Hello, it's been a while. This project came about as a pseudo challenge from the wife that my pride would not allow me to escape from. While walking through Costco her gaze happened upon the 1UP machines on sale. The kids loved it and the wife's comment is what set me off: "Look at how much they like it, you could build one for Athan's birthday . . ." I could, but we moved on and got our customary Rotisserie chicken. Two days later I emailed her and asked if she was serious. She said she was, but didn't want to spend too much, something I do all the time when I embark on a project. So I promised her I would re-use anything and everything I had aside from a couple core components.
So here is the build, for my Son's 8th birthday, built in roughly 3 weeks as time was crunched like mad, the other substantial challenge. Looking back now a couple months out and there are several things I would do differently for sure, but it's been over 5 years since I built a cab so things were surely a bit rusty.
The designs were for a 4' cabinet that would be two player and re-use a 19" Dell computer monitor I had. The guts would be an AMD Ryzen 1700 as I have a bazillion of these from my CPU Crypto mining days. I also had a 2 player iPac laying around and random Joysticks/buttons. Nothing super fancy for this build aside from some super kick ass custom side art by @opt2not.
The build was with 5/8" MDF, bought from a local Lumber mill. I have never found Home Depot or Lowe's sheet goods that aren't warped to high hell, so anytime I'm dealing with sheet goods I hit up local mills. I live close enough to Milwaukee that I've got a couple mills to work with so it's generally good to go.
I used my panel saw in the garage to cut the sheet goods to 48" size squares and then hauled them into the basement to use the table saw and break them into their designated pieces. If you look closely at the design, I didn't add the width of the MDF to the design, which resulted in me being a dumb butt. The width of the cab was supposed to be 24" but instead it was 25 and 1/4" due to the width of the sides. The one good thing that happened was I was off on every cut, so in the end, everything fit together without an issue because they were all too long. In the end, the screen looks a bit smaller as it's wider than I wanted but it's such a small cab to begin with and you're close enough when you're playing, it's really just fine.
Such a novice mistake, but it is what it is. Time was not on my side in this build so by the time I started assembling, I had no wiggle room to pull back.
With MDF, screws are not enough, need the wood supports and lots of wood glue. If you're on this forum, you mostly already know this but if you happening on this thread as your first foray into wood working, my stuff is not very good, but this is a very important lesson. Wood glue is your kryptonite.
Cab built:
Affixing the monitor inside was an interesting endeavor, because I didn't really want to secure it to the side of the cab. Instead I wound up rigging a 2x4 wood U inside the cab and attached a monitor mount I had sitting around that I never used. That was also part of the fun with the project, reusing stuff I had accumulated over 6 years of internet good deals.
Paint time! Please remember, Semi-Gloss or Gloss for sticking custom side work on cabs. Don't do Matte. I did that once and dear lord did it suck. I wound up having to use Liquid nails to get the art to stick. Doing basic black, semi-gloss picked up from Home Depot. Nothing special.
I'm really weird when it comes to Control panels and enclosures. I like to do them AFTER I have a cab built that I can see/touch/feel so I can then feel out dimensions. I've done this with every cab I've made and it's such a back ass wards way of doing it, but it's my thing ;|.
Control panel itself:
Contol Panel and enclosure assembled. Speakers also in play too. I use a Drill press to drill these holes with a Forstner bit. If this is your first cab, do not use hole saw bits. Plugged in Hand drills work okay but still require a lot of effort on your behalf. Spade bits are meh. If you can, always Forstner bits and plugged in hand drill/drill press. The first cab I did was a 4 player with 6 buttons per player (which I now know was stupid since there are no games that require more than 4 buttons for player 3/4 in the arcade universe but alas I was learning) and I did it using a hand held drill and a hole saw. It was 5-6 hours of heavy labor and lots of burning wood and several drill bits later.
I prefer Lexan versus plexi glass as Lexan I can run through my Table saw for very accurate cuts and little no no tearing/chaffing where the table saw cuts. I used angled aluminum to hold the Lexan in place for both the main monitor and the Marquee. For the lexan I cut a piece of cardboard the size of the monitor, carefully tape it where the monitor should be and then spray paint black the inside for all the other areas. This generally works pretty well aside from a little bleed I will clean up in the weeks to come.
At this point I either forgot to take pictures or can't find them, but a ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- ton of progress. Painting finished, side art on, T-Molding installed. Buttons installed (Combination of concave and convex as I had them lying around) and Red/Purple was all I had that had 6 buttons. Also three player buttons only for the 1/2 player buttons, as I had 6 three player buttons sitting around (WTF LOL).
SIDE ART (Custom Artwork):
I love custom side art on my cabs, I just love the ascetic and the feel and the emotion it pulls/draws out. I posted on the art forum and Opt2Not hit me up, as we worked together before. I told him my vision and small window 3-4 weeks. He was interested which was super awesome and away we went. He did have to ask his current other projects if he could solely focus on my cab, which they were kind enough to allow him too do.
I wanted My son and daughter on the side, with a mix of Minecraft/Roblox as my son loves them. What Opt2Not delivered was fing amazing, like always and it was awesome working with him again. Side note, on the last cab I did for James and Anne, I did a craptastic Marquee and Opt2Not reminded me he can do marquees too. I asked him to do one this time and it was super awesome.
I've got his sketches and the final product below as I like sharing them and the process. Before those pictures I want to highlight several important things I think are either forgotten or ignored when working with Custom Artwork and Artists.
- Be Descriptive: Artists are not mind readers and until you work with them a couple times, be as descriptive as you can be. For instance, instead of saying "Minecraft" say something like "Can I get a minecraft mountain with grass, a horse (brown) with a rider striking his sword in the air!" The more detailed you can be up front, the less revisions and back and forth you'll have with the artist towards the final product.
Opt2Not and I have worked together before so we have a trust relationship. I trust his vision when I tell him more generalized concepts and he trusts that I believe in his creativity - Time: It takes time to get the creative juices flowing, sketch and color these pieces of art. Generally weeks as the artist most likely has a full time job in addition to doing your ask. For us, we had a very small window so I stole a lot of Opt2Not's personal time during this window.
As a human that is not lost on me and I offered to pay more for the rush job. I also paid upfront completely, making sure Opt2Not felt empowered to just "go" when it came to the art itself. - Money: I need to say this, because it costs money and it can be more expensive than you first imagine. I'm always taken back to the Reddit post where the guy does quilts and someone asks for an 8x8 foot one and the dude quotes like $360. The person responds with $50 and the dude breaks down his time and materials cost. Kick ass artwork takes time and will cost money because kick ass artists are worth it.
Like a master wood worker, better quality and detail will cost you more.
Game on Grafix printed the side art and marquee. Dude is a rock star. He rushed my order, was in contact and locked down everything I needed.
Opt2Nots designs and finished artwork:
Finally, the finished product. I will be going back and cleaning up many things but I am pleased how it turned out and the reveal to little man was epic, well as epic can be expected for an 8 year old. We've been playing lots of games now, Altered beast, Sunset riders, X-Men, etc. It's awesome introducing this back to him.
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Topic: Minicade - "Athancade" - Completed (Read 6704 times)
