The "Ali-Cade" build

[Dennis691]

I built a few cabinets before but never posted any builds till now.

I am building this cabinet for my friend, 10 points to whoever can guess his name!

He has a few things on his wish list:

- 32" LCD monitor
- LED buttons
- 2 players
- Flight stick
- 1 regular AimTrak gun
- 1 custom made rifle (M16 looking toy gun) using all Ulimarc parts
- LIGHT WEIGHT
- 6' hight at most
- Access to the back of the monitor to add PS4/XBOX 1 in the future

Started the project last week and getting close to finishing up the cabinet build.  Figures I would pick the one weekend we had record low temperatures in NY to start!! 

With out further ado, here we go!

I picked 3/4" maple for this project. It's a lot harder to work with than MDF but it is a lot lighter. I know they sell lightweight MDF but my local HD doesn't stock it.



 Drew out the basic shape I wanted the sides to look like.



I used 1" tape and traced the outside lines for me on the initial cuts.


 
I made my cuts about 1/2" outside of my template because the wood still splits with the tape and I wanted to make sure I had plenty of room for error. 



As you can see in this pictures maple doesn't cut well against the grain.



Finished all the initial cuts and ready to fine tune them.

[Dennis691]

Here is a cut I made under the tape, looks better than the other cut but still not good enough. Onto the next stage.




My favorite tool, the almighty router!! I will eventually buy a better brand but for what I use it for, the quality is good.


Used a left over piece of wood for my work table and clamped the maple to it and traced away.



Leaving a nice, chip free straight line.


Fast forward a few freezing cold minutes and finally done. Starting to come along.

[Dennis691]

Clamped a fresh piece of maple on top.



Tracing out the pieces with the router.



Both pieces cut out.  Not perfect but very close.




Finished them off with a belt sander to make them exact and rounded the corners for a better shape.



Here are the twins sunbathing in this beautiful 7 degree day!

[Malenko]

I am building this cabinet for my friend, 10 points to whoever can guess his name!

Cade?

[Dennis691]

I am building this cabinet for my friend, 10 points to whoever can guess his name!

Cade?

Your mind reading skills amaze me. It's like you have ESPN or something.

[Dennis691]

T-molding time.





Want to leave about a 1" boarder between the cabinet and the end of the sides.


Drew out the template for the batons


Gluing the batons on.

[rablack97]

Looks good.

Man i dont miss those days of hand cutting and batons...CNC and pockets for me going forward...

[Dennis691]

Looks good.

Man i dont miss those days of hand cutting and batons...CNC and pockets for me going forward...

You have a CNC machine or you go to a shop?

What are pockets?

[Dennis691]

Lining everything up.



Gluing the two sides together.




Marquee top up next



New pair of Air Jordan's 


Standing on his own!  They grow up so fast.

[Dennis691]

Weather decided to go up 50 degrees so I was able to get a lot done last weekend.




My least favorite part of this. The wood filler.


Someone got to rest on the job...


Oh yay more wood filler.


First round of sanding.



Fast forward lots of hours...

[Dennis691]

Front door added. Not crazy about the pull handles though.




Let's show them what's behind door #1



The gratuitous butt pic...


And lastly door #2, you guessed it, the PC


And that's all folks. Still have a lot lining up and sanding left but it's getting closer and closer to paint time.

The sides and control panel he wants custom graphics which I am working on now but the rest will be gloss black. I am going with an oil based primer and paint so I will see how this goes. I normally work with latex paint so this is a first for me (That's what she said)

All joking aside I do need advice from you guys. For the monitor, what is the way everyone goes about mounting and putting the plexi across?

What I did in the past was make a board taller than I wanted and cut out a rectangle hole the size of the screen alone and then used the router to thin out the back side to the size of the monitor framing and mount that onto the board.  It worked perfectly but was very heavy to work with. Next I would printed my graphics and put them on the board and tuck the insides in between the board and monitor and lastly screw plexi glass onto the front of everything. This idea has worked but it's probably not the best way at all to do this.

For this arcade I am probably not going with screen bezel graphics and was thinking of maybe painting the backside of the plexi glass black around the screen and using that to hide the monitor frame (don't want to take the frame apart so trying to work around that as best as possible).

Any suggests?

[RxBrad]

Rather than the handle on the front door of the cab, maybe consider a "magnetic touch latch".  You push on the door, and this pops the door out so you can open it.


This video gives a general idea of how they work...

[Malenko]

Are you making the first 7 player cab?

[vwalbridge]

Where is that steering wheel going to sit when you use it?

[harveybirdman]

Uhm......


I like your clamps and your clamp storage wall....

[rablack97]

You said this in your first post "I built a few cabinets before but never posted any builds till now."



Aren't you suppose to get better with experience, I really have no words 

Door handles and storage space 

[Frank Drebin]

Like the shape of this.  Interested to see how it turns out.  Are you doing graphics?

[yotsuya]

Yeah,  that handle is janky,  brah.