Hello all,
Here's a cumulative update on the progress we've made on this cab. For a whole slew of reasons we've had to take this slow but the unit is finally assembled and ready to be wired up. It's going to get a fancy paint job but more on that another time.
So the build itself was pretty easy if time consuming (if you want it done right). We had two groups of people working on this (how many dj's does it take to screw in a light bulb?) who had different philosophies about how to go about the assembly and it shows. One team used brads and was jig phobic, the other screws and jig philic. Needless to say this means that there are a couple of places where the inside panels aren't exactly 90 degrees to the sides but since the cab is made of wood it's pliable enough to come together comfortably. I had used the router to cut dados for the panels but did this only for one side. This turned out to be a wise move as the second side had no problem fitting despite the slight wonkiness. You'll notice from the photos we also had different philosophies about spreading glue. We were both guilty of spreading it, just one of us went hog wild
. Lesson learned - it was a major pain to clean up.
By and large the CNC pieces themselves fit like a dream with a few exceptions. The major issue was pieces 9, 11, and 13 - the angular pieces that fit into the corners of the cab. I had to re-cut these an 8th of an inch smaller as they didn't fit my dados - the tolerance where the sides come together is tight. Next time I'll ditch the dados at these points and just let the pieces slide in and rest where they may. Even though making these pieces smaller allowed them to fit, I never did get the angles quite right. Gaps between say panel 7 and 9 were up to a 16th of an inch in places but PL glue filled them in without issue. The only other problem I had with the cuts was the one @chrisj360 predicted: the 1/10 braces needed to be adjusted some to fit. I suspect this had to do with panel one not being quite square. A little planing and elbow grease made them fit fine. The 6/12 braces were installed in a similar manner minus the planing
. As a result panel 12 bows a bit at the bottom but seems to sit flat enough with rubber feet.
The installation of panel 10 and 1/10 braces.
You can see the dado for piece 13 that was giving me trouble here. Those will go away on the next one.
Here's panel 12 and the 6/12 braces installed. That big clamp was a godsend. I don't think we could have done it without it.
The biggest challenge we had was with the drive access panel hatches. Programing the CNC is finicky business. With so many cuts it's easy to make a mistake. In my case I missed that the curves that defined the access hatch openings were programed to cut on the wrong side of the curve. As a result the openings are an 1/4 of an inch larger than they should be (I used a 1/4" spiral flute plunge down-cut bit for these). This made installing the flanges difficult as there wasn't much of a lip to hold them in. We ended up using some wood screws through the end grain of the pieces to affix them to the cab while the glue dried. This took a pile of time to assemble because there's little room in the opening for a drill once one flange piece is installed. Everything had to be pre-drilled and then the screws tightened by hand. In the end it came together fine but it was certainly a pain to fix.
Jigs in place before the second side went on
Finally coming together!
You'll notice in that last picture that we didn't install the second flange until after the second side was on. After this picture was taken and the glue dried the excess glue was cut and sanded away, gaps filled with PL and/or Spackle (no bondo handy) and sanded a second time. The edges were also rounded to fit protective hardware. We elected to use cabinet corners with an internal radius of 1/4". They won't be as strong as the 1/2" ones we originally got with our kit but we were worried that grinding the edges down 1/2" would weaken the structural integrity of the unit because of all the handholds we put in the cab.
I can't seem to add more pictures to this post so I'll follow up with another. Almost there!
