The plans for the CS-1 Stallion cover two options for the primary display: a large hood to hold up to three widescreen monitors, or an open front for viewing a projector screen. I chose the first option for my sim, and recently started on building the hood.
There were a few things about the design that I had to change:
First, the plans say to use a sheet of MDF for the top and for the bottom. However, this was going to be very heavy using the 1/2″ MDF I have available, so I decided to use fiberboard for the top. The whole thing is still very stable but it is easier to lift (although still very cumbersome and take two people most of the time).
Second, the position and number of vertical supports. Due to the large bases on the monitors I chose, a center vertical support made from a length of 2×4 wasn’t going to work — the center monitor would be pushed too far forward. So I replaced that with two verticals instead. When securing the top and bottom panels to the uprights, I used the “screw plus finishing washer” combination, which (when painted) make a passing resemblance to an aircraft rivet.
For the outer surround, I used Polywall; a plastic sheeting used for waterproofing behind drywall. I used the same thing for the instrument panel overlay so had plenty to spare. This stuff is thin, so is very flexible, easy to cut, and makes a nice curve shape (assuming the curves in the top and bottom panels were cut nicely to begin with). It was easy enough fit this to the hood and then secure it with small finishing nails along the top and bottom edges and where it meets the vertical supports.
Once the whole thing was put together, I found that (since my carpentry skills are far from perfect), there were still some gaps here and there where the edges meet. I decided to run a length of some super-strong industrial tape (kind of like duct tape but way stronger) along all the join edges. This created a complete seal and stopped any light from leaking around the corners. It’s not perfect (fitting straight tape around a curved edge doesn’t work very well) but meets my “good enough” criteria.
The inside was painted flat black (acrylic) and the outside I painted a basic flat grey. Adding the paint made a huge difference — this thing is made up from MDF, fiberboard, plastic, and tape, and looked pretty ugly in its unpainted form.
It might be fun to paint fake windows on it one day, but right now I’m kind of “done” with it and so it will stay lying on the garage floor until it’s ready to be mounted.
I should point out that getting the hood to fit perfectly in the space designed for it was a hassle. It was my mistake to create the space for it on the main cabinet before it was totally finished: the finished hood was a fraction larger than I anticipated and I had to do some last minute surgery to get it to fit.
Finally, if you are building one of these for yourself, bear in mind that it is VERY important to check that your monitors will fit as desired. I was VERY lucky in that the three 27″ monitors I had already bought did in fact fit … it’s not so much about total overall width or height of the hood, but more about whether your monitor stands let you position them in the way you want. Don’t pick monitors with very large stands, and make sure the ones you do pick can be returned if they won’t fit.
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