Plywood Thickness advice?

[Nickno]

How do you do, fellow arcade enthusiasts.

I've been wanting to build either a replica DK cabinet or some other Nintendo cab from scratch for a while now and started gathering the tools for it. I was going to use the plans on classicarcadecabinets.com and found someone with a CNC machine. I also already got some birchwood plywood.

However, I didn't realize that the DK cab plans are for 15mm ply and I have 3/4in. Would the thickness affect the placement of blocking or how the pieces line up? It would make it less authentic so I might opt for making it a custom cab for some other game (I'm really inspired by Wyo's cabinets). I'm just worried if I got it cut with the CNC it would make assembly a headache. I really like the Nintendo cab shape but I can't even find 15mm plywood around me, I might end up just making a different cabinet.

Advice?

 

[Phetishboy]

Use half inch plywood and laminate it with standard (not vertical) laminate. You should be damn close to the right thickness then.

 

[Nickno]

Use half inch plywood and laminate it with standard (not vertical) laminate. You should be damn close to the right thickness then.

Looks like standard laminate is 1/8in so that would bring it to 9/16 which is close to 5/8 so that is an option.

Today I found a place with 19/32in plywood which looks closer to 15mm if not just 0.008mm bigger. I might go with that if it's close enough and use the 3/4in for something else. Though for t-molding there's 9/16in and 5/8in, so I would need to choose to have it 1/32in bigger or 1/32in smaller?

 

[Phetishboy]

9/16 is what you want. 5/8" is the particleboard cabinet you don't want.

 

[alfonzotan]

Just a bit of laminate advice: if there's a Wilsonart warehouse within driving distance, you can buy sheets of laminate directly from them and save a bundle, avoid the markup at Home Depot or other retailers.

 

[bdn103]

A note on the CNC files....

The CNC files only need to be adjusted for the thickness of material for the back of the cabinet. All other parts of the cabinet are independent of material thickness. The back door, back bottom and back top will need to be adjusted. I believe the plans are setup for a 1/4" cut for the backs (check the plans, it is noted in the CAD files) . You can leave it how it is and it will work on any thickness of material over 1/2".... It only matters if you want to maximize the strength of the back panels so the are exactly half of the material thickness.

Brian