you guys rule!

[Sorex]

Hello,

finally got my account fixed by the admin so here is my first (actually 2nd) post

I envy you guys with all those goodlooking cabinets, too bad I don't have the skills myself to do the woodwork, so I'm hoping to find a cabinet.

But as I'm living in Belgium and arcade game cabinets have been banned out of the pubs by some dumb poker/slot/picture thingies it's very hard to find cabinets,
or they are way to expensive for me to buy it.

I even contacted companies who rented arcade cabinets years ago and they are have been sold to foreign countries (Africa? ) or ended up on the trash

btw, any belgians inhere who made a cabinet or are planning to do so?

keep up the retro gaming spirit as todays games are not my thing at all (stopped gaming and lost interest in it when all the Doom clones came out in 95)

[Spaced Ace]

What kind of world do we live in where arcades are unavailable or banned!? 

I would advise you to do this, since you aren't handy at woodwork, why not simply obtain some cab plans and pay someone who does know what they're doing to build it?  It would be way cheaper than shipping one, thats for sure.  Besides, despite your skill, after you have the cab, everything else comes easy. 

There are plenty of self published books/PDF's on the net, or you can flip through the Project Announcements here in the forums, some guys have detailed instructions building cabs up from nothing.

[polaris]

hi sorex
there's definitely a few serious collectors close to you, have a look at dragonslairfans.com, darthnuno who posts here runs it, he is belgian and has quite a collection, he's a great guy and im sure he'll give you some tips.
ive heard him talk of others in belgium too, also look out for the dutch guys here.

enjoy

[Trebeck]

Hey Sorex

don't loose hope.  If I can build one so can you.   

-beck

[dna disturber]

Howdy neighbor.....

The netherlands isnīt that far so 

I never built anything in my life before this project but boy was I posessed 
You just got to take it step by step , try to build a control panel first , if you can do that the cabinet isnīt that hard anymore.

I did just that and it turned out pretty good 

Dna Disturber

[Sorex]

Thanks for giving me some hope, I'll check out that Belgian dude's forum and see what I can find there,
there is another forum but that's mainly from people posting what they have bought.

DNA: man what a machine you got there, makes me drool

oh, and actually I'm not sure what I want either, would be cool to have an original cabinet
but it would be even better to have one like DNA has, with all the required buttons + trackball & paddles (I believe it's these days called a spinner?)

I don't have room for both types unfortunatly

[Droler]

I'm not much of a woodworker either and I did an Ultimate Arcade II from plans - it is true that building a control panel from scratch is about half the job - if you can do a CP then you can do the rest.

Building a control panel is a good place to start.

[Jdurg]

I'm not a woodworker either, but after reading these forums for a whie I decided to go and build my cabinet.  Granted, the cabinet part still hasn't been built thanks to various other items getting in the way (boiler needing work, carpenter ant infestation, car accident, etc. etc.), but the Control Panel is done.  The thing works great and seeing that a lowly idiot like myself can build that has given me a lot of inspiration.  As a result of that one success, I have decided to go and build myself a poker table!

For tools, I eventually bought a power drill, a jigsaw, a circular saw, a miter saw, a router, an air-compressor, a nail gun, and a random orbital sander.  Just found deals at Home Depot and took advantage when I can.

While my poker table is still about half of the way from completion, the photo below that I took with my cell-phone shows that even I can build something! 

[Sorex]

Can you guide me to these control & cabinet plans?

Oh and are there plans to make easy removable cabinets?

Just in case that I don't need to rip it all apart when I move the cabinet to another floor (only have too small stairs here) or even worse move to another house?

So glue'ing or nailing is not really an option for me I guess which makes it harder as at one point you'll end at a point where you won't have room to attach your last L-shaped screw thingies to hold corners together, or you'll need a cardboard back plate or something.