Life has gotten in the way lately, so I've been working in fits and spurts. Here's a summary of what I've done in the last couple of weeks:
I wanted to smooth out the edges that I will be painting, so I used applied some Bondo to fill in the small holes in the particle board. Then I sanded. And sanded. And sanded.
I got it to the point where I thought it was pretty smooth, and then painted. Turns out it was not as smooth as I thought. On top of that, the paint didn't look very good; I used a semi-gloss black and it's way too shiny. I decided to sand a little more to even out the major imperfections (like the horizontal lines that remained from applying the Bondo) and repaint with a matte black paint.
That's better! The matte black matches the original overlay way better than the semi-gloss. It's not perfectly smooth, but I don't think I'm going to do any better without a different approach. Besides, most of this will be covered by boards or by the front marquee panel. Only the edges are going to peek out.
I also hit the control panel with my random orbital sander with 80 grit sandpaper. It worked great! I have some detail work left, and still need to hit the bottom side. That will be harder, because there's not enough space due to the joystick bolts and memory card board tray to get my sander in there.
I then made the interior cuts two two of the back panels: the one for the monitor, and the one for the PSU. For the PSU one, I used the old panel to scribe the cutout shape. I then used a 3 3/4" drill saw to cut out the big circular portion, then a jigsaw (and some helper 1/2" holes) to cut out the remaining potions. Then I used rasps and files to smooth out the shape. I then used a 1/4" drill bit to drill the screw holes around the cutout. I used a similar method for the cutout in the monitor panel.
And finally, drum roll, please...
I finally attached the new rear panels! I used wood glue and a pneumatic stapler with 1 1/4" staples. The exceptions are the lower access panel, which I attached with countersunk woodscrews, and the monitor panel, to which I added a lock for easy access. I scuffed up the panels pretty good when installing them, so I'm going to fill the staple holes and repaint at the end before applying the side art. I might add a clear coat, as well, but I need to experiment with that to make sure it looks right.
