Finally, Some Doors.
by Jason Coposky on Jan.20, 2012, under Multitouch
A detail to be sure, but much like the leather wrapping the corners, I’m quite delighted to have the doors finally finished. Well at least the parts I needed to be working on. Jackie will be providing the interior of the door which will be one of her Wirething type designs. To Be Determined, as it were. By the way, I have no idea why I cant get a good picture of any of this stuff, but I’ll work on that. So, doors. These were mostly Harry’s project, I just did the finishing. He did a nice tongue and groove assembly on some red oak 1×2,
and also routed a 1/2” channel around
the inside which is what will hold the Wirething. We have been looking for decent Victorian style grillwork but anything worth considering is basically 500$ and made out of solid cast iron. Weight could be an issue. The hardware for the doors is some fairly basic kit from Homedepot, but I think it matches the look rather well. And once again, Harry’s Christmas gift came in handy. I’ll be using those clamps for just about everything from now on…
Fun with Leather
by Jason Coposky on Jan.12, 2012, under Multitouch
Two posts in two days, a new record. I managed to spend a couple hours last night wrapping up a few more aesthetic details, mainly the leather treatments on the corners of the table. I have to say, I’m quite pleased with the results as it really bring the whole Steam Trunk look together. Jackie found me a nice remenant on Amazon for not all that much money at all, which was the perfect size to cover the corners with hardly any scrap. She cut me 4 6ish inch strips out of a 28″x14″ ( ish ) inch piece to start. I then folded over about a 1/2” strip on either side and used some Fabri-Tac glue 
( awesome stuff ) to glue it down. Perhaps it was over-kill but I clamped the glued edges down under a scrap of wood over night to get a nice clean edge. These were then cut to the now famous 12 5/8” height and slathered with more Frabri-Tac and applied to the corners of the table. I let those dry for a little while and cut the brass nails down to around a 1/2“. These will be going directly into the plywood box, so I didn’t want a bunch of seriously pointy bits waiting on the inside to flay some unsuspecting hands.
After that, I 
pre-drilled the leather and the plywood box and just tapped them in. As it stands, not a bad result with the handles. In other news, I had to drop the center support a bit in order to give the DLPs more room to adjust and I think the results are fairly solid. There is still a bit of keystone in the images on the back ends which may require 
shimming up the base of the DLPs a bit. I’m not excited about that in the least, but its not so bad that it need be addressed immediately. I think we lost a bit of wiggle room adding in the handles and whatnot and perhaps moved the sets a bit too close together in the middle. Either way the stitching looks great, minus the bulb-life issues between the two sets. I have a couple spare bulbs but I’m not going to throw away a working bulb to even that out.
And just to round the post out, here is a couple shots of the on-board PC and so forth. Our weekly gaming session is tonight so I won’t have any time to work on the table as it will be in play, but Jackie and
The Critter are headed up to visit Aunt Meref’ for the weekend and look at rockets and big dinosaurs ( although clearly The Critter will be the biggest Dino there ). That will leave me and The Squeaker alone to get all manner of things done. I should be able to get the cameras refitted and the mounts together Friday night and perhaps even get them installed Saturday.
Not Dead Yet
by Jason Coposky on Jan.11, 2012, under Multitouch
Ok, so we havn’t updated the blog in a little bit. No worries, we have still been as busy as can be. What with grabbing the odd hour to work on the table in between kids and jobs and whatnot. The primary progress has mostly been either infrastructure or aesthetic. We managed to cut L channels out of red oak to both hide the LEDs and provide a nice smooth trim around the acrylic. After adding these and a few more tweaks, the top of the table is a nice flat surface ( for the most part ). The hardest part of the whole process was 
coming up with a plan for the cuts that didn’t end in either the whole part disintegrating or the loss of several fingers. After a few-couple tries we did manage to work it out, and got some nice 4′ lengths cut with a 1/2” x 1/4” L shape with a 1/8” overhang. 
After the application of some black lacquer paint, I think we created a nice look for the whole project. There is the risk of the whole thing looking like a huge iPhone, but I suppose there are worse designs to mimic.
Other than that, we’ve added some fairly theme-appropriate handles to the table and changed our minds on hinges for the doors about 10 times. Speaking of, the doors are finally cut and glued and awaiting more sanding and a tasty coat of poly. Naturally I have no pictures of this due to my general neglect of any in-process documentation. The rest of the camera kits are in, as well as the cameras. Also, I did mange to create a nice Franken-Mount for a camera. While entirely out-of-control it did let me determine that something along these lines could work, albeit greatly simplified.
After a bit of fussing about with it inside a TV, it’s fairly obvious that a single articulation will do just fine… So, there’s that. In other news, we also got the on-board PC built and installed. I have to say, its damn handy and quiet as the dead even with both 250mm fans on full. Well, just not the walking around type. 
And, in support of that effort we also brought power distribution on-board. Basically just attaching a powerstrip to the inside of the table. The cool part is that I found a female C13 socket ( a PC style plug adapter ), and through the liberal use of a router bit for a Dremel, and even more liberal use of epoxy putty, modded that into the bottom of the table so the entire thing is self-contained. Just plug a standard PC plug into the bottom and that into the wall will get it up and running. There is a wifi- adapter in the PC build so it only needs the one wire. 
Next steps will be to get a few more aesthetic details squared away, and then its all about the cameras. The PS3 cams need torn down and refitted and then just dropped into the TVs. From there is just the simple matter of some software…
