Basement Arcade Skeeball!

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After planning for what seemed like forever (I have a habit of doing this) I finally started physically building my Skeeball machine.  My motivation here was simple, I always wanted a Skeeball machine, my kids & I loved playing it whether on the Boardwalk or at ‘that place’ with the bad pizza and animatronic rat; so I figured it that this was something I could build.  I built a MAME arcade machine about 5 years ago (which was a great ‘starter project’) and am in equal parts handy & adventurous, so what could go wrong!  I’ll use this post to document my build process (and mistakes!) and if someone else can avoid a pothole that I run into along the way, then it’s worth it.

I read and then re-read extremely helpful posts from UncleT, RandyT, Ixliam, thatpurplestuff / That’s How I roll and Nickels – just to name a few and I definitely felt empowered.  5 pages of yellow legal pad notes later I figured it was time to start.

After soliciting input from one of my daughters on how big we felt it should be, we both agreed that a 100% scale machine was best for us.  We’ve got a big basement and while I’m not the biggest buy I figured any ‘alley’ less than 8 foot long would be a cop out.  Plus, with 8 foot I could use full sheets of plywood and eliminate a few cuts here & there.  All plywood here, no MDF because between the added weight and health concerns it wasn't worth it.


Here’s a rough outline of what I’m going to build, along with the measurements.  I’m looking to follow the basic Skeeball shape, but definitely want to make it my own and eliminate the net, modernize the back cabinet lines and have sleep sidewall pieces.  For software, I’ve seen a few people have Flash software out there and I’ll likely use optical sensors and an iPac keyboard encoder – mostly because I’m familiar with them from the MAME machine build.

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The first thing I did was tackle what I thought was going to be the hardest part of the build; the jump ramp.  Not only would this get the most grueling part of the project out of the way first, but this way when constructing the Alley, I figured I would then know what height to put the ramp at (so that the bottom of the ramp will match smoothly with the top height of the Alley).

I know from reading other users build posts that it seems like there are two main ways of making the ramp.  Nickels made two main side pieces & then made horizontal slats and filled everything in with wood glue and sawdust.  The other method which Ixliam & That’s How I Roll (and others?) did it was to cut many individual ramp pieces and then use a flush bit mounted on a router to get EXACTLY the right size pieces & then glue them all together and sand.  I really debated about both methods and in the end I decided to cut each piece because I was worried about the other method being too complicated.

Using what I believe was Uncle T’s Template picture (Which other builds on this board have used), I printed out a 100% scale curvature of the ramp angle on paper and then proceeded to trace the line onto some scrap ½” plywood I had.

I realized pretty quickly that besides drawing one line that traced and followed the black printed line on the picture, I also needed to know how high (thick?) to make the curved piece when I started cutting the wood out.  I settled on making it 2” & since my freehand drawing sucks (I can barely cut along a straight line much less draw a curved one by hand!) and I ‘MacGyver-ed it’ and drilled two pencil width holes in a scrap block of wood; 2 inches apart.  I then traced the black line of the curve and it gave me the exact lines to use my scroll saw on.  Once I had my template piece cut and sanded the curve, looking as perfect as I could get it, it was pretty easy to start producing the other ramp parts, just trace the master template on plywood, cut & repeat over & over.   My alley/ramp will be 19” wide, so by using ½ plywood I'm going to need 38 pieces cut… 

Something I learned on the fly was that when cutting the subsequent ramp parts with the scroll saw, don’t come too close to the lines because its extremely difficult to cut the same piece twice, especially with curves.  Go 2/16” wider than your traced drawings and then use the Router with the flush trim bit to trim the excess using your master template as a guide. 

[nipsmg]

I love this.  I’d love for you to use my software as well.  I think I’ve got about 10 installs so far. 

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=156300.0

Take a look and let me know if you have any questions!

[javeryh]

I love this.  I’d live for you to use my software as well.  I think I’ve got about 10 installs so far. 

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=156300.0

Take a look and let me know if you have any questions!

I could have lived the rest of my life not knowing about this but now I might have to buy and new house with a bigger basement just for Skeeball.  Dammit.

I love these builds - I'll be following for sure.

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Thanks for the encouragement guys!  Nipsmg, I've seen your software build before and it looks AMAZING!  I'll PM you with some questions I had about it.

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Now that all my pieces were cut I started the router part.  I was lucky enough to have a hand-me-down router & table from my father so the budget was spared putting out more money.  The Flush trim bit for a router is an amazing thing and I definitely am a novice when it comes to router experience; these are amazing tools if only I had the time & patience to master it.  These are pretty easy to use, but the gist of it is, (with your good template on top and the raw piece on stacked under it) the spinning blade will keep shaving the bottom piece of wood, until you trim enough off that the roller piece on the top of the bit finally comes to rest next to your template piece.  I’m sure others can explain it better, but see picture below and it will make sense.  You will need to adjust the depth of your router, based on the thickness of the pieces you’re cutting, depth of your router table, etc.

I placed the new piece to be shaped on the bottom and my good master template on top.  In order to keep the pieces of wood together (so the router can shave the bottom piece down to make it identical to the master template), cut strips of duct tape and roll them so they're like double sided tape.  Place the wood pieces together one on top of the other (good on top/to be cut on bottom).  Some overlap should be present all around.  I then wore work gloves (A MUST!) and moved the template pieces as one, shaving each side with the flush trim bit.  BE CAREFUL because depending on the angle you move around the trim bit, the router bit will cause the combined piece to ‘kick’ out of your hands and you may lurch forward onto to router bit (I’m not saying I did this, but not coincidentally I did take a slice out of my thumb that day; that’s why you wear gloves…)

I decided that my alley width would be 19”, so my math told me I was going to need 38 template pieces cut.  Fortunately, I found some ¾” scrap in my pile so I wound up needing less overall cuts… 

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So you may be wondering why I duct taped the pieces together… its not only because I wanted to keep the pieces together when routering but also because when done routering I needed to drill a hole in the front and back parts of the pieces, so I could use a 24” dowel to hold the finished stack of them neatly together & lined up.  I used a 5/16” diameter dowel and got 2.  Use those as the top and bottom securing rods. Be sure to cut the hole while the pieces are still duct taped together so the holes line up exactly.

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When everything is cut, routered and on the dowels it should look something like this.  It took a decent amount of time and concentration to get here, but I really am glad I did this part early in the build and I feel empowered that what comes from here on won't be as hard! Note that somehow I was just shy of 19”, but since I intend to cover the alley and ramp with cork I figured this would work out ok down the line.

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Now, its time to wood glue everything together a couple of pieces at a time, using clamps to keep things nice and tight while the glue dries.  I glued 3 together at any one time and kept adding a few more every 2 hours, so the glue had time to set.  Somewhere along the way I acquired a power sander so when everything was dry I gave it the best sanding I could and voila!  I definitely didn't sand the ramp to be 'babies bottom' smooth, but the big lumps and burs are off and when I lay the cork on top it should lay pretty well.  I decided to leave the dowel rods on for now and not trim them, that will come in later once I figure how to permanently connect the ramp to the sidewall pieces.

[thatpurplestuff]

Very cool, welcome to the Skeeball club!  Great progress so far!

One thing that looks a bit concerning is the last pic of the hop ramp.  Hopefully it's just a distorted pic, but it looks like the right side of it warps up a bit compared to the left?  If it's not just a weird pic, I would highly suggest you get that part level before trying to mount it since that could really throw a wrench at you when you try to get everything to fit together.

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It's definitely just a distorted picture. Must have happened when I was resizing the latest batch before posting. The ramp may not be 100% smooth, but it is pretty much straight across the board!  Thanks for the comments from an experienced eye!   

[nipsmg]

you're a machine...   

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It’s been a few weeks since the last post – lots going on here plus my basement was the unlucky recipient of some water after a HUGE rainfall we had here recently.  But… rest time is over and now it’s back to work!

The next piece to tackle is determining how exact slope/angle of my side walls and how I wanted to aesthetically to look. Based on my rough sketching that I did in Excel (I know…; but it works for me!), I knew I needed the sidewall length to be 8 foot and based on a few pencil sketches I made, I decided I didn’t want to have thick / boxy sidewalls.  I wanted mine to be as open as possible; this also helps in case the dog wanders under there! 

I backed into the sidewall overall height and how much of the area under the alley I could cut off by working out the angle of slope I needed and then because I didn’t want to mess up, I made a cardboard mockup to see how it would look.

Using my trusty drywall T-Square (I can’t tell you how handy this comes in…!) and the curvature of my recycling trash can I drew out in pencil how the legs and their curves would look.  Once this was cut out, the family and I (mostly me!) decided this was a good shape and I got to work transferring this mock up to my plywood.

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Since I’ve already stated I can’t draw a straight line, drawing the angled cut lines for the sidewall on the actual plywood required some thought.  In the end, I measured up from the bottom of the higher side and the same from the lower side and I used a long metal cutting guide (12 foot long) I had to connect the two points and draw a line. 

Once I had the first one cut, I simply laid it on top of the 2nd piece of plywood, lined the edges up and clamped everything down as my daughter & I traced the cut lines.  My design required 2 of these cut outs for each side, as each side will have 2x4 pieces sandwiched between both sidewalls, so two down and two more to cut…

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I had a problem posting the pictures with the last post, so here they are.

[BGoulette]

Hey, you might already know this, but it looks like you've had Best Wife and Best Daughter for a while now: I bet you can peel those stickers off their faces anytime!

[leapinlew]

Since we are protecting everyones privacy....

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Nice catch; my dog just told me he feels much more protected! 

[SlammedNiss]

Im more confused about the best daughter's fashion etiquette with the 1 black sock.

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how did it turn out?