I made a rib to go around the edge of it for the skin.
I also cut out a door. I made these cuts with a router, using a 1/4" bit.
On the door area, this meant that there would be a 1/4" gap around the door, so I cut actual door panel out of another piece of 5/8" particle board, making the finished gap only about a 1/8".
At this point I applied the black acrylic to the front panel.
I got the acrylic from US Plastics. It came in a 2X4 foot piece.
I positioned the front panel and propped it good. I then lightly sanded it, and made sure all dust and debris was cleaned from it.
I thin applied two coats of Wood Weld laminate glue.
Here is a picture before applying the glue.
I then cut the piece of plastic with my router. The plastic was only a couple of inches wider than the jukebox front panel, so I just had to cut off about 8 inches of the length.
I then peeled one side of the protective paper off, and roughed up the surface with some sandpaper.
I then coated the acrylic with the laminate glue.
After both glued surfaces dried to a tacky feel, I placed the acrylic on top of the front panel.
I used wood dowels to separate the pieces until the acrylic was lined up with the front panel. I then removed the dowels one at a time. Once the two glued pieces touch, they are stuck forever.
Sorry I dont have any pictures of this process.
After I let the glue set up for a couple of hours I flipped the front panel over.
In the last picture you can see that I made a table out of scrap pieces of MDF board.
On the left section of MDF I cut out for my router. I fastened the router upside down to the piece of MDF. The router has a laminate trim bit that sticks up through the makeshift router table.
I used this to trim the acrylic to the shape of the front panel.
First I drilled 1/2" starter holes in the acrylic.
The hole in the upper outside corner was a test hole, just to make sure I wasnt going to crack the plastic.
I used a paddle bit, ran drill speed fast and applied pressure slowly.
I cut a hole in the marquee area and the monitor area.
The idea here is to allow a hole to stick the router bit through.
I also drilled out the hole for the volume pot shaft to stick through.
I then drilled a hole in each speaker box panel.
I then cut out the acrylic with the router mounted to the table.
The router bit has a bearing on the end. I just let the bearing ride against the wood while the bit trimmed the acrylic flush.
Here is the outside edge being cut:
I then moved the front panel to allow the router bit to stick through each inside hole and trimmed out the inside pieces.
Here is the final result:
I left the protective paper on the acrylic until the very end. This helps to prevent scratches.
*** Stay tuned! ***
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