Hey Everyone!
I've been watching this forum on and off for the past 6 months getting ideas and reading tips for starting my own project. Now that it is finally warming up here in Wisconsin and I can work in the garage comfortably, I decided it is time to just jump in and start - otherwise it would never get done. This project definitely seems daunting. I have very little experience woodworking, but I am a retro gamer, collector, programmer, and do IT for my day job so hopefully I won't have too many issues with the technical side of it all! I am a recently new homeowner and I figure this will be a perfect project for me to start fine tuning my handyman skills on a topic I love! Unfortunately I don't have many tools either, so this project is going to get expensive fast!
Today I took the first step, and got my friend to help me out with his truck, and we picked up several sheets of 3/4inch pine plywood, and extra wood just in case! I thought about other materials, but I thought pine fit my budget and project the best. Tomorrow I plan on picking up a jigsaw, router, and a few other odds and ends to help out.
The cabinet is going to be using @ChanceKJ's template for the sides. It's going to be a 4 player battleship CP. At this point I'm looking to get most of the parts from Ultimarc. I'd like to go full on RGB buttons and sticks. I want a spinner, trackball, plunger and side buttons on the CP for virtual pinball, and a couple light guns. Finally I think it would be cool to have the LCD marquee as well. As I buy the parts I'll update this post but I'm going to hold off on most of this until I am successful on the woodworking part!
These are just all ideas floating in my head right now. Things may change. Unfortunately I don't have any good ones for a theme or artwork yet. But in time that will come as well. I'm kind of taking the same technique as I do when I start a programming project. Just start. Get something done and move forward.