This joystick was a long time in the making. Building the frame was easy enough but coming up with the right color and finish took longer.

The customer didn’t really like the standard transtint green because it was too bright. He also liked the cordovan color and thought that having the two colors on the case would be nice. I didn’t like the possible problem of the colors bleeding together in the corners. So on the test piece I mixed the two colors as a sample for him. You can see the differences in the two following pictures. He went with the custom blend.

While the finish color was a bit complicated nothing compared to the work involved with the electronics however. This involved time learning a new skill, programing PIC chips to control the LED lighting effects. There are 4 separate lighting effects each controlled by it’s own chip. The first one is one I have done many times, lighting up the buttons when they are pressed. A simple circuit using a logic chip did this job. The other three were a bit more complex and involved the programming. I drilled out the joystick shaft to run the wires for a RGB LED (Red, Green, Blue). This is controlled by a small chip the cycles through the spectrum in about 15 seconds. The next effect uses four green LEDs in the base. One of the LEDs is randomly chosen to flicker. Then after a random interval another LED is chosen. The final effect is embedded into the artwork and is best seen in a video I did for the customer. Here are two short videos showing the LED lighting effects

Thank you for taking the time to look over my most complex project to date. Michael

I was lucky enough to get this beautiful wood from a fellow member of WoodNet.net. All the boards were 1/4″ thick and about 3″ wide. Two of the 6 boards were a near perfect grain match. I decided to use this match to make the top of the case. Because of the narrowness of the boards this also determined the depth of the case.

I wanted this case to be one of my full custom hardwood case. Each control in the case gets some form of the main wood from the case. To that end I took one of the small cuttoffs from the case sides and passed it through my bandsaw for veneers. I had just loaded my bandsaw with a new blade as wide as it could handle and tuned it up for the blade. Surprisingly I was able to get 3 veneers out of the 1/4″ thick piece. After some sanding and a few coats of polyurathane they were ready to be cut and inserted into the buttons.

Thanks to another member of WoodNet.net I was able to procure a small turning block to match the rest of the case. This I had planed on using to make a normal sized ball top. However due to one dimension being just a tad small and a slight misalignment of the center I ended up with a small balltop. This top is 30mm instead of the standard 35mm. With the size and scale of the case I think that this was a happy mistake. As you can see I also make a Bubinga dust cover to match. Because the top panel was only 1/4″ thick I decided to show the mounting screws and choose solid brass.

The corner blocks needed to be just as nice as the main wood. I also wanted it to contrast to give the case some character. I went to my small but growing stash of special lumber. What caught my attention was some Curly Spalted Maple. After carefully choosing the section of the Maple board I cut out the corner blocks. With even more care I laid out and cut the case corners and glued these 3/4″ square blanks into the resulting spaces.

One final detail is the bottom panel. The Bubinga was so beautiful from both sides I wanted to show it off. I had sanded and polished both sides of the panel prior to assembly. Then drilled the holes for the controls. After the finish coat of polyurathane was applied and dried I installed a clear plexiglas bottom panel.

This joystick is made with quarter sawn white oak dyed with black TransTint. The artwork was supplied by the customer and is inserted into the buttons. The gamepad is for Playstation 2. One additional feature is that the buttons will light up when pushed. thus the ton of wires and extra circuit board. The real interesting thing about this case is the change in color depending on the angle of viewing as you can see in the pictures.

Thanks for looking,
Michael

This was a mother’s day gift that took me in a new direction. I had mainly purchased my Jet mini to make the joystick tops for my game controllers. I have been following a few turning sites and got inspired to make something like this.

The base is cherry and the body is apple. I had the most problems keeping the two pieces together. I finally turned a tenon in the body and a mortise in the foot and used CA glue. The black that you see in the bottom is a result if burning the two pieces to a friction fit.

The next issue I had was chattering near the bottom of the hollow. The sorby hollowing tool was at it’s limit and cracked the neck of the vessel in several places. I was able to use CA glue here too to repair the cracks. The walls ended up being less then 1/8” in places and up to 1/4” in others. The thin spots will allow light to pass through and that is mostly at the neck and above.

Here is one that I had intended on keeping for myself. However I ended up trading this for some nice wood for more projects. The sides of the case have a slight slope to them compounding the mitered corners. Getting the angles on this took several trial cuts that I did using MDF before committing to the lacewood. This returned a surprise bonus in the corner with the grain pattern after routing with a 1/2” round over bit. The rays have a little upswing to them and I lucked out in getting this in all four corners.

The controls are real arcade joystick and buttons with handmade wood accents. The top is 1/8” shop made veneers laminated to a sandpaper substrate then screwed into place on the 4 corners with a 1/2” MDF support. The lacewood was finished using several coats of tung oil.

Thanks for viewing and you comments.

Here is a project that I had fun working with. This was built for a customer to work on his Playstation 2 console game system. The joystick and buttons are real arcade controls and are connected to a Playstation game pad. All the buttons have a shop cut veener inserted and the joystick top and dust cover were turned on my Jet mini lathe.

The only part that I am not happy with is that one corner did not meet up properly so there is a nice ugly black line there. I used a tung oil for the finish after sanding through 12000 micromesh.