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First off, I measured and cut all the fairly square pieces. I would recommend that you use a table saw for as much of the cutting as you can. I have seen people use everything from circular saws to jigsaws to cut the pieces. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely pieces that will have to be cut with a circular and jig saws, but there is a good reason for the table saw. On Lusid's design, you will notice that there are a number of identical size cuts, for example there are a lot of 26" cuts because this is the inside measurement for the cabinet. With the table saw, once you have your measurement set and the guide bar is locked into place, you will be
guaranteed that each cut is exactly the same size. You cannot do that with a circular saw. Also remember that when you are performing your measurements that the saw blade will be 1/8" thick. Big deal you say, but if you cut at exactly 26", what you will really have is a piece that is 25 7/8". If you had to cut the piece on both sides, you have lost a 1/4" on that piece and you are risking that you will be off somewhere. If you take the time to measure everything out, everything will fit like a glove. |
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After we got most of the "square" pieces cut, we set out to do the cabinet sides. We drew out the cabinet sides according to Lusid's design, but how were we going to get that real nice rounded curve right below the marquee? Ahh, you will notice that the curvature of a Beck's beer bottle measures out perfectly. |
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Rich taught me a little trick with the cabinet sides. Mistakes tend to happen when doing these types of things, given the odd shape and the fact that we had to cut these pieces with a circular saw and then with the jig around the marquee (around the Beck's curve). While mistakes happen, if we cut the sides at the same time, we would at least guarantee our mistakes would be symmetrical. Overall, I don't think we made any mistakes (at least
noticeable) while cutting the sides. Plus, it never hurts to have some guidance from a Super Hero while working on these things. |
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O.K., I now have all the pieces cut. Next, I routed out the grooves for the T-molding. I used a 1/16 inch slot cutter bit that I got from MLCS woodworking. This is a perfect size router bit. The T-molding fits in nice and snug. Of course I do not know how to use a damn router, so Rich had to come to my rescue and finish the job. In the spots I messed up on, I will have to use glue to hold the molding in place. |
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The ground work had now been laid. I was ready to start assembling the cabinet, but how? I haven't found a good set of assembly drawings on the net. Rich and I were slightly confused about how certain pieces fit together, particularly the base. What I decided to do was to build a model to scale. Sounds tough, but it wasn't. Because Lusid's drawings were to scale, I just printed the thing out and glued the sheets of paper to a piece of cardboard. Once the glue was dry, I cut all the pieces out with an exacto blade and built it. Pretty neat huh? With the model, you can pick it up and answer most of your questions just by looking at it. |
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The next thing we constructed was the control panel box. This is a pretty straight forward process, it was by far the easiest thing to assemble on the cabinet. I do want to point out that during the assembly process, that you should glue (with wood glue) all of your pieces together. This is something that has taken me years to understand, but I finally get it. I used to subscribe to the idea that says its the screws that hold the thing together. WRONG The screws only act as a clamp to hold your pieces together until the glue is dry. If you do not believe me, try taking 2 pieces of wood and gluing them together and then another 2 and just screwing them in together. After the glue is dry see which one you can tear apart the quickest. I would also like to point out that I took the time to drill out a pilot hole for the screws to prevent the wood from cracking. I didn't go deep enough one time which caused the wood to split. I also countersunk each hole and used a wood filler over the screws so you will never see them and there will be a nice smooth surface.. |
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The next step was to put together the base of the cabinet. For some reason, I didn't understand what Lusid was trying to say in his drawings, but now that I have done it, it all makes since. Anyway, mine is slightly different than Lusid's. I decided to run the back base piece flush with the back, giving me a slightly deeper kick board. Basically what you want is a kick board. If you look in your kitchen, you will notice how the cabinets come down and a small area is left that dips inward toward the counter. This is there so you can get your feet under the cabinet and get closer to the counter. |
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From here on out things went very quickly. We decided the best way to
tackle this was to lay one cabinet side on the ground and attach the various panels starting with the base. Basically we just lined it up where we
wanted it and traced it with a pencil. We then cut our pilot hole through the cabinet side, threw the side in the pickup, realigned the base and then glued and screwed! |
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After the base was in position, we put the cabinet top and speaker panel in place. I decided to run the speaker panel flush with the marquee indention. After looking at the speaker panel, I might be inclined to break out the speaker panel into 2
pieces that would make the front by the marquee flat instead of angled. |
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Next we but on the cabinet top back section. It fits in really nice because Rich put a nice 45 degree angle on the piece that goes in the angled section. Note that the 45 degree angle is on both the edge that touched the cabinet top and the cabinet top back section. You may notice from the picture that the top doesn't align up properly with the cabinet top. You can really get a
feel from the picture that I decided to indent all the pieces by 1/2 inch all the way around. The marquee is offset in by 3/4". You can possibly recess the cabinet top in by another 3/4" or add 3/4 inch to the cabinet back angled section to make this align flush. Since it was in the back I decided not to worry about it to much, but if I had known, I would have made some adjustments. |
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Next we aligned the other side to what we had already assembled. Took another measurement to ensure that we were lined up properly with the other pieces, and glued and screwed. I decided that I did not need entry to the cabinet from the front, but I did want to make the bottom back panel removable. This way I can easily pull all of the guts out when it comes time to move it. What I did was take a couple of 1x2 and glued and screwed them into the inside back part of the cabinet as my mounts. I used a smaller 1 1/2" screw and came in from the inside and just into the cabinet side. I did not penetrate the cabinet side. Then I attached the bottom back panel into the 1x2. I did this because the 1x2 is made of actual wood and not of glue and sawdust. The fiber in the wood should allow me to remove this panel a few times before the fiber is worn to much. However, it should last a lot longer than the any holes I would put into the MDF would. |
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I then went around with a rag and cleaned up any excess glue that squeezed out when I attached the second cabinet side. If you do not get some glue squeezing out, you probably are not using enough. Although there could be an argument to be made for wasting the glue, but
ultimately it depends on what side of the fence you are on. |
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That was that for now. The cabinet is essentially complete. We drank a couple of beers and relished in our glory while the glue setup. We then loaded it into my truck and I brought it home. We did not put the monitor shelf in yet because I am not 100% sure if I am going to use the 25" TV I bought for the thing or the 25" arcade monitor I stumbled upon. I would love to use the arcade monitor, but I haven't been able to get it to work yet. either way, I want to align the monitor up properly before I glue and screw the monitor shelf in place. |
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Once the cabinet was home, I started getting some of the finer things in order. The first thing that I did was take a wood filler to all the counter sunk screw holes so that I would have a nice smooth finish (I hate sanding). |
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Next I cut the coin door out. This proved to be a pain in the ass because I didn't measure the coin door properly so my hole was to big. I broke the cardinal rule and didn't measure twice. Anyway, I recovered fairly well by cutting a piece of MDF to fit at the top. That is why you see the wood filler in the photo. Its all held together by glue, but I used the wood filler to ensure a nice smooth finish when it was painted. |
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As you will find out, this thing is heavy. I had decided to put wheels on early in the project. While at Rich's house assembling the main part of the cabinet, we decided to put reinforcements for some heavy duty wheels on the base. Essentially, we just cut out small squares with some of the scrap MDF. You can see from the picture that there is an extra layer of wood there. I purchased 2" wheels from Lowe's rated at 125 lbs a
piece. This left me with about a half inch clearance from the floor. I figure once this thing sits on some carpet you will barley notice its on wheels. I screwed up on this and bought wheels with locks on it, but there is no way you can ever reach the locking mechanism. I figured the wheels would make it easier to access the guts especially since I did not put front access to the cabinet. |
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I finally got the arcade monitor to power up. I learned a lot about electricity and arcade cabinet wiring. The screen wasn't in the greatest shape, so I have decided to go with my TV as the monitor. I kept waiting for a time when a friend would show up to help put in the monitor shelf. I waited and waited. Finally I decided to do it myself. I didn't think you could because of the weight of the shelf and how awkward it would be. Anyway, I grabbed some scrap wood and clamped them to the shelf to hold it in place while I marked and drilled the holes. I checked and rechecked the front and back of the shelf with a level and then did the drilling. Once the holes were in, I countersunk the holes and glued and screwed the shelf in place. I puttied the holes and hopefully will begin painting the cabinet in the next couple of nights. Turned out pretty good I think. |
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Once I got the monitor shelf in I really started to make some headway. I was still left with how I was going to get my monitor bezel and glass in the cabinet. I decided to build a frame made out of 1x2 around the inside of the cabinet. I made one big mistake, but no one would know if I didn't
write it down here. I forgot to measure the width of my TV, so when I went to put it in, it didn't fit. DAMN!! I had to whip out the jig saw and shave off about half of an inch from one side. You can tell by looking at this picture that the right side is thinner than the left. |
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Once I had enough room to wedge my TV into the cabinet, I decided to place the monitor bezel and the 1/4" glass into the cabinet to see how it looked (I swear the glass is in the picture, just hard to see). I think it looks pretty good. The white stuff you see on the bezel is tape that I used to hold the bezel in place while I lined everything up. The glass is pretty thick. I decided on 1/4" glass because that is what came out of the Mechanized Attack arcade game. Neither my Lowe's or Home Depot carried glass that thick. Everything they had was thin and looked flimsy. I could have gone with a piece of plexi glass, but the cost was more. The measurements for my glass are 26"x26"x1/4" and I paid $25 for it. I think the same piece of plexi was around $40. Plus I liked the idea of glass because to me plexi seems almost cloudy, especially the thicker pieces. I will still probably go with plexi for the Marquee. |
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So I pulled everything out and measured an area under the Marquee for the 4" speakers I had salvaged from
the Mechanized Attack arcade cabinet. I really like the speaker grills because they were in excellent shape, and they are flat metal. They do not have much of a profile, so they will not stand out when you look at the cabinet. The holes were drilled using a 4" hole saw. |
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One of the last things I needed to do before I put on the primer was get the brackets I plan on bolting to my control panel to mounted. I decided to attach a 6x6" piece of MDF right under the monitor bezel for additional material when I attached the 6" heavy duty "L" brackets. Here is a closup of one of the brackets. |
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Then came a coat of high primer. |
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Here is a shot of the cabinet painted. I used a flat black latex. I coated it 4 times and finished it with one coat of clear coat with a gloss finish. Also, between the primer coat and the first coat I used a stone texture to give it a rough feel. I really like the way it turned out. I'm also glad I finished it with a gloss coat because I wasn't real pleased with just flat black. I think the reflection from the flash is why the picture appears the way it does, although the gloss coat doesn't stand out quite as bad is the picture makes it look. I will say this, latex comes off easily. The tool told me that they make a black primer, which I didn't see, but if you find some, I would recommend it. |
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Next I mounted the TV, the glass and the speakers in the finished cabinet. |
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The Next thing I did was insert the coin door and wire up the lights and the controls. See the Coin Door Wiring section for detailed instructions of how I wired this bad boy up. |
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Next I installed the florescent light in the marquee compartment. I still have to wire it up. You can check out the details on how I ran power to the cabinet in the Power section of the site. |
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Next I attached the control panel to the cabinet. I have it opening towards the user to gain some space towards the cabinet. here is a picture from the back side with all the wiring. |
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The T-molding was next. I went around and placed the T-molding into the 1/16" slot that I had routed out. I actually had to use a rubber mallet to get the molding to get into the groove. The best part is that if you do it right, no glue. The part for me, is that if you have been following this then you know that I had some problems with the router. Needless to say, I had to use hot glue in a couple of small runs in the back and the speaker panel piece right below the marquee. |
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I wrestled with the idea of drink holders for a while. I wasn't sure how they would look. I knew that they wouldn't be authentic but, given the fact that I am not a teen and I
foresee a lot of game play being done while socializing, I thought they were very practical, so I went for it. I sent Clay Johnston, who built the Doughcade, an email. He sent me a URL, that I managed to lose, but I did remember it came from the boating/marine community. I quickly found what I was looking for at The Shad Connection. Nice bunch of folks at a reasonable price. Check out the profile when it is folded up. Not to bad! |
