My first build : Clint. Finished.

[yamatetsu]

Soo, it's finally time to announce my first build. First off : I have already done a ton of work on this, I didn't want to post
the announcement before having reached a certain point in the build.

Last november I stumbled upon a site that hosts hundreds of pictures of homemade arcade cabs, this gave me the idea to build my own.
One cab in particular caught my eye, Lokesen's Taitorama.
Went to his homepage and found the plans for the Taitorama. Awesome ! This was the shape I wanted.

I started to design the artwork, ordered tons of stuff from Ultimarc, bought some 18mm and some 12mm MDF, precut to rectangles.

Had some technical issues with the artwork, kicked the design. Made a second design, kicked that aswell.
Third time is the charm, I decided to do stencils for the art and came up with a design based around Clint Eastwood (or rather
some of his movie characters).

This is the concept for the sides :


The marquee :


The control panel :


The coin door :


This will be etched into lexan, recessed into the door and sidelit.

And finally a lifesized cardboardcade :


That's it for now, I don't want to make the first post too big.

See ya !

Here are the pics of the finished cab :

[yotsuya]

Interesting theme. Why "Clint"?

[johnrt]

That arcade will make my day! 

[yotsuya]

Where are the "Bronco Billy" and "Any Which Way But Loose" art assets going? 

[Vigo]

Where are the "Bronco Billy" and "Any Which Way But Loose" art assets going? 

You can't forget "Paint your Wagon" and "Bridges of Madison County" Clint either. 

[yamatetsu]

Interesting theme. Why "Clint"?

When I was bored, I proceeded to read every thread in this forum, right down to the first one, leaving out only those ooold ones where the pictures are gone. I found MikeDeuce's Leon themed
control panel, which was my inspiration. http://www.ironvulva.com/?p=14

I'm from Germany, where minors are not allowed into arcades, so having not been there, I'm not really an arcade fan (gasp ! the horror !). So, it did not have to be an arcade theme. I really like Mike's Leon theme, but didn't want to copy that.  I asked myself which iconic movie character I could use instead, found the Dirty Harry pic with that ridiculously big gun and just had to
do it 

Man ! I'm typing my answer and you guys start playing ball already ?

Where are the "Bronco Billy" and "Any Which Way But Loose" art assets going? 

You can't forget "Paint your Wagon" and "Bridges of Madison County" Clint either. 

I'm afraid there will be none of that 
As I said, I already have done a ton of work on this, meaning that the art is already on the wood, except for the control panel, which is only is missing the text.

[yotsuya]

Damn. So no "Get off my lawn?"

[Slippyblade]

I'm from Germany, where minors are not allowed into arcades...

Wait, what?  Not allowed in...

<whump>

Sorry - nearly fainted there.  I can't imagine my life not being allowed into arcades.  So what about pizza joints and the like.  I'm seriously curious about this.  I mean, what is the drinking age over there and they won't allow you to play some video games?

[Vigo]

Looking forward to seeing you unveil this project. Interested in the stencil work. 

[xefned]

Arcades in the U.S. would've been largely empty if they excluded minors.   

[yotsuya]

Looking forward to seeing you unveil this project. Interested in the stencil work. 

Yeah, we're just shitting with you, bro. If done right, this could have a cool 70s Midway "Boot Hill" vibe.

[yamatetsu]

Arcades in the U.S. would've been largely empty if they excluded minors.   

Yep, that's why there aren't many in Germany. With age retrictions like that, it just isn't profitable. We poor kids had to be content with home computers like in my case the C64 and the Amiga.

I'm from Germany, where minors are not allowed into arcades...

Wait, what?  Not allowed in...

<whump>

Sorry - nearly fainted there.  I can't imagine my life not being allowed into arcades.  So what about pizza joints and the like.  I'm seriously curious about this.  I mean, what is the drinking age over there and they won't allow you to play some video games?

Drinking age  for beer / wine is 16, stronger stuff 18. I don't know about large pizza joints, as I have spent my life in a small town of about 70.000.
The only arcade machine I've seen when I was a kid was standing in a shopping mall. One machine.
I remember having seen a documentary about arcade machines, where it was stated that you have to meet some restrictions to be allowed to put a machine in your shop,
I don't recall what those are exactly, but essentially it's just not worth it. This one machine by the way was Dragon's Lair. Man, was I wowed.

Damn. So no "Get off my lawn?"

Nope, Gran Torino is out. Seriously good movie though. Interesting that you mention it as I actually have considered using an older Clint in the marquee :



But then I went gung ho style with Josey Wales.

[Rick]

Just don't get ahead of yourself... While this is a very exciting build idea, "a man's got to know his limitations." OMG, THIS THREAD IS AWESOME. I can drop Eastwood lines all day long in here!!! (While, of course, watching your progress.)

[wp34]

I love Clint --- especially the westerns so I'm down with this.

Where are the "Bronco Billy" and "Any Which Way But Loose" art assets going? 

Nice.   

[ATL222]

I'm from Germany, where minors are not allowed into arcades...

Wait, what?  Not allowed in...

<whump>

Sorry - nearly fainted there.  I can't imagine my life not being allowed into arcades.  So what about pizza joints and the like.  I'm seriously curious about this.  I mean, what is the drinking age over there and they won't allow you to play some video games?

We used to have an arcade here in my city in the Netherlands where you also have to be 18 years old to enter because they also had slot machines.

[pbj]

His finest acting.

[yamatetsu]

I love my computer. I have typed a monster post for about an hour, had to leave for a few minutes to walk the dog, came back and stared at the windows login screen.

My #§+% piece of #§+% computer did use the time to do a windows update. So the following post will be somewhat shorter than intended.

The paint job. This took me more than six months to get it right and has prevented me from starting this thread a lot earlier. I didn't want to end up starting a
thread and then having nothing to post, so I decided to want for the finished paint job.

Spray-painting and vinyl were out, so I went with a roller. I don't have any experience painting / sanding wood, so naturally I went for a white piano finish. I ended
up doing everything multiple times, as something always went wrong. Sometimes I would get the wood right to the finish only to sand away too much paint at one of the edges,
sometimes I got weird yellow splotches on the wood, and then, as I finally got everything right, I applied a coat of clear lacquer to two of the boards which over night
turrned my high gloss white into a dull cream white. After having redone those boards I used stuff from a brand called Meguiar's on them. This is used to polish your car, it
consists of a sanding paste, a swirl remover for removing traces of the sanding paste, and polishing wax. It's a lot of work, but the difference this makes is just amazing.

Here is a pic of some of the boards. Sadly I could't persuade my camera to capture the mirror finish, but it's there.



The stenciling. The idea was to use printable stickers for the art, apply them to the board, cut the black shapes out with a scalpel and paint the resulting sticker-free places black.
To cut a very long story short, I also had to do this multiple times, sometimes have to sand everything back to the bare wood. Not great idea if you consider that the paint I used takes
24 hours to dry so that you can paint it over again. It took me about two weeks to get to the point where I could botch everything up and start again.

The stickers were no good because they tend to take some of the paint off when you try to remove them. I then tried using a roll of double sided tape, printed the art
on normal paper and put that on the tape. Huge mistake. I could cut this just fine, but when I  wanted to remove it ... Let's just say I ended up sanding the board down to the wood again
after having spent four fricking hours unsuccessfully trying to remove the stuff.

Finally I went with frog tape. First I masked off the stripes :





Then the rest :



Then I pasted on the template for the cutting :



And (drumroll) this is how it looks after the cutting :




Now I just had to apply two coats of black.

The finished sides look amazing. I will post pictures of them next week. Happy waiting 

[yamatetsu]

Just kidding. Here they are.

[Slippyblade]

Wow, that looks great!  Interesting method of stenciling.

[Vigo]

Whoa! THAT from frog tape!?! Color me impressed. I love masking with tape, and this is on another level than what I would think to attempt. 

[jmaxime89]

Waaah that's crazy ! I was looking at your pictures and for sure I wasn't expecting such a nice job out of frog tape used for stencils. You sir, deserve my respects.

Keep on the good job !

[yamatetsu]

I love masking with tape, and this is on another level than what I would think to attempt.

Weelll ... Had I known what amount of work and frustration this would involve, I probably wouldn't have attempted it either 
I just didn't know any better and kept failing and finally plodded through.
Since then I have watched some vids about stenciling on youtube and learned that there is some kind of stenciling paper which you can cut beforehand, slap some
spray adhesive on and you are good to go. That would have been so much easier ... But I'm happy with the result, so all is good.

[yamatetsu]

An afterthought : It's also risky to do stencils this way. You have to cut through paper and the tape, so you have to apply a good amount of pressure to the blade. This means you
inevitably also cut into the paint. Let the blade slip where it doesn't belong and you will see that cut.
Also, imagine what your board will look like when you remove the template. You will have a mass of green, crisscrossed by a heap of tiny cuts. It can be hard to see which tape you have
to remove and which you better do not. I had to sand a board back to the wood because I realized a little to late that I was merrily removing the tape that should have stayed on ... That cost me two weeks of work.

[Slippyblade]

That cost me two weeks of work.

Dude.  Yer nuts.  Welcome to the club, you'll fit right in.

[yamatetsu]

Soo, I'm nuts and I fit right in. Does this make me a member of a club of a bunch of wackos ? 

[Vigo]

Hey, everyone gets a free straight jacket with membership. Except those of us who are just stuck in the 80's. We get "Member's Only" Jackets instead.

Now excuse me while I ride into the Danger Zone.

[yamatetsu]

[yotsuya]

If you had a burned hot dog wiener in the background, that photo would be perfection... 

[pbj]

You know, I had the misfortune of discovering The Dead Pool on cable earlier this month and decided to read up on that series.  Turns out the Bruce Willis character in the Sin City movie was an alternative reality storyline for how Dirty Harry really goes out.  Which is how a Latina ended up with the last name Callaghan.

  

[yamatetsu]

I have watched an episode of Samurai Jack some days ago. Samurai Jack enters a village that is haunted by a dragon.
He decides to help the villagers and heads into the general direction of the dragon. A villager yells something.


Villager         : There's a fork in the road ! Follow the rocky path, it will take you to the dragon's lair !

Samurai Jack : Where will the other one take me ?

Villager         : Space Ace !

Samurai Jack :

[wp34]

Did someone say Danger Zone?

Hey, everyone gets a free straight jacket with membership. Except those of us who are just stuck in the 80's. We get "Member's Only" Jackets instead.

Now excuse me while I ride into the Danger Zone.

[AzureKnight]

I have watched an episode of Samurai Jack some days ago. Samurai Jack enters a village that is haunted by a dragon.
He decides to help the villagers and heads into the general direction of the dragon. A villager yells something.


Villager         : There's a fork in the road ! Follow the rocky path, it will take you to the dragon's lair !

Samurai Jack : Where will the other one take me ?

Villager         : Space Ace !

Samurai Jack :

 

[Slippyblade]

Well.  That de-railed nicely.

[Louis Tully]

.

[wp34]

That is incredible. I refuse to believe you used the same tape I have. It doesn't work that way for me.  You have magic tape, that's all there is to it.

Holy cow I missed that he used tape.   

Most impressive.   

[yamatetsu]

You have magic tape, that's all there is to it.

Alert ! Alert ! We have been found out ! Abandon ship !

Well, if it's any consolation to you, the sides look best when you are far away There inevitably was some bleed that I had to cover up with some sort of white lacquer marker. If you look closer, you will see it.
That's why I wisely didn't post any closeups
To give you some perspective about the magic tape : One roll has 41 meters or roughly 135 feet on it. I have used 3 and a half rolls on the cab. You do bricks, I do stenciling 

And now for something completely different.
Quiz time. You'll notice that the sides have a rather large curve to it. How would you mask this off to get the stripe following the curve ?

[yamatetsu]

The door. Pretty standard stuff. Got a precut board, cut the 'coin door' out of it using my trusty jigsaw. Sanded, painted and polished it
(the board, not the jigsaw).



Instead of a coin door I will mount a board with a piece of etched lexan on it from behind and side-light it. The front coin door area
will get a frame of painted aluminum bars and there will be a matte black kick plate.

The board screwed on from behind :



I screwed some plastic thingies around the board, these will be used to hold the LEDs.



Same thing plus LEDs :



It's alive !



Christmas time !



For the frame I cut aluminum bars to a 45 degree angle by hand. Needless to say that they don't fit a 100 percent.



As I had now highly visible gaps between the bars, I wondered how I could hide them. I thought that the gaps would not be so
visible against a black background. So I laid the bars on the board and used frogtape to mark the corners. Then I removed the bars,
took a black sharpie and just painted the gap-area black.



Now when I put the bars back on the gaps all but vanish.

[yamatetsu]

Eye candy for the door.

Here's something I have played with before deciding to sidelight the coin door. I printed the art on 3 A4 pages of sticker.



Then I applied the stickers to a piece of lexan and cut out the white areas.



Now this does look damn impressive, but I found something better. I don't remember in which thread I stumbled upon this :



Kudos to the man, if I remember correctly, he did this using a knife.

Soo, I wanted to do my version of it. I bought a machine used for etching glass for 33 Euros. This is something akin to a dremel.

Having never done this before, I printed the art, put a piece of lexan on top of it und used the machine to trace the lines, 3 times for every line. Then I 'colored' the
black areas. This took about two hours. Then I did it again on the lexan I actually was going to use. Here is the result in daylight :



Red light in daylight :



And finally Clint in the dark :

[yamatetsu]

It's hard to get a good picture with those "$#+ing reflections. Anyway, here is the finished door.

[pbj]

That's pretty cool.  Nice work.