Marquee graphics

Having become very excited upon first hanging the graphics over the strip light and then again when I put the marquee between the sheets of glass, it was finally time to mount it.

Starting with the lower retainer, it lined it up, drilled in and screwed it into place. I had worried that the speaker cloth would catch on the drill bit and get dragged and twisted, but it was fine. I just held it firmly and started the drill slowly to make sure.

It was a fiddly business measuring upside down with one hand to find where the screws could reach wood, whilst holding the retainer, marquee and glass in place with the other. Because of the angle of the wood against the glass, I had trimmed the bottom edge to give a better contact, but this moved the usable screw-point back from the edge and, with the with of two sheets of glass and the marquee approaching a centimetre, the screws had to go in 5 mil from the edge of the retainer and only just into the edge of the wood.

Fortunately it's a bit tight on the glass up there so it wasn't bearing much load and held nicely. To help hold the retainer in place while I was fixing the screws, I hammered small nails though a couple of the pilot holes, just enough to hold it. When the first two screws were in, out came the nails so I could do the last two. Once the lower retainer was in place, I spent time cleaning and dusting the glass and then slotted it into place. Oh yes, looking good.

With the aid of a small step-ladder, I climbed up so I could lean over the top to get the upper retainer into place. Aside from one very stubborn screw that wasn't moulded quite right and needed to be discarded, the upper retainer was a breeze. A few pilot holes, four screws and it was done. I used the nail trick again to hold it in place.

Now it seriously looks like an arcade machine, not just a home-made wooden box!