I brought a high speed handheld grinder/engraver, a poor mans dremel to grind the edges of the glass around the joysticks. After about 1 hour of griding the glass looked great. I fitted it into the cabinet and started playing. At this point I still haven’t painted the back of the glass black but it looks great.

I brought a new set of speakers, complete with a subwoofer. Only problem is that the volume through linux is low compared with in dos or windows. I’ve ordered a preamp circuit from jaycar which will lift the output from the soundcard a little (knowing my luck, too much!). I took the speakers apart and fitted them into the top of the cabinet and took the subwoofer apart. I want to keep the sub woofer in its box as it keeps the mains power parts away from hands and the sub needs an enclosure to work properly – I took the sub apart and extended the volume control onto a long lead so it can be mounted in the side of the cabinet.

I made a back for the cabinet out of 12mm ply. I wanted a perfect fit so it ended up requiring a fair bit of sanding and filing to get the right fit. Its now been painted black and is waiting for me to drill vent holes and mount fans into it.

I got out some black and cream enamel paint and started touching up all the areas on the cabinet where the finish isn’t quite 100%. One more coat on these areas and the cabinet will look brand new from 3 feet away.