Newbie with a disassembly question

[TheSmokey]

Heyas all,

I decided to finally get into making a MAME machine, and found myself the owner of an old Double Axle (1990 Taito if I recall) cabinet, no monitor or controls. Which is fine with me, I wanted to put a MAME machine into it anyway, and either buy or make a controller. So yesterday a friend of mine and I tried to truck it down the stairs of my house. At the bottom of the first flight there's a landing, and we would have had to turn 180 degrees to get down the next flight. Would have. The corner of the landing has a 45 degree section jutting out, and no way was she going to fit down there. No amount of turning, lifting, etc is going to get past the fact that that 45 degree section of wall is physically occupying space that the cabinet would need (as the two holes in the wall attest to).

Disappointed and tired, I went to bed after we cajoled it back into the garage. I didn't have any time to thoroughly inspect it last night or this morning, so I'm sitting here at work trying to figure out how one of these things comes apart. Is it mostly screws? Staples? Nails? Glue/epoxy?

How do you take an arcade cabinet apart? Reciprocating saw? Rubber mallet? This question depends mostly, I would guess, on how the thing is held together.

Any hints or tips you guys could throw at me would be greatly appreciated. Til then, I'll be sitting here, watching the clock until I can go home and attack this thing.

Thanks,

Al

[zelony]

Al,

First, good luck with the new project.  I had a similar problem when I bought my cabinet.  I purchased a Blitz 99 Showcase Cabinet to convert to MAME.  This is the big cabinet with the separate pedestal for the controls.  Even with the pedestal detached the main cabinet was too large to make it into the house, much less down to the basement.  It would come through front door with the hinges off, but it was too wide to go through any other door in the house.

Then it occurred to me that it might fit through the basement window.  I am lucky that we have a lookout basement with full size windows.  We popped the window out of their frames, actually pretty easy thanks to Pella Windows, and then we brought the bad boy in on its side.

Keep in mind that the main cabinet weighs over 400 lbs. and the pedestal another 200.  I paid the arcade distributor to deliver it to my basement, so they did most of the lifting.  I did lend a hand bringing it in to the basement, as I did not want it scratched.

So I would suggest measuring your window.  My daughter’s 4 player Dungeons and Dragons: Tower of Doom actually made it down the stairs.  However, I did remove the control panel and the monitor first.  This made it narrower and much lighter.

Good luck.

Jeff

[TheSmokey]

My basement window is one of those small jobbies, like 12" high. Believe me, when I finished the basement, I had to cut ALL the drywall upstairs and bring it down. What an unbelievable pain that was.

I'm chomping at the bit to get this going. My biggest concern was that I didn't want to have to tear all the artwork off the sides looking for screws, but it looks like that's exactly what's going to end up happening. Oh well. At least I can paint it up afterwards and fix the nicks/scratches.

Looks like I will take the artwork off, get the screws out, bash it apart gently, and then use L-brackets and bolts through to put it back together; that'll make it easier to take apart when I move in the distant future.

Thanks,

Al

[zelony]

Be careful trying to do that.  Many times these things are glued as well as screwed together.  The glue is much stronger than a screw.

You may be better off selling this cabinet and building one from scratch in your basement.

Jeff

[daywane]

I know of no cab that comes apart.
some people have cut there cabs and spliced bakck together
I removed a wall.

can the door jams come out and give you like 3 more inches on each side?