Player Stations and Front Panels

The third coat of finish went on the player stations last night, which means they’re ready for assembly and installation to the table! Almost. There’s still the matter of the front panel: when the player station closes there’s a big gap between the two halves:

To fill that gap, a board will sit vertically in that space:

But this is just a loose board that sits there when the table is closed up. So the trick will be how to get the piece to stay in place and not just fall out. I decided to go with magnets:

There will be two on either side of the player station, and then a matching pair in the ends of the front panel. I got some 5/8” x 1/8” disc magnets that are rated N48 which, for this size magnet, says they can support 9lbs each! That should be plenty strong to hold this board in place, even if someone bumps it a bit while eating dinner.

After you close up the player station you place the board in there and it should snap into place. I epoxied the magnet into one of the player stations and I’ll let it cure for 24 hours before testing it to see if it works. If not, I have an alternative in mind.

As part of this process I also trimmed all of the front panels to fit inside the player stations, and now I’m just waiting on the outcome of the magnet experiment to see if I should go ahead and drill and epoxy all of them.