Another detail that needed attention was blacking some of the exposed wood areas that were revealed during the routing of the surface formica.

Areas where the new CP meets the cabinet that need to be painted.
(click to enlarge)

I touched up the exposed areas (some of which were just dings the cabinet had experienced over its 20 year life in service) with Rust-Oleum black enamel paint I had left over from some restoration work on a Tron cabinet a few years ago. I used a tiny watercolor paintbrush to dab paint into the exposed areas.

The computer that drives this system is running 24-hours per day. The primary benefit, aside from the machine continuing to be a network fileserver, is that all you have to do is turn on the monitor to begin playing games. I decided to insert my own power button inline with the A/C feed of the cabinet so that the monitor and power supply of the cabinet (since I use its internal amplifier) can be toggled on and off separate from the computer. I also wanted this switch to be more accessible than the original switch on the lower back side of the cabinet.

I did this by installing a red, square toggle pushbutton with a nice solid click to it under the right front edge of the new control panel. To keep with my intention of not modifying the cabinet, I matched the style of the molex connector that the cabinet's A/C line uses to attach to the power supply and wired in my new button. In the future if I return the cabinet to its original configuration I simply unplug my button and replug the original A/C feed back into the power supply. No wires needed to be cut or rerouted.

The final key detail was installation of the 1/2" black T-molding that faces the exposed edge of the control panel. I had worried about this process throughout much of the design of the control panel for various reasons. The exposed edge is not perfectly smooth and therefore was a bit risky for formica. Formica is also a royal pain in the ass to cut in thin strips and route in this manner. T-molding seemed to be the most authentic option, but doing the routing seemed a bit daunting and dangerous to the overall health of what was very nearly a finished project.

After a bit of poking around on the web I happened upon a message on Google Groups discussing this very dilemma and offering a tested solution. A #542 Carbide Cutting/Shaping Wheel cuts what turns out to be the perfect sized slot for T-molding. I had been eyeing the router attachment for the Dremel tool I already owned for quite some time. It's always nice to find a project that calls for a tool you've wanted an excuse to buy.

I ordered the minimum order of 20 feet of 1/2" black T-molding from T-molding.com and received it a few days later. I then crossed my fingers and went to our local, highly irritating Lowes in hopes of finding the cutting wheel and the router attachment. Somehow I got lucky. The entire system works very well and it only took about 30 minutes to route the control panel face and install the T-molding. The router attachment is also narrow enough that I did not have to remove any of the controls from the panel to do the routing.

The finished control panel.
(click to enlarge)

I'm still pondering what, if anything, I will do about artwork and/or labels on the control panel. The button arrangement is sufficiently complicated enough to warrant some kind of labeling. I will certainly update the site when I figure this out and can take some pictures.