Punch-Out!! 25th Anniversary (Side-Art!! Finished)

[SodaPopinksi]

Parts List:
Old Sauder furniture (mdf/particle) pieces + some scrap wood lying around
25" TV
12" LCD from eBay
Dell 4550 w/ 2 radeon cards w/ tv out
Happs Translucent Pushbuttons & Leaf Switch Brackets from forum member ponyboy
Minipac w/ Happs Harness from forum member divemaster
Custom Vinyl Decals from forum member MikeDeuce
Lexan from forum member tommy
Mushroom Pushbutton ("ko button") from ASI
1 Ultrastik 360 (waiting on 2nd)
1 Happs 3" Trackball
CP Overlay and Marquee from mamemarquees.com
Happs Coin Reject Buttons/Coin Return Cover
Bits Ltd Smartstrip
2 12" White Cold Cathode Tubes from eBay
Bazooka 4" car Speakers
An older Creative 5.1 PC speaker system (set to 2.1)
3/4" White T Molding
Lots of Titebond III and L Brackets!

Punch-Out!! carved Side Art by the Pinewood Princess! (currently commissioned)

Blue leds from superbrightleds.com (coming soon)

Lowes Semi Gloss Black Paint



I've been an avid gamer since the atari 2600 came out, and grew up in Mystic CT. During the 80's there was an arcade right in town that I could walk to almost every day. Ahh the days of 45 cent sodas and penny candies! I always liked the arcade games because they had better graphics than the home consoles and I liked the whole atmosphere there. The bright sights and unnatural sounds of the games, the dim lighting, people getting mad and slamming the controls, the gum on the floor and such. There was always a possibility of a new game popping up too, although that was sometimes tempered by the loss of favorite staple games to make way for them.

Only recently have I dabbled in emulators, starting with NES. I was amazed that I could play all of those old NES games that I would skip school to play. I remember faking sick and taking thursday + friday off (which makes 4 days counting the weekend) to beat Zelda in 6th grade for example. The map and notes strewn about the floor as I sat in front of an ancient (but pretty big come to think of it) tube tv.

The arcade was still there though at that time though. I remember my much older Uncle would be in there, it was definately a time when the simplified controls of video games allowed for a broader age group to pick up and play them. I can remember watching him play Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong especially. I specifically remember them getting in Gauntlet and often having to wait in line to play it. Then there was Crossbow, Zaxxon, Centipede, Moon Patrol, Star Wars, Kung Fu, Karate Champ and Punch-Out!! to name a few. Oh, and that crazy cartoon Dragon's Lair that I could only figure out so much of.

Punch Out!! though! I wasted sooo many quarters on this game! I got around to many games there with my usual 4 dollars, but I always hit the Punch Out machine. Unfortunately the arcade died out, especially due to the rising rent costs of that area, and some pressure from uppity rich locals who didn't like the "riff-raff" that the arcade attracted (meaning mostly kids, if you lived in Mystic back then and compared it to now, you would know that there is barely anything for a kid to do or even buy in that town! mainly tourist memorabilia and antique stores now)

So when I found out about Mame, I couldn't believe that you could play all those old arcade games; the ones that were always superior in graphics (at that time)... they always seemed out of reach to me when not in an actual arcade.

When I first fired up Punch-Out just on a computer, I was giddy lol. Just as I remembered it!

So it was only about a month or so ago that I caught the mame bug and started looking into building a mame cabinet. I thought about creating a small table-top machine first. After thinking and thinking though, I'm going to build a big ole 75" tall cabinet made from mostly MDF and particle board. My source for these materials is old Sauder type furniture thats hanging out in the garage lol. But I've cut them and such now to where I need them and have everything planned out. I'm going to make the cab modular in the sense that it will be two pieces, a top and bottom, and while the appearance may suffer a little from the little line going through the sides, it will definately be nice to be able to move it very easily. It's now time for me to start putting ithe frame together with screws and wood glue.

For the theme, I decided on creating something that is a blend of the original game and modern twists. I have decided to make a "25th Anniversary" Punch-Out!! machine. Basically, a cab that sort-of mimics the original punch-out, but wider and with a more modernized look and two player support for a wide range of games. I know its not quite the 25th anniversary of the game, but its getting close and I will be ready I suppose lol. I was thinking of using the original type of marquee and side art, but having a "25th anniversary edition" under the punch out lettering, and perhaps a couple of those "Happy Mario" 20th anniversary nintendo symbols but instead make them 25th anniversary and in silver.

I have some parts now for the CP, and I just designed an overlay thats sort of a modernish take on the original cp with that grid type overlay.  I got Ultrastick 360's and light blue competition pushbuttons. I am going to go with a dual monitor setup, I have a20inch NEC CRT monitor for the bottom and was thinking of snagging a 15 inch lcd for the top panel.

I sent a pm to ponyboy from this forum about some things, like black 1 and 2 player buttons and a few leaf microswitches and some translucent buttons. I was dismayed to hear the clicking of the happ microswitches, I just never encountered them since I mostly played arcade games at a time when all you heard was that clean, clear yet hollowish sound of the tapping plastic. I figured instead of going all leaf switches that I could just place them on the buttons I will be using the most, especially since I intend to play all those old NES games a lot. I hope I can order from him too even though this is my first post here hehe I've been a lurker for a few weeks now.

Well, that was a llong intro lol, I will post my progress and just wanted to say thanks for these amazing forums which have made my new dream of a mame cabinet possible, I have learned a ton of info from using the search function!

[SodaPopinksi]

Well I've been trying to get dual monitors to work, but my 9700tx radeon card appears to have a limitation where you cannot set the TV as primary and then have a non-cloned CRT monitor as secondary. Update 1/15 If you use TV out with this card and make TV the primary monitor, it sends the same frequency signal to all other monitors as the TV ... I needed to purchase a second cheap 64MB card with TV out to get the setup I wanted with the TV as primary monitor.

So I think I am going to scrap dual monitors and just go with a bigger TV screen, a 25" magnavox. I hope I would be forgiven in making a non dual monitor punch-out cab hehe, but another game I am sure to play often on it is Mike Tyson's Punch-Out too.

I was also looking for an old Punch-Out KO button,, but found this: https://www.asi-ez.com/member/~8LP2TBL6146.asp

I'm gonna try and rig that up to a cherry microswitch and hopefully illuminate it too It may end up being cooler looking than an original I hope.

I've thought, thought and rethought a control panel... So far it's going to be 28" wide with a Minipac, 2 Ultimarc Ultrastiks, 8 Happs competetion buttons per joystick for potential console play, 1 and 2 player start, some admin buttons, a 3" trackball with 2 mouse buttons. I am shooting for versatility since I have room for only one cab. Instead of a coin door, I bought two colored Happs 25cent coin rejects and bezels for them that I want to embed in the front of the control panel (it will be somewhat deep, 6") and rig them both up to microswitchs so that you press them in about 1/4" of the way for 1 or 2 player coin buttons. I decided on 6 buttons, I was thinking of playing some console games on the system, for example, N64, PS1... but I figure I can just hook up a gamepad for those and stay with the more traditional 6 button layout that will be fine for most games.

[More Cowbell]

Sounds cool. The MAME bug is easy to catch but hard to cure. Keep us updated and give us lots of pics! 

[mccoy178]

Give me a little time to think about how mine is set up and I will give you a full rundown on how I did it.  I can tell you that the t.v. is hooked up with component wires.  It is not the primary monitor.  I'm still using powermame for now, so I haven't used the new dual monitor setup in mame.  Another member to inquire with is HowardC.  He will be a little rude, but that just means he likes ya.

[SodaPopinksi]

Awesome, yeah I basically try to make the tv primary and the crt secondary... even when I get that to work on the pc it reverts to crt primary and tv secondary in Mame.

I would love to be able to have the TV as primary (whether technically primary or switched with software) so that it is always the main gaming screen and the crt is either off or showing the top punchout screen.

I am thinking of buying a small 14-15" lcd to go on top of the 25" tv, I just want to get the dual setup working fairly well before I go that route.

I've never tried anything besides mame for the record, and when I play punchout for instance, it always shows the top screen on the tv, unless I clone the displays and it shows the bottom on both.

[theCoder]

You brought me down memory lane with your intro.  In my case it was mechanical pinball.  Soon came the classics and somewhere around 1980 came the Atari video pinball game.  The pinball joint (as we called it) was a mainstay for years in my 'hood. 

When you mentioned 8 buttons per station you got my attention.  Man, that's going to be crowded. 

If you are truly big on the fighting games and you have a lot of friends you may consider making a 4 player panel.  It really doesn't fit my gaming style and usage, but some people swear by it.  I rarely have the need.  Two stations work fine for me.  I'd be curious to hear from those with 4 player set-ups how often do they have a 3rd or 4th player and is it really worth the size and effort.

Good luck on the build & welcome to the obsession, er, uh, hobby.

[SodaPopinksi]

Hmm you have me rethinking 8 buttons... I wanted them for console functionality, more specifically, a Playstation 2.

I was going to mimic the x-arcade layout of:

  @@@
  @@@
 @@

Then I also toyed with the idea of 2 Happs rectangular buttons over 6 like this:
 _  _
@@@
@@@

To serve as the PS2 R2/L2 buttons, or R1/L1... then again I'm not sure just how many games on the PS2 are nice with arcade style controls, I'm thinkin there should be a good many, since the console's library is pretty big.

Since I'd like to play a lot of NES games, I was thinking of using the bottom 2 buttons in the x-arcade type setup as A and B, then 2 would be Start/Select then three buttons for load state, save, pause or reset.

6 buttons would look better and be less crowded... I'm torn at this point lol. 

Plus I could always just have a regular PS2 controller from the keyboard drawer for whenever I wanted to play PS2 games on the arcade cab just for fun... decisions decisions...


*****Edit I think I am going to go with 6 buttons after all. I've researched more and it seems the 7,8 buttons are seldom used. Even in PS2 games, I bet I can live without them *****

Also, about Pinball, it wasn't available in my neighborhood until the early 90's when there was this Addams Family machine across the river that was all the rage. I remember giving that thing many, many quarters.

[SodaPopinksi]

Some updated pics, I wanted to mimic a Punch-Out "style" cab, but make it wider and more versatile, for example it is 30" wide. Here is the control panel overlay, the top part is the actual panel and the bottom part with the rather current looking NES characters and their 8 bit counterparts is the bottom front of the cp. The "blast" above the Player 1 buttons is where the KO button will reside. The cp is shrunk down considerably from the actual size and is rather garbled in the pic, it's much more smooth looking and the "mesh" doesn't show properly for example:



Here's a look at the front of the control panel with the Happs Coin Rejects... the second photo shows that I was lucky in finding screws that fit them perfectly. I recently glued a piece of wood just behind these and mounted two pushbuttons  so that the heads of the pushbuttons are resting against the metal rods on the reject buttons. You can push them in a little less than 1/4 of an inch to register a click:





I decided to draw my own Punch-Out marquee based on the original side art, so the words are on a black background instead of white. I found a college type font that matches the original letters almost perfectly. The second pic is a close-up of the Happy Mario symbol I put on one of the gloves that is based on the 20th anniversary symbol. I was worried that the black parts of the marquee might let some light bleed through but that's not the case; only the letters and anything that is lighter in color illuminates. It is the extra spiffy Ultimate version that MameMarquees sells:





Here is a shot of the translucent ko button. It is a different type of button in that when you push it down it just has a white plastic piece that comes about a half inch out from the bottom. Recently I've mounted it tightly in the cp, the smooth black cylinder under it rests on a thin piece of rubber on the top cp. I'm going to mount a pushbutton on a small block of wood under it so the white plastic piece will trigger it:

[SodaPopinksi]

A front shot of the cab, the darker bottom half shows where the cab splits in two pieces. I connected the top and bottom with a few dowels and a couple mending plates on the sides just behind the tv. The second photo shows the archaic tools i am working with lol. I used dowels and Titebond III to secure the arms jutting out from the cab. Instead of mounting the speakers in the CP like the original, I'm going to mount them under the marquee and use the space on the front CP for those "pushable" coin slots:





Here are the custom made Vinyl decals I received from MikeDeuce, he did an awesome job with these, the detail is excellent. They may be hard to see in the pic, but the top letters are done in Arcade Classic font and are pixellated. I probably won't be using the save/load buttons, I'll just use the Minipac's shift function for that, since I'll be playing a lot of nes/snes games. The KO's are for the KO button, and they even have the stars present in the Punch-Out letters!

[Donkey_Kong]

This is looking great man!


Melissa should have pretty good progress on your side art in a few days I suppose.



Here is a couple of pictures...

[SodaPopinksi]

That looks awesome! I can't wait to see it come to life! Now I'm driven to have my cab looking good enough to showcase such amazing side-art. 

[RayB]

What is "Happyl Mario" ?

[SodaPopinksi]

That picture is a bit grainy, it's an exclamation point at the end of Happy. "Happy! Mario" is based on the bronze symbol Nintendo used to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Super Mario Bros. It appeared on the back of certain GBA SP's and Gameboy Micro's and I believe most of them were released in Japan. I took the same symbol but made it a silver anniversary and changed it to punch-out. Also, the date on the Marquee is 1983-2009...  the copyright date on the original Punch-Out was 1983, but the game itself was released in 1984 according to klov, so in 2009 it will be the 25th anniversary, obviously I'm planning ahead hehe.



I'm sure one could make the case that I could have made the cab look a lot more like the original punchout to make it look exactly like a 25th anniversary edition of the original, only one player and such, but I have room for just one full size cab, wanted versatility, two players and just the feel of the original Punch-Out and kinda got a kick out of having it seem like an official Nintendo cab as well. I think it's more of a "celebration" of the 25th anniversary of the game hehe.

[mrserv0n]

Melyssa is hot and punch out rules, I love this thread. Now you should consider putting Arm wrestling from nintendo int there too, same format screen and everything, game is awesome

[SodaPopinksi]

You know I have actually never seen or known about the arm wrestling game... Now that you mention it and I see it at klov, I'm wondering if it's dual screen enabled in mame like Punch Out... I have Mamewah set up with a few emulators now and I played Punch-Out on my cab -with the keyboard though- it looks pretty sweet

[Jdurg]

Very nice setup there.  That story you posted in the initial post reminded me of being a kid again.  I grew up, and still live, in Southeastern CT and I think I remember that arcade you are talking about.  (Was it near Mystic Seaport, or was it down in downtown Mystic?  The exact location is fuzzy).

I remember the arcade in the Norwichtown Mall a lot more as it was the classic dark, smokey, dingy arcade with multiple different levels and the cashier was in a room with a barred window.  I also remember when the Crystal Mall had an arcade as that was where I played Mortal Kombat II for the first time.   

[SodaPopinksi]

Very nice setup there.  That story you posted in the initial post reminded me of being a kid again.  I grew up, and still live, in Southeastern CT and I think I remember that arcade you are talking about.  (Was it near Mystic Seaport, or was it down in downtown Mystic?  The exact location is fuzzy).

I remember the arcade in the Norwichtown Mall a lot more as it was the classic dark, smokey, dingy arcade with multiple different levels and the cashier was in a room with a barred window.  I also remember when the Crystal Mall had an arcade as that was where I played Mortal Kombat II for the first time.   

Oh my gosh I totally remember those arcades, the multiple levels of the Norwichtown Mall and the cashier's barred windows haha, I think that arcade was around years longer than the Mystic one, I remember going there once in the 90's I think and it was right near a pet store. There was also a smaller arcade in Groton that I remember near "Lee's Toys"- I loved that place cause they often stocked transformers lol- that arcade had a castle or something for a sign.

There were two bigger arcades in Mystic, one right in downtown across from Bee Bee Dairy, that was the one I visited the most and it shut down about 1989 or so. There was another on the Seaport/Mystic Village side of town during the early nineties that had a lot of pinball machines + arcade games. There were even a few more smaller arcades here and there too, one was in a hotel, but those others weren't around as long.

I can remember the rows of games there in the downtown Mystic one pretty well. If I was rich and had the space, I think I would recreate that entire arcade-right down to the token machine- and turn on all the cabs and just laugh maniacally.

Also in keeping with the long, storied tradition of BYOAC I have just started a yet to be named bar top cabinet before my first project is done 

[Jdurg]

Oh dear lord I forgot about that pet store!!!!  Haha.  Same mall as Caldor's.  Wow.  God that arcade was awesome.  It was so dingy and beat up.  I used to play the "gambling" machine and turn my one or two tokens into hundreds.  I'd play X-Men, The Simpsons, and Mortal Kombat until my fingers bled.  I loved that place.

I too remember Lee's Toy and Hobby.  They're still around in Downtown Groton, but now when I'm in the area it's because I'm on my way to a golf course.  Dammit.  I really want to build myself an arcade now.  Just the memories of being in the Norwichtown Mall arcade make me want to be a kid again.  (I also remember playing Punchout! at the arcade up in Riverside when it was there.  Screw the rollercoasters, I wanted to play in the arcades!).   

[SodaPopinksi]

You should build a cabinet Jdurg, just be careful and make sure you have space for two or three lol. I was originally going to build a small bar top cab and ended up with this huge monstrosity lol. (Also, another nice/more recent arcade was in Foxwoods casino when it first started up, I remember giving Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter tons of cash)

I have the 12v 4led superbright leds on Happ coin door lamp holders for the CP now, 16 in a row, 12 for the buttons, 1 trackball, 1 k.o. button and 2 for the coin rejects. Don't ask me how I'm going to mount them lol, well... basically I'm going to glue small round pieces of wood near the buttons and screw in a somewhat long screw into the middle of them. Then I'm going to clip and glue the wired Happ lampholders onto each screw and position them so the led is firing up at an angle to illuminate each button. They look really nice illuminated in this way, and since they fire up at an angle you're not looking down at some crazy bright spotlights.

Scratch that above, I'm going to use strands of 6 gauge copper wire coming up from the bottom of the CP and latch the happ lampholders to the ends of them. This way I can position them by bending the wire and its a thick enough gauge that they won't wobble around.

I originally wanted to use the non-translucent light blue Happs pushbuttons because I remember buttons of the Punch-Out in the Mystic arcade were that color. But I loved the thought of having illuminated buttons and much to my chagrin the lit up buttons mimic the light blue non-translucent Happ buttons pretty closely.

I'm sure there are easier and more aesthetically pleasing ways to achieve this though lol. 

[Jdurg]

Oh yeah, building an arcade has always been in the corner of my mind, but right now I'm in between residences so I have absolutely no room for anything.  I plan on having a home later this year in which an arcade will be built, but for now there just isn't any room (or money).  However, this will give me plenty of time to hammer out details about what I want to build and how I want to build it.   

[SodaPopinksi]

Oh sweet! I hadn't seen the third picture there Donkey_Kong, of Melissa carving out the side art, its looking awesome, can't wait to see more!!!! I just painted the cab with Lowes Valspar Semi-Gloss black. I think it came out pretty well, in the front shot there is a lot of round blurry wierdness that look like smudges but they are circular reflections on the camera lens for the most part. The temporary cardboard bezel is indeed smudgy and weird though and shows brushtrokes and such.



I have a Dell 4550 in the bottom of the cab and I hated the fact that I couldn't get it to power up via a regular button switch. I did look up a diagram for the motherboard but when trying different inputs I was only able to power the computer for like a second then it shut off... after a few of these I figured best not to mess with it anymore lol.

So I cut a hole in the bottom left side of the cab and placed a Happs coin return cover right where the Dell's power button sits, so you push your finger through the coin return and the button is right there.

I like how the paint came out rolled on with a fine foam roller, its slightly textured and has a nice sheen. You can see the break in the cab though where it splits in two pieces. I will be moving later this year and once the cab is set up in its more permanent residence I'm going to fill in those little gaps and paint it over with one or two more coats. Side art won't be a problem since it's wood



Here's a pic withou the flash, I think I should have put more time into the arms of the cab, to make them look less "blocky' but I'm hoping the t molding will round the edges a little more:



Here's the marquee lit up with two 12" cold cathodes in back of it, it looks very crisp and less washed out in person:



Here's a look at the control panel, Mamemarquees does awesome work, I've applied some of MikeDeuce's vinyl stickers to the admin buttons but haven't used one for the KO button yet.



Upon closer inspection you can make out a hint of metal where the trackball plate meets the cpo, I was thinking of hitting it with a fine tipped black sharpie to get rid of that:



The player one buttons also don't line up as well with the graphic as the right side... it was fit over function I guess, since I didn't want to move the buttons any closer to the stick (it's 3.5") and I didn't want to move the stick further to the left any more either, so I can live with it... just goes to show you should measure twice! I measured the cpo fairly well, just not as well as I could have, it's probably luck that it came out as well as I think it did 

[Donkey_Kong]

Soda-

Your project is looking VERY nice!! WOW! All I'm seeing are bare sides though. 

This will be a motivator to get it done. We have had a very unproductive couple of weeks. Melissa just seen your progress now. Time for me to crack that whip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Side-art coming right up!!


DK 

[SodaPopinksi]

Hahaha, no rush, she has been carving up a storm, she deserves a break I think I cannot wait to see that painted though and all, I mean I can wait actually, but it will be a great thing! I need some more leaf switches and to get the buttons lit up, and then make a more permanent bezel. I like the way it looks with one piece of cardboard, I was thinking maybe one piece of foamboard and to score the back of it and slightly bend it where the lcd is on top like that.

Then to get the string of leds under the cp to illuminate everything, thats gonna be crazy, it will look like a mess under there I'm sure. I will take a pic of under the cp before I do that, I am hoping that there is at least one worse looking wiring job out there  I used a mini pac with the harness, so while it was very, very easy to hook up, I can see now where you can do a much cleaner job by running customized strands of wire, just where you want them and all.

[GadgetGeek]

I have a Dell 4550 in the bottom of the cab and I hated the fact that I couldn't get it to power up via a regular button switch. I did look up a diagram for the motherboard but when trying different inputs I was only able to power the computer for like a second then it shut off... after a few of these I figured best not to mess with it anymore lol.

Were you trying to extend it using a microswitch?  If so, did you have the microswitch set to NO or NC?  I had a similar problem when doing that on my cocktail.  Switched it around and it worked fine.

[SodaPopinksi]

I tried it with a computer power button/wire from another pc, I found a diagram of the contacts on the motherboard and was only able to turn the pc on for a second when I hooked it up, I tried various different spots too. I took the whole dell cable off that connects the front panel/power to the motherboard and tried powering it up with just the power button from another pc, don't know if that was the right way to try it or not  I read that one person with a similar model had to solder their power button directly from the chip in the front of the case.

[blueznl]

You probably already did it, but just to be sure: did you check the bios? Some of these machines have 'startup on power on' or 'restart on power loss' which would make it possible to just disconnect all power. Reconnect and tada, the computer boots.

[spriggy]

I have a Dell 4550 in the bottom of the cab and I hated the fact that I couldn't get it to power up via a regular button switch. I did look up a diagram for the motherboard but when trying different inputs I was only able to power the computer for like a second then it shut off... after a few of these I figured best not to mess with it anymore lol.

Were you trying to extend it using a microswitch?  If so, did you have the microswitch set to NO or NC?  I had a similar problem when doing that on my cocktail.  Switched it around and it worked fine.

In case your not sure...In general.. Old AT pc power supplies come with a built in on/off switch which you can just replace with a simple toggle etc. The switch usually went straight to the power supply from the case power switch.  Most current pc power supplies (that I'm ware of anyway) work on a momentary switch circuit via the motherboard.  IE You press the start button, makes a momentary circuit which activates the power supply.  When you let go of the button, the circuit breaks, but the power supply stays on.  Works the same when turning it off obviously. (other combos nowadays as well..  ie Hold down the power switch for a couple of seconds when the pc is on, puts the pc in shutdown mode etc)

Hence, if you use a permanent circuit toggle switch.. you flick the switch.. the pc starts to power up, however the circuit doesn't break.  A second or two later, the pc thinks you are turning it off... hence the shut-down.

I'm not sure of the whole logistics of the relay set-up in these power-supplies... but that's my Homer Simpson watered down version!! ..

[SodaPopinksi]

Thanks everyone, appreciate the help with this, Spriggy made me realize, and as others alluded to, the switch I was using to try and power up the pc was much older and the wrong kind, wasn't momentary but an "always on" type. I should have tried powering it up with a pushbutton attached in the first place! It works, but now I've lost the front usb panel, you know Dell and their non-standardness, oh well I can live with that though, I will just use a usb hub on the back ports if necessary. Now to figure out where to place the power button... maybe under the cp? The coin return is now useless too, hehe although perhaps it can serve as a bit of an air vent  , since I have a fan blowing air out the back of the cab in back of the pc.

[Donkey_Kong]

Punch out Side Art...Pre Paint!

 

[SodaPopinksi]

7...8...9...10 Ding, Ding, Ding   Knockout!!!

Now excuse me whilst I pick my jaw up off the floor... lol!!! 

What to say about the below pic?? Other than Oh My Gawd!!! Melissa looks beautiful and that must be the happiest side-art around! I can't believe she carved the tiny stars out and everything, that is just amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight I finished the t-molding, messed up this and that on the software side of things... kept getting a Direct3d error on the ati 7000 PCI card I got for the second monitor... Turns out I had to uninstall it and let windows do a vanilla install of VGA drivers for it and after reboot D3D is now enabled on it and its working fine... but wait a second who cares about mames and drivers and stuff for now  ?? I'll have pics tomorrow of the updated cab... I think I will have one of the best Punch-Out's around... not because of the expert wiring job  and not because of the living colony of ants that scattered out of the wood from the first attempt at a base  but because of the ultra-wicked side art!!!

saint's note - picture was just a *wee* bit too racy for this forum, but if you want to repost it as a link instead that's fine.... Picture would also be appropriate in the cheesecake thread in the EE forum.

*NSFW* picture link

[johnm160]

OMG!

and that side art is pretty nice too.

Nice work on that cab, it turned out really nice.

[blueznl]

For a moment I was wondering if I entered the wrong forum. And then I realized she was about to toss the pieces into the fireplace as she must be getting cold. Or did I get it all wrong? 

[jfunk]

I can see sales going up a LOT with the promise of a similar picture on all custom orders 

Edit:  My note doesn't make NEARLY as much sense, now.. 

[javeryh]

Punch out Side Art...Pre Paint!

 

Are you kidding me?  Talk about TALENT.      

[Kaytrim]

The quality and detail of the carving that Melisa does just keeps getting better with each piece.  Your cab is going to be a knockout with those on the sides. 

[steveh]

Wow.. on all fronts!!!

[SodaPopinksi]

Thanks everyone, I added some updated shots with t molding, lexan installed. Unfortunately my plans for lit buttons using the big string of 4led lights failed lol. I had bendable copper wires on the bottom of the cp that I was going to hold the leds with, but there is just NO room under there around the buttons and its just a huge mess of wires doing it that way, I think it may have worked with microswitches and say, and mounting the happs lamps on a long screw coming down from under the cp next to each button,, but since I'm set on using the big leaf switches makes things crazy under there. So I'm going to save up and eventually get the new Novagems Randy will be selling instead, they should be much better. I'm hoping they'll work with the leafs that ponyboy sells though. For now, I placed a flourescent light under there, it does work a little, but not great. Good enough to see with the lights off for now.

Only the KO button and the coin slots are lit with the string of 4led lights, due to the weird style of the KO button and the fact it has a translucent blue Happs button under it surprises me that it lights up as much as it does, haven't placed the KO sticker on it yet.

I played a few games tonight, Punch Out of course and some Tecmo Super Bowl 2007 hehe, I'm extremely happy with the leafswitches and the Ultrastiks. One thing I notice though, is that the left light blue ball top looks sort of drab compared to everything else, I think I will get another green one.

Melissa's carving skill is incredible! I can't get over how detailed the side art looks. Something I haven't thought about is mounting options for the sideart when its ready, anyone have any ideas perhaps? And I am more concerned about preserving the side-art than the side of the cab haha

[shardian]

As to mounting the side art, you could get a slot cutter router bit...I think it is called a keyhole slot, but the name has slipped me. Anyways, it makes one of those holes like on the back of a phone so you can set it on a screw in the wall.

Another more secure method would be to put some...ahh crap I need to go to sleep...those things that you can hammer down into wood that have threads in the center. Then bolt it to the cabinet from inside the cabinet.

[Bobbler]

As to mounting the side art, you could get a slot cutter router bit...I think it is called a keyhole slot, but the name has slipped me. Anyways, it makes one of those holes like on the back of a phone so you can set it on a screw in the wall.

Another more secure method would be to put some...ahh crap I need to go to sleep...those things that you can hammer down into wood that have threads in the center. Then bolt it to the cabinet from inside the cabinet.

T-nut?

[Kaytrim]

Seeing as you have leaf switch buttons try the lighting solution that Whamoed has created.  Here is his website. http://www.nicemite.com/