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Twist's POWcade: a Mario Bros.-themed MAME Bartop! *IT'S DONE!!*
EndTwist:
POWcade
A Mario Bros.-themed bartop!
So I decided I need a bartop MAME project, but not from scratch. No, from an old, crappy bartop cab. I bought this off someone here on the forums:
It's only about 13" wide, a very small bartop (it had a 10" tube). It worked, too, some mixed-bag game which included "Brick-Break," "Entertainment Trivia," "Sex Trivia I and II," and various other card and trivia games. Not particularly great, definitely nothing worth saving.
Oh, and see that bottom right corner in picture 2? That corner was completely rebuilt using wood filler/bondo at some point. This should be interesting.
I've already begun on the project, but I figured I'd document what I've done so far, and the rest of it from here on in.
Cab, gutted (fitting the computer, as well):
Hey look, the control panel has...black under that (fairly ugly) overlay.
I'm having a friend with a woodshop help me rebuild the control panel from scratch, since he has all the high-end power tools you could ever dream of. Since I'm going to be replacing the controls with a Mag-Stik, 3 buttons, and a 1 player start & 2 player start button, it just didn't make sense to fill the existing holes. Should be a simple enough process, it's just 2 pieces of wood with a rounded edge.
Wood filler! Lots and lots of wood filler! (Fixing the back door)
EndTwist:
So I decided to do the cab up in black vinyl, since it always looks nice, professional, and will easily hide all the crapped-up edges that this thing has (and that I've filled with copious amounts of wood filler).
Fixed back door:
That may only be a back door, but it looks quite a lot better, if I do say so myself. I don't have photos of it, but that hinge (and it's brother, on the control panel) was unbelievably rusty before I took some Lime-Away to it. I spent a good 2+ hours working on getting each hinge to a point that at least resembles metal, and not the wonderful burnt-sienna rust color. It worked, to an extent, but some of the rust is on there so strongly that I doubt I'll ever get it off. No one will ever see it anyway, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist.
Removing side 1:
I'm removing each side (except the bottom), one at a time, to wood-fill, sand, and cover with black vinyl (on both sides). This seemed like the easiest way to handle it.
More wood filler! (This project is about 70% wood filler, 10% rust, 20% wood, but hey, if it stays together, that is what counts!)
At this point, I realized I ran out of black vinyl. More should be coming today so I can continue my progress. As well, I should be getting my Mag-Stik today.
I got my new power supply for the computer (this is an old computer, and the power supply had conked out) and my t-molding yesterday:
(hard drive size comparison, this thing is small!)
The t-molding is 5/8" black-chrome-black which should look particularly nice against the matte-black vinyl. It is about 1/16" too short for the sides, but I couldn't get this color in 11/16", so I'm just going to wrap the vinyl around the edges of the cab, and that should hide the fact that it is 1/32" short on each side. Not the best, but I didn't have many options when it came to finding non-black 11/16" t-molding!
I bought a 12" LCD off eBay, and that should be here later this week, along with my translucent LED-lit buttons (red) from GGG.
This is the LCD:
(from the eBay auction)
I'm going to decase it and mount it in the front, where the black mounting panel is (from the original tube...I should be able to get it to fit in there). This screen might be a touchscreen, after doing some research with Google, but I guess I'll find out Friday/Saturday when it arrives. Not that it matters that much if it is or not, since it'll be behind smoked plexi.
EndTwist:
While waiting for the vinyl to arrive, I've been working on the artwork and frontend layout.
Control panel:
The bottom two buttons are 1 Player and 2 Player. They will be on the vertical side of the CP. I'm going to get this, and the hopefully the sideart, printed through MameMarquees.
Side art:
I'm not sure I have room to put this on both sides (the coin slot gets in the way). This will at least be going on the right side. Anyone have suggestions for the left side? (To work around the coin slot?)
MaLa Layout:
The left will show a video preview of the game, with the manufacturer/year below it, and the marquee at the top. On the right, of course, will be the game list, in a rounded format.
EndTwist:
Well, my Mag-Stik Plus and green balltop stick arrived from Ultimarc today, except I got the Mag-Stik Plus, but not the green balltop stick. Whoops!
So, what did I get? I got a screw-on green balltop:
I definitely ordered correctly:
What gives? :dizzy: I've emailed Andy, so I'm sure this will be resolved.
Micro-Update: Andy is sending the proper balltop stick for the Mag-Stik. Yay!
EndTwist:
Finally got the new roll of black vinyl from PartsExpress, which allowed me to finish up my first side:
and put it back on:
Nope...still doesn't look like a whole lot yet.
Now onto the other side! Let's take a look at that bad corner, shall we?
Yuck. This should be fun to fix, eh?
Is that cake icing on my cab? Nope, just a lot of wood putty. Yum.
Not sure yet what I'm going to do with that hole. I plan on only using the coin mech, so I may just attempt to fill it in with wood putty. Kind of a large area to fill, but I can do it (Plus, it'll be sandwiched between the two pieces of vinyl when it's complete.)
Update: Just filled in the hole with wood putty...hope that works.
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