...so now my wife and I own our own place and we have a little more room, I'm claiming a corner of one particular room for myself to house a little (actually it's quite large) toy. I'm building my own sim cockpit
Drawing inspiration from
these and other custom builds and with a fair bit of redesign (to account for my shoddy workmanship and the door into the room that's only 655mm wide plus one or two other hardware adaptations) I want to end up with something like this:
Cut away view:
The design I spent some time trying to get the measurements right to give that snug feeling you get when sat in a single seater but still be extremely comfortable. Given it can get hot here, airflow/ventilation for both driver and equipment I figure will be important, as will trying to keep the weight down as much as possible. Hence the holes everywhere. I also want to be able to keep things tidy - a lot of custom rigs seem to have the PC off to the side or out the front, but I want everything to be neatly contained and accessible, so I'm going to put the PC on the shelf at the back and run all cabling to the wheel, pedal and screen neatly hidden away in the gap under the seat. I'm also attempting to make it so that the front bit can fold over the top to save space when not in use. This last bit has me a little concerned, however I will fumble my way through.
(This is all desperately nerdy I know, and I probably should be doing something more useful for the house, but everyone needs their little projects.)
So first up was constructing the seat. Using 16mm MDF I cut out two supports/frames on which the backrest and seat bottoms attach. All pretty straight forward - my mad jigsaw skillz aren't as bad as I feared. Once assembled, it's actually quite comfy as it is without any cushioning believe it or not. The seating position is reclined - but not too reclined - but when I do get around to cushioning it I can feel that building out the padding for additional lower back support will be a good idea. A few holes bored out to save a bit of weight and to allow for a wee bit of airflow.
Next are the sides. Again using 16mm MDF, I marked out the design and set about cutting. A few trickier cuts this time, but again I was mildly surprised to have cut pretty darn accurately (and to still have all my fingers). You'll see below where the seat is marked out to give an idea of how it'll come together.
I should point out that my work bench is our tiny outdoor table. Definitely not the safest however so far, so good!
A few screws, et voila!
Last bit for the moment is the shelf at the back. Using 12mm MDF this time to save on weight, this piece is a little delicate as it slides into the slot I cut at the back of the sides and also has two thin bits that extend along the sides. I was really nervous of these snapping off as I affixed the piece but they held firm and with a single screw on each side the shelf is nicely in place. Lots of holes.
So that's where I'm up to thus far. I have the arms rests and the front section all marked out ready to cut this weekend and start constructing and if I'm lucky with my available time I might be able to get these bits done this weekend. I will keep you posted with progress!
Has anyone else made anything similar?