Making of.. a never ending cabinet!

[TilionMtl]

Here is some .. well.. (maybe too much) .. pics of the making of my 5 pachinkos cabinet.

I will try to give you some hint of what I have done, and also what to not do. Wish my mistake can save you some trouble.

So here is part of the structure of the cabinet. The cabinet is in 3 section which can be "unfold" to make a single wall of pachinko.

cabinet01.jpgcabinet02.jpg

Ok, let's go for a first warning. For the new wood builder, don't let the guy at the store choose the wood beam for you. Choose them yourself, check for crack, and for bent or twisted beam. I did not check the beam when I bought them, and I've been in big trouble because the pachinkos could not fit in the places, the beam was twisted and so on.

An other warning, do do as I have done. I said to myself, oh 1/8" extra spacing for the pachinkos will be sufficient if I cut the wood carefully.. nah nah... big error. I had to sand and sand and sand the places for the pachinkos because the holes was too tight.

Now, the shelves for the trays. Here is cutted shelf:

cabinet03.jpg

I decided to put some chrome (corner shape) around the shelves to make a shiny finish look. Here is a some pics:

cabinet04.jpgcabinet05.jpg

[TilionMtl]

Some stupidity I have done... sanding in the house...

There's still wood powder everywhere after two months...

But well, it's my first wood crafting.. Still have a lot to learn.

If you remember the shelf, it's the half of a hexagonal shape, so I had to cut and bend the chromed metal.

I used a piece of paper, fold it in two, fold it in diagonal to have 45 degree, fold it again to have 22.5 degree.

Then I used the plastic from something a bought, I don't remember what, but for example, the plastic used to enclosed a pair of headphone. The companies used that all the time instead of box. cheaper probably. you have to cut the plastic with a scissor to have the item you bought.

Then I draw the folded lines from the paper, on the plastic, as guides.

cabinet06.jpg

You will see that two of the line have been cut, so I can use a pen and draw the lines back on the chrome, allowing me to know where to cut.

cabinet07.jpgcabinet08.jpg

Then using pliers with electrical tape around each extremity (to not scratch the chrome) I bent the chrome as the following, and repeated the process for each corner of the shelf

cabinet09.jpg

Here is the final shelf with chrome around the edge..
Me love shinyyyyyyyyy!!!

cabinet10.jpg

The chrome has been glued to the wood using Gorilla glue, this stuff is just unbelievable! This glue anything.

A word of caution about gorilla glue, when curing, the glue can go up to 4 time the initial size, so go gently on the glue hehehe

Coming soon. Putting it together...

[MrGneiss]

Wow, looks great so far..more more!!

[new in town]

Great Job ! ! !

[Moparformances]

very nice looking so far

[wrkey]

Great thread!

You have a nice looking project going there!

[monkeyboy]

Looking good. Can't wait to see it all finished.

[beachcat]

very nicely done

[TilionMtl]

Ok, here is a follow up to the cabinet... sorry for the building tools and stuff around, cabinet not yet finished.

My cabinet is in 3 section held down together by hinges, you will see in the next photos that the cabinet is placed in a kind of corner shape, but because it it made of 3 sections joint together with hinges, the whole cabinet can be unfolded to make a wall kind of cabinet. The cabinet is 75" high, two sections of 46", the middle of about 23". each section have a 11" dept.

Ok, here is a picture of the back of the cabinet, no pachis installed, still unfinished, with electric wires and so on...

cabinet_back.jpg

Oh my god!
I can hear the girls here screaming in horror and running, terrified by this hideous mess!

Hold on ladies, it's not finished heheheheh. Once the balls distribution system will be complete, the back will be close like the front, with doors to still have access to the back just in case

Actually, the back is not the first thing we can see when we enter the basement. Here is a pic of the finished front, without the pachis installed. Some lights on top give a nice warm accent to the cabinet, shining on chromed parts of the pachinkos and chair. Humm, I sound like an IKEA ad. lol.

More about the making of these lights (the cheap way) in a next post.

cabinet_empty.jpg

I used left over 4'x8' wood imitation floor covering sheets from the home hardware store. These sheet are heavy, made with glue, wood powder and other stuff.. but give a nice look, and was really cheap, $6.00 per sheet.

Here is the lights and shelves casting shadow on the floor... woooo

cabinet_lightfxshadow.jpg

Now here's a pic of the cabinet with some pachis installed. Everything is turned off. There's three switches to turn on the pachis, one for each sections, one switch for the ball lifter and balls distribution system (more about it later), and a last witch with dimmer for the light.

cabinet_lightoff.jpg

An other pic but now the lights and pachis are turned on.

cabinet_lightshow.jpg

Other view angle of the cabinet with pachis

cabinet_sideview.jpg

In the next post, I will explain the light fixtures and how I saved a bit, the two vertical moldings each side of the center part of the cabinet. These molding need to be adjustable because if I unfold the cabinet, the moldings need to be adjusted. I will try to add the thing to watch, so you don't end up making the same error as me.

More coming soon... if it is not too much boring.. of course..

[luckydog]

great workmanship, really a beautiful job

[TilionMtl]

The light fixtures...

Actually, the three lights was bought cheap (again left over) cost $15.
It is actually a lights track, not three separate lights.

Here's a pic to explain what I have done.

light_fixture.jpg

1. is the kind of light track I used, sorry, I don't have a photo of the track before I destroyed it.

2. This is the circular base of the light track. I tried to draw some line to show you where I've cut the base. I ended up with three side parts, and the center part which I didn't use.

3. This is the three parts without the center piece.

4. This is one of the three side part I cut before.

5. Turning it upside down, drilling a hole on the front to be able to screw the light fixture part, then I bent each side of the base part to not see the not so well cutted edge.

RESULT. This is what it look like. light support with shaft has been screwed to the cutted base part, and this part has been screwed to the top of the cabinet.

If you have a light track you no longer use, or maybe found one in a garage sale, this is the best. sometime you may find a 5 lights track, but one of the light is broken, or the frosted glass is missing, and you can have it cheap. If you plan to to the same with the circular base, check that you will be able to cut it in a way that you end up with three part of same size, and that they don't end up with a mounting hole in one of them. check the center piece of number 2.The mounting hole are in the discarded part.

I could have bought three nice lights for photo frame, or bookcase, but the light I wanted (chromed, no frosted glass, to fit pachinko look) was about $20 each.

Of course if you look close at the lights I have done, you can see some not so well properly bended part, but someone who don't know will not notice, and the light show on the cabinet and the pachis keep the look away from the light fixtures, hehe.

Again, for any additional info, feel free to ask

[Moparformances]

nice looking unit u have there..

makes me wish for more room

[pinball wizard]

awesome cabinet!

[MrGoodBurn]

Great job!

[TilionMtl]

Holding the pachinkos...

What follow may look obvious, but sometime this can be easily forgot.

Pachinkos are inserted by the front of the cabinet. These babies are so heavy, they are not easy to handle. They need to be pushed in the place build for them.

When I was handling a pachi, checking my fitting, and stuff, I mostly lost grip on the pachi and the pachi mostly fall off to the back, so here is something I have done...

stopper.jpg

I put some bracket at each corner, two at the top, two at the bottom, so when I push the pachi in it's cabinet hole, it stop at the good place, not falling down, and allow me to secure it using the following method...

Pachis are heavy, so when the key is turned right to have access to the back of the machine, the whole cell, and frame electronic is on the door, and want to fall down, so I had to secure it, and be sure that it will not come loose after a while.

secure.jpg

In the previous photo, you can see in the top left the two brackets on each side, preventing the pachi from falling back when inserted. You can see two bolts in the horizontal beam too. These two bolts are held in the wood by a nice kind of nut I found at the hardware store. these nuts are filted inside, so the bolt screw in it, but also have some larger teeth outside, and using an alen key (not sure how it is spelled), these nut are screwed in a hole in the wood. The nut are harder than wood, will not chip like wood or come loose, and allow the bolt to be screwed by hand in the nut.

I made two hole on the top of each pachinko wood frame, and two at the bottom. Once the pachi is inserted in his cabinet place and opened (turning key to right), I simple let fall two longer bolts in the bottom holes, these one are simply holes without nut, and used only to prevent the pachinko from sliding. Then I screw the two shorter bolts in the top from inside, passing throw the pachinko wood frame and screw in the nut stuck in the cabinet wood.

Hope it's clear, if you need further explanation, let me know.

[drcrippen324]

nice work tilion real nice work im impressed your wood work is awsome

[TilionMtl]

nice work tilion real nice work im impressed your wood work is awsome

hehe thank-you drcrippen324, I must say that this is my first furniture building attempt, and there's a lot of errors and stupid things hidden here and there. I developed some great talent to hide stuff lol. The cabinet would have cost half the price if I had known more of wood crafting, but well. I'm still happy with the result.

[kkentert]

AWESOME! Looks great! Good work!

[beachcat]

sweet

[MrGneiss]

WOW!! It looks so great!!

Thank you for posting all the pics and info!!