Need some helpful info on a cocktail cabinet

[ratabase1]

I just got an empty Galaga cocktail cabinet today with the glass, underlay, and coin door.  The control panels were gone.  I've built a couple of uprights in the past, but this is my first cocktail project.

For starters I am planning on getting a 19 or 20 inch monitor and putting it in the cabinet sideways.  From what I've heard, I'll be able to have Mame rotate the games, correct? 

I need to determine which games I'll be able to play in cocktail flip mode and the number of buttons per player I need.  Has anyone compiled a list of the mame games that have cocktail flip capabilities, or a list of cocktail friendly mame games, and the number of buttons needed along with whether it uses a 4 way or 8 way joystick? 

Is there any good place to get replacement bare metal control panels (besides ebay)  for the cocktail cabinet?   

Is there any good places to get replacement woodgrain contact paper?  It doesn't have to be exactly the same as what was on the cabinet originally.

What frontend should I use, that will allow the screen to be flipped sideways?

[Turnarcades]

If by 'sideways' you mean vertically orientated to the player, you will be limited to just a couple of front-ends. MAME can display games rotated to face you where you sit, but not all natural screen-flipping games work this way in MAME; I'm sure there is documentation available on this somewhere on the MAME site or thereabouts.

Several cabinet builders make moulded control panels for cocktail cabinets; start at arcade depot and look from there. For contact paper, try home depot.

[NOP]

sounds exactly like my machine! 
Mine is a former (totally gutted when I got it) galaga machine.

Now it's MAMEd, but still looks like a galaga machine.
I've got a U360 for each player and 3 buttons each.

As for game lists, go here:
http://wiki.arcadecontrols.com/wiki/Lists

my website for my machine is here:
http://www.waste.org/~winkles/winterMAME

The site is out of date per my recent updates to it.  I was hoping to do a new photo shoot over the next couple weeks and update the info on it.  My email address is on that page, so pop me an email and I'd be happy to give you the resources to all my stuff.

-jeff!

[deadpool18]

GameEx is a great frontend and can be set for vertical orientation.