Bezel Madness

[Roughy]

I'm trying to figure out what's the best bezel for my situation.  Happ Controls has a few different ones, but in calling Customer Service, well, unfortunately, the ladies there are probably more clueless than I am about what I need.

I've got a UAII cabinet with a 21" monitor right now, and I want to get a part that'll get me taken care of with that.  27" wide, 25" tall.

Can anyone make any recommendations?

[ahofle]

I doubt you'll find a plastic one with those dimensions.  There is a great $2 build your own bezel thread around here.  Here it is:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=17175.0

[Roughy]

Yeah, I saw that thread--but I'd rather pay $15 and get something that'll look much better than I can spend a couple of hour son for $2.

[Farmboy90]

Honestly I don't like the look of the bezels.  They look cheap to me.  My suggestion would be to just use smoked plexi.  You can't see inside and the image quality is better in my opinion as well.

[divemaster127]

you would want the happ 19" bezel & then you can use a knife to cut it out, their bezels looks great, i have the 27" flat on my betson
thanks
divemaster127

[More Cowbell]

Another vote for smoked plexi.

[Roughy]

Going to get plexi shortly--hoping they have smoked at Menards!

We'll see what happens from there!

Thanks for all the feedback!

[ahofle]

Doesn't smoked plexi make the screen darker?  The vector games for example are already too dark for my taste in MAME, can't imagine how bad they'd look with smoked plexi.  Also, dark blues are hard to see (Millipede comes to mind), even with clear glass.

[AtomSmasher]

I've heard smoked glass is bad if you plan on using a lightgun.  I just used regular clear plexi and painted it black where the bezel would be, looks good IMO.

[Roughy]

The smoked looks good, actually.

The only real problems that I see right now are...

1)  I need to close off/block off the marquee back.  The light is coming through below and kind of makes things look sloppy.

Maybe I can do some light spray paint on the back side to cloud that up a bit... ?

2)  I absolutely Fing SUCK at scoring/cutting plexiglass.  I've got a couple of uneven spots and some sort of "break" marks along the outside.

Rather than spending another $30ish on some more plexi and trying my luck, is there any sort of rubber strip or anything similar that I can run up the sides?  Frankly, I think tape would look tacky and while this doesn't look bad, I'm just too flipping anal about it and will want to do something to fix it.

Thanks!

[AtomSmasher]

1)

[Roughy]

I did a poor job of explaining myself--sorry...

What I mean is that behind my marquee is the light and the speakers (pretty obvious, I suspect) but beyond that, the "path" leads to right over the monitor and the light bleeds back behind the monitor and basically shows all the empty cabinet crap behind the monitor much more than I'd prefer it does since it's so well lit.

[DrewKaree]

Your Happ bezel is going to cost you quite a bit more than you think.  Shipping is gonna kill you on that. 

[Farmboy90]

I've heard smoked glass is bad if you plan on using a lightgun.  I just used regular clear plexi and painted it black where the bezel would be, looks good IMO.

Really?  Crap that would really suck.  I plan on getting guns someday, so I will have to let you know.  I hope they work well though.

[Farmboy90]

The smoked looks good, actually.

The only real problems that I see right now are...

1)  I need to close off/block off the marquee back.  The light is coming through below and kind of makes things look sloppy.

Maybe I can do some light spray paint on the back side to cloud that up a bit... ?

I routed a ~3/4 inch groove along the back edge of my speaker panel (below the marquee) and slid the top the the plexi into that groove.  Sucky explanation I know.   

2)  I absolutely Fing SUCK at scoring/cutting plexiglass.  I've got a couple of uneven spots and some sort of "break" marks along the outside.

Man, I read thousands of posts on here about how to drill/cut plexi, and I must say I didn't have even the slightest issue.  I bought a flush trim router bit and just went nuts on the plexi.  It didn't even know what hit it.    So maybe try that.

[Roughy]

Your Happ bezel is going to cost you quite a bit more than you think.

[ChadTower]

Nothing ever looks as good as quality smoked glass.

[Roughy]

Which I still have.  The bezel is cheap and can go under the smoked glass.  Hell, it may even solve my crappy cut job.  If it fixes some of that mess, I'm happy as hell.

[DrewKaree]

Holy shmokes, I didn't realize where you were at!  I'm in WI, and if I ever need to order from them again, I'm just gonna make the drive and save the week of shipping transit.  The gas I spend would be roughly half of shipping costs

[Roughy]

I hear you--I didn't realize how close Ponyboy is to me, but I don't think he's a fan of pick-up himself, so he ships and I wait to get the right cost.

However, on bezels, since they're over-sized, you get F'd on the get-go.  Just gotta call 'em and they'll have it ready and I'll make the lunchtime drive today.  And if I weren't such a lazy piece of crap, I'd offer to pick one up for anyone else.

[Roughy]

Got the 19" bezel... It's about 1-2" shy on the width and about 1/8 - 1/4" long on the height (so much for 25x25!).

Now, how am I gonna trim THAT--especially since I know how bad I suck at scoring plexi!


As an aside, I swung by my local Ace Hardware and they cut me a 25x27 clear plexi and it was $14.99, which compared to what I've been seeing is pretty reasonable.  They didn't have smoke, but I may get another piece and take it there for the cut; that smoke will amply cover the space not covered by the bezel, imo.

[Farmboy90]

Wow, excellent tip about ACE Hardware.  That is pretty cheap.  Will they cut all the holes in it as well?   

And in an effort to avoid buying some much plexi, you might consider just filming the one you have.  Take that clear piece down to an auto  window tint shop and they can toss a piece of film on it for you.

[Roughy]

Wow, excellent tip about ACE Hardware.

[Farmboy90]

As far as the window tint--are you serious?  I'm now yellow paging auto shops...

Absolutely.  Might cost $15 or something but that is cheaper than new plexi and this way you could pick out the color and degree of tint. 

You want something like this:

http://www.oscarcontrols.com/smoked/

[unclet]

To cut down on the light which was escaping on my cabinet I use black felt.  I went to a hobby store and got some real cheap, then cut it up into strips and glued them in place.  Works like a charm.

[Roughy]

As far as the window tint--are you serious?

[Roughy]

Got the exact-cut plexi in place.  Looks out standing over the bezel--

One thing about the Happ 19" bezel (or maybe a couple of things):

Although it's 25x25 and my opening in the UAII kit is 27x25, it was still a tiny bit tall--probably an issue with the kit, but nothing major.  I used a grinder to slice off about 1/8" off the top and then I used my plexi glass scoring tool to score the inside of the bezel--just to make it fit my 21" monitor.

That worked out like a dream for trimming it and then went over my imperfections with the grinder again, just for a better look.

After that, I'm about an inch short on width, so I've purchased weather stripping and I'm using double-sided tape to stick it to the sides of the cabinet (there's wooden pieces that are sort of "stoppers" to catch your bezel/plexi) and they seal off the rest of the light that was coming through.

Looks great, works great, plays great!

[DrewKaree]

As if anyone would somehow expect MORE out of me?

Mrs Bones confided in me the same dang things, almost verbatim.  I'm starting to think you're Mrs Bones and are just here checking on the Mr.
 

I used a grinder to slice off about 1/8" off the top

That worked out like a dream for trim.

After that, I'm about an inch short on width

I'm using double-sided tape to stick it to the sides of the cabinet

and they seal off the light that was coming through.