Day 9: MORE of the Crazy Bezel Panel

I was able to find a little bit of time over the weekend to get some more work done on the arcade cabinet. I finished making the last cuts on the bezel panel (cutting out the rectangle for the monitor). This proved to be a little more difficult than it sounds because I had no way of getting into the corners to make a perfectly square cut. I ended up eyeballing it and sanding - it came out OK but it will eventually be covered by the black posterboard bezel I'll be making to hide the monitor casing.

The first thing I did (after laying out the rectangle using a t-square and pencil) was to drill pilot holes in the corners. I picked the largest bit I had and drilled 4 holes about 1/8" inside of the lines. Next, using the holes I just cut as starting points, I used my jigsaw to connect the holes - again staying about 1/8" inside of the lines. Yoo can see the pilot holes and the crooked lines I made connecting them in the picture below.

At this point I had a rough cut frame that needed to be cleaned up:

The next thing I had to do was use my router, flush trimming bit and a straight edge to remove the extra material and make a perfect rectangle. This is where I had to get creative with my router set up and my use of shims and clamps. As you can see by the pictures, I had to raise the work piece quite a bit to get everything set up properly. It worked though! This is what I love about home projects - there is always a solution to a problem if you stare at it long enough.

I used a piece of 1"x2" wood as a straight edge and I set it up so I could run the router and flush trimming bit along the inside edge of the bezel cut out. I repeated this process 4 times (once for each side) and I ended up with a perfectly cut rectangle - except for the corners.

As you can see by the next set of pictures, after making the 4 cuts around the bezel, I was left with some material in each of the corners that the router bit could not reach.

In order to remove the excess material, I used the jigsaw, a steady hand and some sandpaper. I wanted the corners to be as square as possible but they will eventually be covered by the black posterboard bezel so I'm not too worried if there are small imperfections in the corners.

This is the final result:

Not too bad, eh?

Thanks for looking!!