I have an UGLY Cab. PEASE HELP

[StatusQuo]

(kinda big)
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As you can see my cab needs work. I got it almost two years ago and progress has halted completly. I got intrested again, but I don't know which areas to attack other than the speaker board, and marqee. But even for the marqee I don't know exactly how to do it. I made a fundemental error when I mounted the monitor. I forgot to leave room for glass. The paint needs redone. Any suggestions would be appriciated.

[walls83]

Its really not that bad it could and can be alot better with just alittle TLC.

alittle list

1.DUST

2.covering that big hole above the monitor

3.change the angle of the contol panel.  It has too much of an angle.

4. Paint,  Im not to hip on the gray, even if it was just black it would look alot better.

5. T-Molding does it have t-molding on it I cant tell.  But get some new T-molding maybe BLUE or RED your choice.

thats all very cheap stuff to do I would say if you already have tools to do the work it would cost less then 80 bucks altogether.

[walls83]

oh and of course a marquee but thats something you need to find out what you want on it.


Total cost with marquee $120.00 tops

[mozzer]

I don't see why you think your cab is ugly.
It's got a lot of potential.

Love that curved marquee!

Use a little creativity and you could have a sweet set-up.

[Howard_Casto]

Well I'm not normally this harsh, but since you openly admit it's ugly i'll tell you exactly whats wrong with it.  

It's a butchered dataeast cab, probably a baddudes cabinet.  I need to be returned to it's actual condition.  That means remove the gaudy oversized cp and put the original metal one back on, put a decent bezel back in and be happy with what you have instead of trying to make it what it's not.  The reason it's ugly is beause your trying to stuff a sf2 layout onto a cab that is meant to have a very few buttons.

A dataeast cabinet is a beautiful thing with it's gently curved metla cp with the blue nebula overlay.  Just get ti bakc to that and it'll look great.  One things for sure.. it'll never look right with a flat control panel as it's such a curvy cab.

[StatusQuo]

Unfortunatly I don't have the control panel anymore.   Which is too bad cause what I'd really like to do now is turn that one into a horizontal cab and just build a new one...but  at this point it just isn't going to happen. Is there a way to strip lamenent, or can I just paint over it? Which type of paint should I use?

[mahuti]

I don't know of the 'ideal' way to strip laminate. HOWEVER, if you are going to paint it again, I would suggest using enamel primer, and then black enamel paint with a smooth foam roller (the smoothest you can get) when you get done putting about 3 coats of paint on it, it will have a nice soft vinyl appearance.

Don't use latex. It dries faster, but it does not leave a finsh that is as durable as enamel.

[Zakk]

Don't worry about a resto on this cab, it's a generic data east... like a dynamo, but better looking.  Of course, I'm of the opinion that almost any cab can be converted as long as it's restorable or at least tasteful.  So take my advice for what it's worth.

Howard has a good idea though, scale that panel down a bit and try to make a curved front for it.  Get the whole thing matched color wise, and make sure the panel top has t-molding that matches the sides.  Oh and that angle on it -is- too extreme.  Nice and flat is good cuz you can set your beer on it!  The marquee is nice with that curve, so make sure a nice custom one goes in there.  That hole above the monitor really isn't helping the look much (as was already noted), and you need a good bezel and bezel graphic to polish it up.

 

[StatusQuo]

Is it cool to just put laminent on top of laminent?

[soslo]

Ok - here's my attempt to help you without casuing too much major work/redesign. You have a lot of potential here. Some of these things have been mentioned, but I will repeat them anyway.

1.  The gray cabinet if fine, and with the black t-molding, looks pretty good. Don't worry about repainting it. The Data East sideart is in pretty good condition. This cab looks better than an all-black cab without side art.

2. Curved marquee - this looks great! Just get a nice marquee printed and make sure the thing lights up. This will change the appearance nicely.

3. Speaker plate above monitor - finish it :-)
Put a piece of wood in there and mount the speakers...easy.

4. Remount the monitor. This will be the second most difficult thing I suggest, but it will be huge in terms of appearance. Mount the monitor about 1 inch deeper into the cab so that you can fit a nice piece of bronze plexi in front of the monitor.
THIS IS IMPORTANT. Combined with the speaker plate, it will seal up the gaping holes and make the cab *look* finished.

5. WARNING - this is the part that might suck.
Completely redo the control panel. It looks terrible.  If you had a 4 player cab, that CP *might* look *ok*
There is way too much acreage on that thing for the cab. Make the CP as wide, or maybe 2 inches wider than the cab. Don't have it hang out more than 3-4 inches past the front of the cab either.
This is very important as it will bring your cab back into the "could be a real arcade machine" instead of "this is my first MAME cab"

6. Find the missing pieces to the coin door (check happ controls), or find another coin door that isn't missing pieces. It makes the cab look incomplete. You want this thing to look like it could actually be in an arcade without feeling out of place.

7. Put the back panel on. If you don't have it, make on. The light shining through the back will look weird when it is all done if you don't close it off.

8. Enjoy your newly finished, great looking Data East to MAME conversion.

You are almost there, you just needed a little motivation.

Good luck,
Aaron