Small SNK Project - MiniMech?

[BigCurtis]

So I had these two roughly 12" x 24" scrap pieces of 3/4 ply, and felt they were a good size for the second from scratch bar-top. Due to other related activities, I was inspired, hopped onto The Google, found some fairly decent side art, fudged with them in Paint Shop for about 30 minutes, then printed out some "to scale" pieces to test with, the result of which worked out fairly well...



The secret note to myself is still present from the earliest moments of inspiration...


With initial planning looking good, I moved on to getting some CAD precise lines on the wood using a high precision organic graphite plotter to mark the cuts.


I know I'd like the marquee to be about 3" tall, regardless of the width of the cabinet, also I needed to pull some precise monitor measurements from bar-top test #1 to make sure that's accounted for....



I also wanted to utilize the same control panel inset the real thing has, so, here's me using a reference photo of the offset to doodle more pencil, I mean feed into the plotter...


I cut another piece of scrap into a control panel top, put a quick and dirty set of Sega holes in the top with some test buttons, and did a partial assembly to get a feel for whether or not it's worth continuing.


That's where it sits for now.

[otsep]

I like it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BigCurtis]

When I began cleaning down my full sized Mechanized Attack, I pulled off the original red vinyl laminate. When I pulled it off, the outside was dull and work from the years, but the underside was still the original color. Because I'm somewhat of a hoarder, I still had it, and thought it maybe it would be cool if I used the original laminate to cover the control panel of the MiniMech.

So out came the old vinyl, cut a strip for the angled surround, mask off for the spray adhesive, and see what we get...



And I think you can see in this final picture, that although the overall look was there....

The spray adhesive was a horrible failure. The vinyl was lumpy, loose, and peeled off with the wind (minor exaggeration). Ultimately a little sad that the idea of re-using some original SNK vinyl on the MiniMech wasn't going to fly, it was time for plan B.

Lots of rolling off adhesive with my thumbs and picking little pieces off with my fingernails later, I was back to a more or less ready to tackle control panel again. So, on to the red paint and black carriage bolt heads drying into the sun, looking good, even if not original vinyl, leading to a test fit with some T-Molding sample pieces. Sanding, priming, and re-painting gets us to here:




One additional thing I want to duplicate from the big boy is the instruction card, as seen here:


While I pulled a few scans from in, fact is I'm R/G colorblind, and my image touch up skills are rudimentary. If anyone has any desire to try and get a good piece of digital art usable in reproductions or anything let me know, and I'll pull scans for you any way I can, and can make what I have already available. Currently I've piecing together something using my scans and an instruction card shot out of the manual, not the greatest, likely more effort than it's worth for a decal that's going to be in the neighborhood of 1" high, but *shrug*.


From there I moved on to the main cabinet, routed slot for bezel, holes for speakers, ventilation, USB & CAT5 passthrough, bondo, primer, sanding, and progress in the high heat and humidity. Thankfully the sun cooked off the drops of sweat quickly.





Sand, paint, t-molding, and here's where we are today:



More to come....

[Titchgamer]

Looking funky!
Cant wait to see it finished!