Wood and plexiglass are really the only materials the average person is going to be able to worth with.
Arcade controls don't work well on your lap period. People normally sit those fight sticks on a table.
Making your control panel jump off the arcade to be carried around is, well, stupid. If it fits the machine then it is too large to be properly portable, and why would you need to in the first place? Buy a fight stick if you need to carry something around.
Everyone who builds fight sticks will tell you that a curved button layout is best, despite the fact that none of those 6 button fighting games they all play came that way in the arcade in America or Europe. But that is how they did it in Japan, so it has to be better, right?
Ive been wondering about opinions on what are considered to be the best standard or basic methods/designs for making arcade sticks/housings; mainly using wood, and plexiglass (or not), and the advantage/disadvantage of each...
Has anyone made any that both work well on the lap, and can also be attached to an arcade cabinet as its controls...?
Have any polls been done on button layout prefernces etc?