I was just thinking of everything I have gone through in the past 2 years building my cab. Suddenly, it dawned on me, the amount of stuff I learned during this project. I guess if I were to make a list it would look something like this.
1. MDF is evil
MDF is a pain in the ass. Sure it is cheap and nice for painting but it is extremely messy when cut and the dust will make you sick.
2. cabinet - glue = pile of wood
I learned that glue is a good thing. I had about half of my cab put together when I realized I hadn't been using any glue. The cab was really flimsy. So I made sure to glue the rest and I added some extra support and it is ok now.
3. crack kills
Wood filler will crack if you use it in a structural area. What I mean by that is, the parts of my cab that have wood filler and have taken any kind of stress have cracked. Use bondo if you need structural integrity.
4. painting is not fun
A lot of my cab is finished in adhesive vinyl and some of my cab is painted. The vinyl is so much easier then painting, but watch out for air bubbles anywhere where the vinyl is folded over. If I do another cab I will use only vinyl.
5. frankenpanels
There is no need to put every control you can on the panel. How many 4 player simultaneous games are there. Do you really need a 4 player panel. I found out after my 5th cp revision that you should understand all of the different possible layouts for the controls of a game. Then you should find out what games use what configurations. If you don't like any of the 4player simultaneous games then don't build a 4 player panel.
6. im not done, but im finished
Make sure you don't put the finishing touches on the cab until the end. Don't paint your entire cab to a perfect finish only to find out that you need to put 2 more screws through the side panels. Plan ahead or you will be doing a lot of patchwork and your cab will take a lot longer then you thought.
7. goggles work better on your face then on your toolbox
It sounds stupid but make sure you wear the proper safety equipment. If your cutting, drilling, routing wear googles. If your working with MDF, Kilz, paint make sure you wear a dust mask made to block out those fumes. Last but not least, never use a router with one hand. I almost found this one out the hard way when my router kicked out and nearly gutted me when I was cutting a tmolding slot.
8. terminology
t-molding, CP, mamewah, cherry switch, encoder, 49 way joystick....Yeah I know what all that means

9. windows xp is bloated
I learned how to hack, chop, hide, and manipulate widows xp.
10. no talent hack to slightly talented hack
I found some hidden talents through the use of photoshop. Before this hobby I had never used photoshop and now I can pen tool, gradient and gaussian blur with the best of them. Well maybe not, but I can use the program proficiently and get results.
11. Harpal is a pseudonym used by satan. I also like to use it as a verb. "Don't try and Harpal me" or noun "What is with all this Harpal" or my favorite, an adjective "well color me harpal, did I just eat your sandwich"
Well that is all I can think of for now but I know there is quite a bit more I am forgetting. All in all this hobby has been good to me and along with this great community, has taught me quite a bit. What have you learned?