Sometimes I'm a clever duck. As I was trying to decide how to best mount the electronics to the inside of the case it occured to me I can just screw a board to the screen's VESA mount and stick most of the guts of the player to that, so I did.

I threw all of the parts together like a tossed salad and it worked perfectly. Time for paint. I hate waiting on paint to dry..... First a rattle can coat to soak into the grain of the wood, then a light sanding, then a couple days later a rolling-on of oil base gloss black. I've always found oil based paint to be easy to clean and hard-wearing. If it's good enough to paint a tractor then it'll hold up to anything paint can.

It's essentially impossible to keep oil paint from going absolutely everywhere, I had some leftover in the tray, and the workbench needed a new paint job anyway....

With the paint dried, I began reassembly. Tossed in the main screen assembly, slapped on the control buttons and power switch, hot glued the power switch in to avoid it getting cattywumpus later (sorry future me ever trying to replace it.) plugged in the power connections, and tidied it all up so it doesn't make me horrified to think of.

The cartridge port will go along side the buttons once it arrives, but with this much back together I couldn't resist a test:

The punch list is getting shorter now. As you can see I've added label inserts to the button faces. I've also taken the liberty of making a clear acrylic screen cover I'll attach soon, it could use some vent holes and a fan for the backside to keep the screen from slow-roasting itself, and then there's just that cartridge port that need to hurry itself up and get here before I need to head down for my visit....