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.
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