You can help me. Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand?

Another productive evening.

J and I managed to complete all the major cutting we need to do for the cabinet. There will be some minor frame support pieces tomorrow night, but they shouldn't be more than a few minutes.

The top, back, front door with coin door cutout, speaker shelf with cutout and all the fan cutouts are complete.

The coin door was the most difficult piece, it required some careful routing to ensure that the coin door fit properly. J touched it up a few times and now the coin door fits nicely.

Tomorrow we bring all the pieces to my place for assembly.

From there, my focus will be the control panel.


Using the 200mm DC fans to get a sense of size for the cutout.


Close up picture of the Antec 200mm fan.


Used a 1 1/2" spade bit to cut a hole for the router to fit into. The spade bit made short work of the melamine.


A few odd edges on the fan cutout, but it will be completely masked once the fan is mounted and the fan grills installed.


45 degree cut for the top back piece that sits at angle. Done with a circular saw, not a bad job.


Same technique as above used for the back panel. Another Antec 200mm fan will be installed to provide air intake from the back.


The layout for the coin door cutout. We were a little sloppy when we used the spade bit to cut the corners. We should have used the router to cut the corners, or more carefully measured. In the end it worked out fine because we had a 1/2" of play on either side of the coin door.


Cutout completed. As you can see, it's not exactly precise. Luckily the coin door hides any ugliness on the cut job.


With the coin door installed, nice and snug. As you can see the router kicks up tons of MDF dust. Breathing protection is a must.


No traces of gaps around the outside edge. It really looks great.


Speaker cutout. The book wasn't exactly clear on the inside dimensions of the cutout. In the end we used the dimensions of the Klipsch 2.1 speakers and simply subtracted 1/2" from either side to cut the inside dimensions.


Not exactly a thing of beauty, any imperfections here will be covered by the speaker grills.