| Main > Project Announcements |
| Basement Arcade Skeeball! |
| (1/4) > >> |
| Imgpoz:
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. |
| Imgpoz:
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:
--- Quote from: nipsmg on July 26, 2020, 01:49:11 pm ---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! --- End quote --- 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. |
| Imgpoz:
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. |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |