Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Giant SNES table Phase II: Bondo and Sanding

I used my belt sander to first sand the curves down even. It dosn't get them super smooth, but it sure eats up the mdf quickly! I got it down pretty close, then used my mouse sander to smooth it out nicely.



Mouse on the left, belt sander on the right... Nice curves, huh? it gets better.

I then covered pretty much the entire outside curves with bondo. I recommend if any of you use bondo to only mix up a little at a time and do it in segments. The stuff dries up wicked quick. I used a putty knife to smooth it down, to ease the sanding process later.

I then spent about an entire day sanding the sides smooth. A little with the belt sander, but mostly the mouse. The belt sander eats up the bondo even faster than the mdf. I came out of the process looking like I had just killed frosty the snowman. Seriously, that stuff got everywhere.





I also cut out a back plate and started sanding it down smooth. The curves on the edges of the back plate are going to be much larger than the top. I've also decided to either go with legs screwed onto the backplate, a temporary box-like support, or no support at all and set it on my audomin for now, which will most likely happen until I figure out how to permanently support it. Any suggestions? I won't put any support on it until its 100% finished anywhays. I would like to avoid making a chest out of it like Kyle did on his NES controller simply because the curves on the side would make the chest too small, though it works beautifully for the NES controller. I'm thinking about going with the 4 simple table legs so it looks like a coffee table while still maintaining that controller look. It would also make it look nice if I end up going with the glass top look.
I'd say 40 inches wide is about the right size... its scaled up by 7.2 times the size of the original controller.
Note: (june 26 2008) I have actually done quite a bit more work on the controller, but havn't posted pictures yet. They should be up soon. Shes lookin quite nice, a pretty niceeee...


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