Re: Working on a new cabinet design
Hey, speaking of How-To's, here's some stuff I sent to Drizt last night, it's not perfect or anything, but if you're interested:
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Hey there! I don't have any problem giving out the schematics, except for me not actually having any. I have some notes that I refer to when I make new ones, I'll go see if there's anything in them that makes sense. I pretty much just make five shelves of a certain length, two sides of a particular length, and then I cut them all to about 7.5" deep (or shallower for certain pieces) and assemble them using a #8 offset bit for drilling guide holes and a whole ton of #8 2" wood screws. I use a Pachinko ball tray to determine the height between the bottom-most shelf and the one that supports the Pachinko machine, and I use an actual Pachinko machine to determine the distance between that and the next shelf. I'll go get some measurements out of the ol' wood shed now, more in a minute : )
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damn! it's cold out!
I label the shelves (in pencil, it's easier to sand off later) A, B, C, D and E. All are 20.5" wide.
A: 7.5" deep
B: 4 7/8" deep
C: 6 5/8" deep
D: 7.5" deep
E: 7.5" deep
The sides I label L and R (duh) and they are 41.5" tall and 7.5" deep.
From the bottom up, A is the bottom most shelf, B is one Pachinko tray up from that and flush with the front of the case, not the back. D is vertical, in the back, on top of A. Now is the time to grab a bunch of scrap wood and make ramps and a drawer for the bottom left and attach it with wood dowels, but you can do this after as well.
(if any of this doesn't make sense, I'm planning on doing a video series on building one of these sometime in the next couple of months)
I usually use two screws on either side to hold in B, four screws for A and two for D. If you're using an offset bit, don't worry too much about getting your holes perfectly spaced, you're going to fill in the holes with dowel rods and sand them flat later anyway.
Once A, B and D are in place, grab a Pachinko machine and set it on B. Then throw a couple of 1/4" thick shims (scrap wood) on top of the Pachinko and lay C down on top. Use a long wood clamp (lowes, $14) to tighten L and R together around C, grab a level and make sure C is straight front to back and side to side, then drill your guide holes and screw in your screws, I use three on each side here. You may not want to actually screw these in yet, just make the guide holes and take some measurements on where you're going to drill a big circular hole for your pvc pipe that will guide balls down into your Pachinko hopper. C is just a little short, you may have noticed, so that E can be vertical along the back.
Before screwing E in with at least three screws on either side, set your table saw to 45 degrees and cut off one long side, making an edge. You want to save the piece you just cut off for a small ramp behind your machine. The edge on the E piece is to fit into your French Cleats, which is the best way to hang up your very heavy case when there's a pachi in it. Look that up on the intarweb or I'll try and sketch it later - you want the longest side of the blade to be the one along the wall so that it will settle down into the cleats (these are just pieces of wood you've attached to your wall, also cut to 45deg on one end, so that the edge of your machine fits into them).
Depending on what you want to do next, you'll need to learn to make some ramps, long or short ones, and I pretty much can't explain that one easily in text, video will be better. One important note is that, anywhere you're planning to put acrylic, you should plan that out well in advance and make sure that you cut shallow slots for your acrylic with your safety rail in the same place each time, so do them all at once. If that doesn't make sense, and I expect it doesn't, I'll do some video for it later when it's not so damn cold out.
Hope this helps. If the ABCDE thing isn't clear, write me back and I'll do a quick sketch in Paint, it will be ever so beautiful.
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Originally Posted by syph
