I don't have a lot of pictures of the build, but here is the story:
A while back I made a Ponyo fight stick for a friend's birthday.
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,158560.0.htmlIt was really nice, and I used a zero delay encoder (say what you will, but for single player projects they are pretty easy to deal with and cheap!) and was an exercise in using power tools since I've been sick and am crippled and shaky with the left side of my body. So this ponyo stick came up in random conversation with my girlfriend's brother, and then he saw pictures, and then he saw stuff about my other arcade projects and of course got super excited. I bumped into him on a ferry (we live on an island) and we chatted vintage gaming for the whole trip. Fast forward a bit, I did some work for his wife writing music for her business' commercial, and found out she's a super picky lady. We did the family Christmas draw and I got his name, so I figured I would do an arcade thing for him. Knowing his wife though, I wanted it to be classier.
I decided on a nice wood finish. I just had endless issues routing the wood, I think it was too dry and kept splitting. I was doing tiny passes and everything. Tried to get a roman ogee around the edge but ended up with just enough along the front. I did the top in fir plywood, and added some wood conditioner. Probably not enough. Then I did a few layers of Polyshades ("stain and poly in one," although I think it's straight up tinted poly because you can totally wash out all the wood grain with enough coats.) Added some leveling feet, and all black controls and should have been a piece of cake. Unfortunately in Canada there's a postal strike and the joystick hasn't arrived yet. There's still today and tomorrow! Hoping to get the joystick so I can finish up in time for xmas.
Here's information on my illness in case you are interested:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php/topic,158021.msg1660710.html