on the side of that too. I do really want to make a four-way controller with fewer buttons for older arcade games. But now I have nothing to stop me I can get planning.