Galacade (Galaga Insipred Slim MAME Cabinet) - painting advice needed

[Roo]

Howdy y'all.  I've been lurking around here for a long time, but never felt I had much to say.  Oh but times have changed...  When you go from admiring everyone's work to actually doing your own, all the sudden you have LOTS of questions  

My first cabinet was a Hanaho Arcade PC.  I am designing my second cabinet (first build) and I'm hoping to get some feed back from the experts.

Here's my design.  I don't have any of the artwork done yet, so the marquee is just a placeholder.  The plan for the art is to be Galaga themed, so hopefully you can see the homage to a traditional Galaga cabinet in my design...

Something that's still bugging me - do the height on the control panel and monitor look right to y'all?

I appreciate any feedback!

[Blanka]

I'n no fan of CP shelves. They should be between the left and right face, in a way the T-molding can continue. I never understood why this X-arcade-on-top look did become so popular.

[opt2not]

I'n no fan of CP shelves. They should be between the left and right face, in a way the T-molding can continue. I never understood why this X-arcade-on-top look did become so popular.

 Yeah, I agree with Blanka, I would stick the CP inside the sides and let the contours of your cabinet profile show. Also the t-molding colour is making me think more Galaxian inspired than Galaga (similar cabinets). But if I were you I'd round out the shape a bit more, get it closer to a galaga cab. The two main features of a galaga is the pointed edges by the CP, and the top points. Looks like a bat:



Alright, you caught me with my photoshop opened, here's a quick photo-choppin' of what I'd do:

[Roo]

It's funny, I felt the same way earlier in my design and was convinced to go with a CP shelf design.  The advantage is that it opens up the machine more to two players, making them feel less "squeezed".  I did try to get the middle point going with the pointed shelf bracket

Thanks, great feedback, keep it coming!

opt2not you got some mad photoshop skillz    edit - I just checked out your Blanka stick.  I stand corrected - you have mad CREATIVE skills all around!!!

Does the height of the CP and monitor look right?  I may have to mock this up to get a good feel for it...

[Roo]

I've been working out a few ideas, and came up with this.  

I can't get the side point into the design and keep with CP the way it is.  I really like the CP, so I gave up on the point.  Hey, life is full of compromises!  So don't call it a Galaga cabinet, it just happens to share some design elements  

I did move the CP "inside" the cabinet and still keep accessible from the sides like a CP shelf design does.

Any and all feedback is welcome.  Thanks guys!

[Silas (son of Silas)]

I've been working out a few ideas, and came up with this.  

I can't get the side point into the design and keep with CP the way it is.  I really like the CP, so I gave up on the point.  Hey, life is full of compromises!  So don't call it a Galaga cabinet, it just happens to share some design elements  

I did move the CP "inside" the cabinet and still keep accessible from the sides like a CP shelf design does.

Any and all feedback is welcome.  Thanks guys!

This latest revision looks way better. Really smart, I like it.

[opt2not]

This latest revision looks way better. Really smart, I like it.

Yeah, the design looks solid now. You can see the influence of a Galaga cabinet in it, it's subtle, but not completely obvious. Better than before for sure!
The contours are appealing, and flow well. 

[Roo]

Thanks for the input!  

I actually did a little work today that wasn't using SketchUp...  Here's a CP mockup i knocked out real quick.  

I learned a few things here.  I need to clamp some scrap wood to the back when drilling holes and I'm not very good at freehand routing.  Time to make a jig!

OK, well I guess I already knew those two things, I just wanted a quick test of button placement and joystick mounting method so I ignored the "rules"  

The joystick is an Ultimarc Ultra Stick 360 and the buttons are Electric Ice v2 pushbuttons from Groovy Game Gear.  I highly recommend both of these vendors.  Andy at Ultimarc deserves special recognition for excellent customer service.  One of the U360s had an issue and Andy shipped replacement parts immediately to fix it, no questions asked.  He was a pleasure to work with.
 

[Silas (son of Silas)]

Andy at Ultimarc deserves special recognition for excellent customer service.

I am really happy with the products I have bought from Ultimarc, but it's knowing Andy is on the other end of an email that keeps me loyal as a customer.

[Roo]

The deal I made with the wife is that I have to sell the old cabinet before I finish the new one  

So I guess this is technically part of my work log...  I ripped out the old Hanaho keyboard encoder out of my Arcade PC and replaced it with a Ulitmarc MiniPAC.  In my experience, the Hanaho encoder doesn't like to work well with newer motherboards.  When you have two players going at it in a fighting game, you get a lot of beeps from the computer where it doesn't recognize all the simultaneous button presses.

I also added 2 buttons for pause and exit.  The matching black buttons are on order, the white/chrome Ultimarc buttons you see are for the new cabinet  

I'm no woodworking god, but I'm hoping with enough patience and practice scraps I can do a heck of a lot better than Hanaho did.  Don't get me wrong, from the outside it's a nice machine.  But I'm not a fan of the butt joints and braces on the inside...

[Roo]

I picked up the wiring harness with the MiniPAC and I was pretty happy with the product.  It really makes it quick and easy.  The ground loops took me about 2 minutes to do.




I tried to make it nice and neat, but I guess that is the downside of the harness.  Unless you redo the lengths of each wire, you have some extra wire to deal with.  Took me an hour or so to get it as neat as I could.





I also picked up some labels from Pongo for the new admin buttons





I have no idea how other BYOAC'ers got these to look so perfect, but they still look good IMO, and you don't notice the vinyl outline from a couple feet away.



All in all, it was a much needed upgrade.  The ArcadePC plays much better now and it was good practice for the new cabinet  

[HaRuMaN]

LOL....

You peel that clear plastic away, leaving ONLY the vinyl letters behind, stuck to your buttons.  

(Make sure you rub the clear pretty hard so that the vinyl doesn't pull away when you peel the clear up)

[Roo]

Doh!  I never used vinyl stickers before, can you tell?  

I'll have to post some new pics once I get home tonight!  Thanks for the lesson!  

[Roo]

OK, that's better.  Ha!   I feel silly  

[HaRuMaN]

   Much better! 

[Roo]

I've been doing some work in SketchUp and some real work on the control panel  

Here's the current SketchUp model.



I got pretty detailed with the CP.  I wanted to make sure everything would fit the way I had planned.



Here you can see the USB hub that will power and connect the 7 (seven!!!) USB devices in the control panel: 2 U360s, 2 LED-Wizs, an I-PAC, trackball and spinner.  The power brick and a single USB cable from the PC will plug into the back of the CP.

[Roo]

OK, so now for the the real work!  I am so ready to move past planning phase on this project!!!

First I made a template for mortising out the U360 plates.  First time I used the new biscuit joiner!  



It's no picture perfect template but it does the job.  I was very happy with the nice tight fit around the mounting plates!  Those aren't the final screws, just there for testing.




I had a little blow out on the bottom of the CP where I drilled the buttons and screw holes.  And the other template I made for the holes that go all the way through for the body of the joystick shifted on me while I was routing.  So when I went to route the part that shows from the top I picked up some carpet tape (as suggested by someone else here on the forums).  It worked great.  I didn't even clamp the template when I mortised out the top.



Overall, I think it looks great from the side that counts.

Then I realized the problem with the way I planned on mounting the U360s...  I plan on laminating a control panel overlay to the top.  If I ever need to remove them, I would have to destroy the overlay to do it.  I also planned on using Epyx's method of mounting the trackball (http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=100903.0) and this would have the same problem.  

So I am calling this a mock-up and I'll have to redo it.  I ordered a Happ trackball mounting plate and I'll mortise it in so it's flush with the top of the CP.

At least I can reuse my template when I get ready to bottom-mount the U360s!    

[opt2not]

Great progress for such short amount of time!
Your CP looks nice and clean in real-life...it's going to be great looking with some awesome artwork!  

[Roo]

I agree opt2not!  But I am a terrible artist...  Heh, I guess we can let everyone else in on the joke.  opt2not has agreed to help out with the art for this project.  I knew I had no skill in this area, so I went pro!   

And a quick update...  I just wanted to let y'all know i finally got wood!



I'll post some close up pictures of me working with it soon!  

[Roo]

I don't have a lot of experience making stuff out of wood, and it shows...

Everything moves pretty slow for one thing.  Things that you guys don't even have to think about become a mini project for me to figure out.  I'm starting to see how it can take some people 6 years to build a cabinet!    Just kidding Pixel, you're a god in my book!

So I have mostly finished the (easy part of the) control panel box and I only had to redo two pieces  

In addition to the new CP top, I had to redo the back, since I didn't plan my hub and biscuit locations very well...



There was no way to fit a biscuit in the end and I figured that was important to have a biscuit on the outside of the hub to keep the back square.  So I made a new back.  Here's the new layout



Mostly finished (lol yeah right!)





Now just to glue it all up, figure out if the hinges I planned on using are actually going to work and make a curved front...  

Oh and I need to fill in the slots in the base.  The hub will cover them up, but it just looks bad and I know they're there.



This Famowood filler has favorable reviews on the Rockler web site, or does anyone have a suggestion for an easy to use filler?
http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=18537&filter=wood%20filler

So far it's a toss up between the router and the biscuit joiner for my favorite tool  

[Roo]

Well it's been a while, time for an update  

It's going slow, but it's going.  There's a few reasons I guess.  I only have a couple hours after work on weekdays and the weekends to spend with the project.  I'm doing it in my garage and it's hot as hell in there so after a while sweating, I need a break     I'm having to do most everything twice - once to test the idea and a second time "fo realz".  And lastly, I'm kind of a perfectionist - I want this to turn out right  

So I filled those wrongly placed biscuit slots in the last post by gluing a biscuit in and chiseling it off once it dried.  Then I used the Famowood filler to finish it off.  The Famowood was probably overkill - I think they design it for projects you want to stain, and I am just painting this.  But it worked very well!

The first set of hinges I picked up were Blum clip on, 120 degree inset hinges for frameless cabinets.  I knew pretty much nothing about European concealed hinges when I started this, so I got those because they looked like they would work in the store.  They sort of worked, but would have pushed the top of the CP forward.  



I studied up on hinges and found the right ones for what I am trying to do are full overlay hinges.  I was also concerned at first that they may not close past 90 degrees.  To work with the slope of the CP, they need to close to 95 degrees.  But for once I got lucky and they "just worked"  

Then I redid the CP top control mounting holes and mortises - this time everything mounts from underneath.  Now I can stick down a CPO from mamemarquees.com and still be able to remove everything for maintenance if needed.  I picked up some supplies from the local paint store and started priming.  



I am no expert painter, so I was expecting this to be a bit of a learning curve.  But it was even trickier than I thought it would be.  The garage is so hot that the paint was drying faster then I could get it on.  I also over worked the paint, I've learned since to not keep brushing over an area once I have the paint down.  It turned out pretty sloppy, but I was able to sand it down to decently smooth after it dried with some 220 grit wet/dry.



After some research, I went back to the paint store and picked up some Penetrol.  http://www.flood.com/paint-additive-solutions/products/view-product.jsp?productId=11  It's supposed to make oil-based paints smooth out better and I think it worked pretty well.  I also learned how to improve my technique a little bit.  The second coat turned out better - it's drying right now and I think it will sand out nice tomorrow.  But I've decided it's not all my fault for sucking as a painter - there's only so much you can do when the garage is over 100 degrees     I might have to do the top coats inside to get the results I'd like to see...



Then I cut a piece for the front, laminated it and started in with the kerf cuts.  I'm just doing this with a circular saw and a straight edge clamp.  And that's where I got hot and decided it was time for a break  

[Epyx]

Nice design! Looking forward to seeing this project's progression. 

[Roo]

Thanks!  I'm honored - your Aliens cab heavily influenced my plans 

But design is one thing, execution is another!  If I can end up with something half as nice as what you built I'd be pretty happy!

[Roo]

Don't you hate it when work interferes with fun?!

I finally made a little progress from my last post.  I gave up on kerf cutting to make the bend for the front of the CP box after I ruined my first piece trying to trim it.  I wasn't particularly happy with the amount of putty/bondo I was going to have to use to fill in all the kerf cuts to make it look pretty anyhow.

I picked up some "wacky wood" or bendable ply.  It's 3/8" thick.  The first piece I glued and finish nailed to the CP box.  Then I glued a second piece to the first.  I cut it a little big and then planed/sanded it down to size once it was attached.

I didn't get any pictures of the process, sorry.  But here's the result, almost ready for paint!





I've also been playing around with the idea of an animated LED tractor beam as part of the side art.  I ordered some nylon tubing from McMaster.  http://www.mcmaster.com/nav/enter.asp?partnum=5173K46&pagenum=113

It's almost the right stuff, but it's a little too stiff - I'll have to order some more.  I slit it down one side and inserted LEDs.  I'm going for a finished product that looks like Neon.




I plan on using alternating rows of green and blue for the tractor beam, with a custom circuit to control the chase sequence.

Hopefully I won't have to wait so long to post the next update!

[GalagaFan74]

Hey Roo,

Cab is looking good, in fact this is exactly what I envisioned for my cab.  If you're willing I wouldn't mind the plans to your cab when you've completed it.  I see you're using a flat screen LCD monitor, 19"?  Unfortunately I don't have a spare flat screen, is there enough space to accommodate a 19" CRT?  I may have to look into extending the back a bit and adding a monitor shelf.  Can't wait to see the finished product.

[Roo]

Hey Roo,

Cab is looking good, in fact this is exactly what I envisioned for my cab.  If you're willing I wouldn't mind the plans to your cab when you've completed it.  I see you're using a flat screen LCD monitor, 19"?  Unfortunately I don't have a spare flat screen, is there enough space to accommodate a 19" CRT?  I may have to look into extending the back a bit and adding a monitor shelf.  Can't wait to see the finished product.

Thanks!  

I will post the plans once they are finalized, no problem.  Right now they are in a state of flux as I finalize little details.  Unfortunately, those little details (like the height of the CP) cause big changes to the overall project.  Luckily SketchUp is pretty easy to use, I had never touched it before this project.

I am using a 24" Dell wide flat LCD.  It's a 2408WFP to be exact.  It's my "old" desktop monitor and I picked up a newer Dell U2410 to replace it.  I don't really get any benefit from the wide screen, except that a 24" wide screen is generally cheaper than a 20" 4x3 aspect ratio LCD and slightly bigger when displaying a 4x3 aspect ratio image.  This site was very helpful when I was trying to figure out which monitor to use:

http://tvcalculator.com/index.html?27d982493e27f0160a8c8e4c3dbaaf9a

It would be pretty easy to modify the plans to use any size screen, even a CRT.  You should be able to fit any size LCD in there up to a 27" wide screen with just a modification to the bezel.  You would probably have to make the cabinet deeper for a CRT though.  

For what it's worth, I played around with it for a while and my feeling was that 24" wide screen was just right.  Looking at a 27" that close felt too big and anything smaller looked out of place in the space allotted in my plan.

[Roo]

And I've managed to make a little more progress!  Somebody please tell me the cabinet will go faster than this CP!  

I primed and painted the inside of the CP.



Then I laminated all the outside surfaces.  I used two coats of contact cement on the bare wood and one coat on the laminate.  A neat trick I learned from a friend for holding the laminate away from the surface of the wood when you're positioning it is to use old blind slats.



Slide the slats out as you roll the laminate down.



A quick pass with the trim router and it looks great!



I couldn't use a trim router on the front edges of the sides, since they're not a 90 degree angle...



In the end, the easiest method I found to trim off the excess laminate here was to use a cut-off wheel on the Dremel to get as close as possible, then use a sanding block with some 80 grit paper to sand it down flush.



I decided the wacky wood was a little too "splintery" to make a good substrate for laminating the front.  I also had some small voids along the bottom edge where I hadn't gotten the front completely square with the bottom, so I picked up some Bondo and applied a thin coat to the whole front face.



Lots of pink dust later I'm ready to laminate the front...  



I'll have to do a touch up coat or two on the inside, but I'm OK with that.  The last coat I did didn't turn out as nice as I had hoped, so maybe this time I can get better results.

[XNIF]

very nice design. I like these slim cabinets, they look stylish. I might make one as well after i have finished my low boy.

[Roo]

very nice design. I like these slim cabinets, they look stylish. I might make one as well after i have finished my low boy.

Thanks!  

So I learned some things this weekend...

One of the most important lessons I learned was that painting is the very last step!  I got ahead of myself and thought I'd get it painted up and then finish the laminate and some other minor details.  I'm sure someone with more skill and experience might have pulled it off, but for me applying the laminate first would have made a lot more sense, since the laminate is much more durable.

Since I am about to re-embark on an adventure of weeks of priming, painting and wet sanding, I thought I'd mock up the work I have so far.  Something to keep me motivated to the finished product.       The top looks all scuffed up, but that is really just primer is showing through where I sanded everything back down smooth.  I love the GGG coin buttons and the Galaxian green t-molding is sweet.




Kidding aside, I'm actually really happy with this so far.  Sure, it's slow going but I've never really done anything like this - the list of "this is my first time trying to do _____" is pretty much the list of every step of work done so far.  My design is coming to life and I'm digging it!  


PS the other thing I learned is that lacquer thinner is really nice to have if you want to get rid of excess contact cement on your laminate!

[Jefferson]

beautiful work man, and clearly illustrated... plus you reminded me to order some pongo stickers. Cant wait to see how this develops. I love curved CP's (I was lucky enough to start with a found curved piece about CP size)

[Roo]

Thank you!   

I spent a lot of time in SketchUp working out this design.  Even though design choices and just general difficulty of doing a curve (for a beginner woodworker like me) almost put me off, I stuck to it because I really liked the look.  I'm glad I did   

I'm no photographer nor writer, and I'm certainly not of a caliber to warrant trying to show off on these forums...  (sideways glance at Pixel, Ond, javeryh, drventure, Knievel, Epyx, and a million other expert builders) 

In fact, I've never posted like this before...  but posting my work log keeps me excited to keep working on it steadily and if I can help anyone else with their build, that makes me happy.  I know these forums helped me so much with my design and build!!!

Thanks all!

[Roo]

Two coats of primer on, and dried for 3 days.  I'll sand it down this weekend and put on 3 coats of black.  Painting is so slow!!!   

[opt2not]

Two coats of primer on, and dried for 3 days.  I'll sand it down this weekend and put on 3 coats of black.  Painting is so slow!!!   

Take your time on it buddy, it may be slow, but it's darn rewarding when done right.
Besides, gives me some extra time to get your artwork done!

[Roo]

The paint job is progressing.  It's funny, I just had no idea how slow it is to attempt a decent paint job.  The primer is all on, cured out and (mostly) sanded down.  I have to sand the underside of the CP lid. 

The top of the CP lid is finsihed.  I'll leave it with just sanded primer until I get the "Totally Amazing Custom Opt2Not Control Panel Overlay Design" (tm) printed and stick it on top.   

So I'm ready to paint the underside of the CP lid and the inside of the CP box.  I'm hoping the new high density foam mini roller and my slightly improved painting skills (don't overwork the paint!!!) will make for better results this time.

And now for the big news...  I've cut out a cabinet side!  It's amazing how something so easy (it only took me an hour or so) seems like so much progress.  I think I've been stuck working on the CP box way too long 

Pictures soon!

[Roo]

The paint job came out pretty nice.  I'm going to call the CP box done, but I'll have to put at least one more coat on the bottom of the CP lid.

So I went to work on the actual cabinet.  I'm still excited by how much faster this seems to go then the CP box.  It's all pretty easy stuff, even for a beginner woodworker like me.

I started by drawing a bunch of dimensions on my SketchUp model and printing it out.



I traced the design onto the wood using the straight edges from the factory for the bottom and back.  The rest I free-handed with my jigsaw.  I also clamped a guide on and routed nice straight edges for the few places along the front that aren't curved.  Once I sanded it all down I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.




I used the first side to draw the design on the second side, trimmed most of the waste away with my jigsaw and then used a pattern bit on my router to finish it up.  Here it is ready for the pattern bit.



I also cut the t-molding slot all the way around at this point.  Since I am laminating both the inside and outside, I just centered the slot in the 5/8" ply.  The easiest way I know to do this is just eyeball the router to the right depth and test cut some scrap.  Flip the scrap wood over and compare.  5 or 6 adjustments later and the router was set at the right depth for a perfectly centered slot  

I was having problems at first figuring out how to cut out the laminate to the design.  Last time I was cutting laminate for the CP box with my jigsaw and it wasn't supported well enough.  That did a number on the laminate, cracking it back some places a couple inches.  I was trying to get two sides out of one sheet of 4x8 laminate, so I didn't have a lot of spare to mess up  

The method I found which worked great for me was to sandwich the laminate between the two sides I had already cut out, clamp it all down nice and tight, and then use my router (free-hand) with a straight bit to cut out the design.  No chipped edges at all, and I only had to leave an inch or so all the way around.



The mini blinds worked great for keeping the two pieces apart when it came time to glue it all up.



A quick run around the whole thing with a flush trim bit in the router and then I chamfered the edges of the surprisingly sharp laminate with my sanding block.  All set!  The inside face of both sides all done  

[PsychoMikey]

AWESOME!  Love the curved front of the CP! just wonderfull. Also very nice job on the laminate!

[Roo]

Thank you 

Small update: I went over to my friends shop and we cut all the pieces to connect the two sides on his table saw.  What would have taken me forever to do (at least if I wanted nice, square pieces with straight edges) only took a couple hours. 

I owe him one!   

[Roo]

Just a tiny amount of progress...

I am working on the top of the cabinet.  My same buddy from the last post had some spare laminate laying around, including a small piece of white, left over from a previous job.  So I laminated the insides around the marquee light white   

Here's the light board, using GroovyGameGear Nova Matrix lights:



And here's a jig to let me glue up the three pieces that make up the top of the cabinet:



Like this:



This is my first time messing with MDF.  I know everyone says how much dust MDF makes, but I had to see if for myself!  That stuff can't be good for you if you work with it all the time...

[charlieram]

It's all looking great so far, The inside of your cab is gonna look far superior to mine, keep up the good work

[Roo]

Thanks for the encouraging words!

Yeah, hopefully the inside doesn't turn out nicer than the outside  

Between free laminate from my buddy and extra laminate I bought, I'm gonna end up laminating everything.  Which is probably a good thing, seeing how tonight I had to sand the CP lid back down to bare wood in some places.  Looks like I'm basically starting over with painting the lid again.  At least laminate is easy