The T-Molding

As I said in my last post, I gave up on trying to drill the holes in the control panel. But I felt like I had to do something, so I installed the t-molding. It was a fairly straightforward process. All I used was a mallet and a box knife. The mallet is to hit the molding into place. The knife is for cutting the part that goes into the MDF, the | part of the T, if that makes sense. If it's an outside angle/radius, you have to cut some away, to basically keep it from running into itself, think about a miter, except it doesn't have to be precise. With an inside angle/radius, you have a couple of different options. The first is to just cut the molding like you did with the outside angle. The other option is to just cut slots in it, and since they are spreading out, they won't run into each other. Honestly, I went back and forth between the two. Another thing that came in handy was a piece of wood with a 45 degree angel on it. This was great for hammering the molding into corners.

After I got it in on both sides, I realized that I may have damaged the paint job slightly. It shouldn't be too bad, since my room isn't super bright, and should hide the flaws well enough.
Another thing I realized, and a lesson for you all, is that if you decide to make a MAME cabinet, make sure that the edge that the t-molding is going on is smooth. I thought I could get away with not working too hard on it, after all, I figured that the molding would cover most of the flaws. I was wrong. It's not super noticeable, but it is there: just a slight variation, almost a ripple.