Robotron themed mame cab

[keatonz]

I've been lurking around here for several years, just browsing around and thinking about how cool it would be to actually start my own cabinet.  A couple of months ago I found a beat up Tutankham cab on craigslist and decided to go ahead and jump right in!  Work on it has been going kind of slow lately due to work and college, but I've been making some progress and thought I'd share my work so far with everyone.

The cab had some water damage and looks like it sat in a warehouse for a while.  I also found evidence of mice living in it at some point


This is the cab when I first received it, the paint was pretty faded and there were a lot of scrapes all around.


This is the cab when I first received it, the paint was pretty faded and there were a lot of scrapes all around.  I would have liked to salvage the artwork, but it was in pretty bad shape and was nearly impossible to remove whole.



The original CP.  The joystick and buttons all seem to be in working order (leaf switches!), even though discolored.  I'd like to still use the leaf switches in my new CP if possible.


here it is mostly gutted


the parts from the gutting.  It looks like the monitor wasn't original to the cab, since I see some centipede burn in on the screen.


I cut away most of the water damaged sections and repaired it with some wood cut to size.


trying to make it look pretty again, bondo works wonders...


Repairing the back door - the edges had worn away and the corners were missing.  Used some bondo to fill it back in.  At this point I wasn't trying to make it look *exactly* like it did originally, but get it close enough to look okay.  This is a 25 year old cab after all...


Added a monitor shelf.  I'm going to put a 20" 4:3 lcd  into the cab.  I decided against uncasing it so I could maintain some of ease of use, and make it easier to upgrade to a veritcal 24" 16:9 lcd later on.  I still need to get a new bezel for the 20" lcd.


The coin door has been refinished!  After looking at it again I can see a few drips and one uneven spot...I might end up redoing the coin door if it bugs me too much later on.


Here's my rough draft CP in place, I still have to redo some of the angles in order to get it to fit properly.  I am also trying out different colors of t-molding...I think I'm going to go with the red...


First attempt at my control panel.  I used the Robotron CPO source from localarcade.com, and editing it in illustrator to fit a 2 player, 6-button configuration.  I might have to reposition the 1 and 2 player start buttons though...it doesn't feel right on the rough draft I made.



And now I have the first coat of prime on!  Horay! 

Tonight I'll be painting the rest of it black, and trying to work on getting the sizes right for the sideart.  I can't wait to get this whole thing done!  btw, most of these pictures are at my picasa page - http://picasaweb.google.com/keatonz/ArcadeCabinet
So, any suggestions or comments?  I'd love to get some feedback from you guys.

[spacies]

Robotron rocks dude.

Great choice!

Cab is coming along nicely. Look forward to more updates.