Building a Cocktail Cabinet

[muchuckwagon]

We recently finished our basement which included a dedicated home theater room.  Other than a few minor finishing touches, the theater is nearly complete which means time for a new project.  What better than a few custom made arcade games!  I decided to build three games in total.  First will be a cocktail cabinet followed by what I consider to be two classic styles - Pacman and Donkey Kong uprights.

I have been reading this forum for the last two months preparing for my cocktail build but I'm still learning.  To date, I purchased the joysticks, buttons and keyboard encoder for the cocktail which will house a limited selection of games including - Pacman, Mrs. Pacman, Galaga, Gunsmoke, Frogger, Space Invaders, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr and perhaps 6 more games via MAME and MALA.

I have been searching craigslist for a cabinet (cocktail and upright) for the past 4 or 5 months with no luck.  There appears to a handful of people who seem to control the local market.  Two guys that lack social skills and any sense of customer service while the third person has turned out to be a rather cool guy.

I decided to build the cocktail with a CGA monitor and found a small vending machine owner who was willing to sell a used monitor for $50.  I met him earlier this week at his storage unit.  The monitor was housed in a old upright style trivia cabinet complete with power supply, coin door and other various parts.

As we got ready to load the cabinet into my vehicle he noticed the unit had a bill acceptor.  He apologized and said to sell the unit for $50 he had to remove the bill acceptor.  I agreed, no big deal to me...so as he removes the bill acceptor the plastic cage falls off the back and onto the ground.  The impact causes it to pop open only to reveal a stack of $1 and $5 bills left in the machine.  I thought that was rather funny, I almost got paid to take the machine off his hands.  :-)

That is as far as I have progressed to date.  I will use this thread to document my three builds and solicit help along the way.  Today at lunch, I'm going to try and track down someone to cut the glass for the cocktail table since I have template built for the top out of wood.

Again, I welcome any feedback and help you have to offer along the way.