My Cabinet - Title TBD

[stalemate]

Hi!

I've started posting on here a little bit here and there and I figured I should announce my project. I'm building a pretty simple upright cabinet for 2 players. My cabinet is heavily inspired by gamester's arcade galaxy. I read a lot of it when I was still in "lurk" mode on this forum. It will end up looking a whole lot like that one except a different control panel and artwork.

I'm going with the black paint and the chrome t-molding and trying to get one of those shiny shiny finishes like gamester has and like on bella's arcade.

My CP will be a simple 2 player with 2 joysticks and associated buttons. No trackball or spinner, just sticks and buttons. I'll probably pay a ton of fighters and beat em ups on it.

I'm using an old TV for the screen and an old single core 2.5ghz machine running tinyxp for the computer.

As far as a theme, I'm thinking some kind of Star Wars art and the cab is tentatively entitled "The Force" but I haven't settled on that. And I'm still rolling art ideas around in my head.

I've been building it with a friend and we set aside one night a week to work in his garage. We can typically get in 2 or 3 hours at a time and after 12 sessions here is where we are...




And with the TV sitting in it...




I have all the buttons and encoders and stuff on order, so as soon as we get it all enclosed it will go back to my house for the painting portion of the project while our weekly work sessions focus on the CP building effort.

[Gamester]

Looks like you're off to a good start.  I look forward to watching your progress!   

[wol-nz]

Nice start - I love the idea of TVs in cabs - that massive 4:3 resolution can't be beat.
Are you de-casing it (i'm always worried about electrical shock on them)

Picking a name can take ages - and it has to be right otherwise the theme suffers for it.
What's the color scheme - we could throw out some ideas.
Jedi Cab
sabre wars
Chewbacca chaos
Darthcadious...
 (hrm maybe not)

[emphatic]

Looks great so far. Star Wars themed fighting cab, eh? How about - "Empire Strikes Back" with some sort of black gloved fist punching out?

[Corbo]

Looking good, and good to see the TV in it.  Years ago on my full size cab my monitor packed up and I replaced it with a TV, couldn't tell the difference and it was safer to work with.  It looks the perfect size too.

What to name it?  Star wars is a good theme plenty of artwork available.  "StarCade"?

ChewieCade?  Cover it in fur, job done.

[Benevolance]

Looking good so far!

Chewiecade is awesome. You could add the tagline: "Always let the wookie win." 

[wp34]

Looks real good so far.  I'm a fan of Gamester's cabinet as well. 

I like your idea for a theme.  Star Wars characters stylized to look like Street Fighter might be something to think about for artwork.

[stalemate]

Nice start - I love the idea of TVs in cabs - that massive 4:3 resolution can't be beat.
Are you de-casing it (i'm always worried about electrical shock on them)

not deceasing it... Too chicken and I don't think I gain much from it. I got lucky to have that particular tv sitting around. It has a 27 inch screen but not much space used around the edges for trim. I am only going to have to bezel a few inches on each side and I found a nice piece of 32x40 black mat board at hobby lobby for $4. My buddy that is helping build this has a cutter to do beveled edges and stuff so we should be able to make it look nice.

The whole cab only comes out to 29 inches wide measuring from the outside edges so that doesn't seem too bad to be able to leave the tv intact on a shelf.

The only thing I don't really like is that it only has RCA video input but I have been playing on it and it looks fine. I am sure s video would look better but it isn't a deal breaker.

[stalemate]

What to name it?  Star wars is a good theme plenty of artwork available. "StarCade"?

I thought of StarCade too a while back. I flip flop between thinking it is awesome and really cheesy. Maybe it is both.

[stalemate]

Looks real good so far.  I'm a fan of Gamester's cabinet as well. 

I like your idea for a theme.  Star Wars characters stylized to look like Street Fighter might be something to think about for artwork.

Great idea. I keep going through a few different theme ideas in my head...
- star wars
- the matrix
- arcade fighter theme
- Arkansas razorbacks
- classic video game characters


Combining Star Wars and the fighter theme could be awesome.

[yotsuya]

What to name it?  Star wars is a good theme plenty of artwork available. "StarCade"?

I thought of StarCade too a while back. I flip flop between thinking it is awesome and really cheesy. Maybe it is both.

StarCade is the name of the arcade at Dinseyland, across from Space Mountain.

[stalemate]

LOL... I am never going to be able to pick a theme. I just had the thought of a city theme (of a fictional city) with a skyline marquee. Not sure about the cp maybe an abstracted map overlay or something.

[stalemate]

By the way, I only put a few pictures in this thread so far, but if anyone wants to see what I was up to each of the 12 weeks so far it is all on a blog: http://thursdayarcade.blogspot.com

[stalemate]

Still moving right along with it! We are having issues with the blade staying in my friend's jigsaw, so we have to get that resolve to make the cutouts for the coin door and all, but otherwise it is all going well.

Here is what it looks like now:

[stalemate]

Haven't updated this in a few weeks. I'm putting a picture below of what it looks like right now. You can see a bunch more details of on my blogspot page: http://thursdayarcade.blogspot.com

[Generic Eric]

Your cab is coming together well.  I have been deciding for a very long time on what cab theme I should go with.  Lately, I have decide to go for plywood, sand the lumber markings off and stain it to look like one of the old conversion cabs.

Looks great so far. Star Wars themed fighting cab, eh? How about - "Empire Strikes Back" with some sort of black gloved fist punching out?

There was a game called Jedi Power Battles for the Dreamcast, it was ok.  When I saw your post I imagined Mark Hammil's fist from Jay and Silent Bob strike back.

[Gamester]

Any updates?

[stalemate]

I have done a terrible job updating this thread.

Not much has changed in the last couple of months, I've just been in finishing hell. Bondo, sanding, bondo, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, wishing I couldn't see wood grain, high build primer, more sanding, painting, sanding, painting, sanding, metallic paint, wishing it didn't look like crap, sanding, etc etc.

I'm pretty much done with the painting phase of the cabinet though. I might actually finish the last coat of black tomorrow and then it will just need a clear coat and the cabinet can go inside while I paint the cp box. Then I'll have a whole bunch of assembly left to do.

I'm getting there, slowly but surely. Starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Gamester]

Hey stalemate, did you ever finish this cab??  Would love to see how it turned out!