Dave's Arcade

[drunkatuw]

I was planning on waiting to announce my cabinet until it was finished, but now I realize why so many people say "the cabinet is never finished."  Plans are loosely based on Lusid's plans.  I've got an old 27" Sony tv running the display.

I plan on eventually adding a custom marquee and maybe sideart once I get the creative juices flowing.

I'm still working on making a website with more pictures, but I'll post a few here to see what everyone thinks.

www.drunkatuw.com/arcade/

[drunkatuw]

primed.

[drunkatuw]

it's getting there.

[drunkatuw]

This is where it sits today...planning on putting in a smart strip and making "one button turn it all on" this weekend.

[SNAAAKE]

Nicely done,I like

[SkateDetroit]

Looks great, I dig the stools.

[RecycledPast]

Looks good.  What did you use for the trackball?  How's it installed?  Did you have to bevel the plexi around the trackball opening?

[drunkatuw]

The stools my parents got at an auction when a diner in the area closed.  They got 4 of those awesome stools and two matching bar tables...I wish they were mine  .

As for the trackball, it's a happ's golden tee 3" trackball.  I didn't "bevel" the plexi, I just cut the hole in the wood and then used a router with a flush bit to recreate the hole in the plexi.  It's mounted with a metal mounting plate from happs.  It's connected using oscar's USB mouse hack and happ's trackball harness from oscar.

I'm looking for a picture of a closeup of the trackball, but I don't seem to have one...I'll take one when I get off work tonight.

[Apollo]

Great job on the cab but those stools rock dude! I want one.

[drunkatuw]

I don't know if these stools have the same quality as the ones my parents bought, but they are all over ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=38201&item=2394677098&rd=1

just search for 'retro bar stool'

Edit:  These are the same stools...but much more expensive than the ebay ones...like 4x!
http://www.americanchairs.com/dinerbarstool.html

Don't always go with the first thing google returns...on to the second page, you can find the same stools for only $69
http://www.bar-stools-barstools.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=291

[SirPeale]

Man, that eBay auction you posted...read the guys fine print!  Amazing!

[SkateDetroit]

There is a game room shop down the street from me that sells those types of stools with various things printed on them (sports teams, budweiser, etc). They ask $89 for one. Seem like pretty good quality though. The ones from the EBAY auction remind me of some I saw at Big Lots. Not the greatest quality. Ahh well... one day I'll have the uber stool.

[drunkatuw]

Here's a closeup of my trackball.  You can see that the lip of the trackball is almost completely flush with the plexi.

[drunkatuw]

Thanks to the awesome work of rom and JoyMonkey, I'm starting to narrow down my artwork decisions.

This is something I threw together quickly in photoshop.
The otherside would have the same art except it would have ARCADE instead of CLASSICS.

What do you think?

[drunkatuw]

Don't have a kinko's within 75 miles of me, so I thought I'd print a test run on my laser before I decide to get it professionally done.  Here is what my trusty samsun printer put out.

[drunkatuw]

close up

[flampoo]

I like the idea of a new marquee and sideart for your cab, but I think you should use a grey base to match your cp instead of going with blue. Keep the lettering colored but change the background to grey. It'll look top notch.

[Rom]

I'm a bit concerned about how the white light from the explosion seems to stand out too much in the pic I created. Seeing it in black and white like you have printed shows it up quite a bit. Hmmm

[MameMaster!]

I have a great place for a wholesale price on restaurant quality stools like the one in your pic.

I picked up a red 50's "sparkle" one that I only paid about $89. for with shipping. It's absolutely top quality and they were really nice even though I'm obviously not a restaurant and I only wanted one.

The company is called ServU-On line:

http://www.servu-online.com//subpages/groupings.asp?dept=1&Cat=9

They have a ton of choices....I kinda of regret I didn't get one with a back....but I think the stool looks "cooler".

Good Luck!

EDIT---  I just checked out some of the links I saw in a post above mine....those stools look similar but these are the "real deal" restaurant quality. The ones you're seeing on those links look good; but they are not as sturdy as they're look alikes not real restaurant supplies.

....and no, I don't work for ServU!

MameMaster!

[hulkster]

drunkatuw:
what kind of primer did you use?  im assuming thats mdf that you built it out of.  im getting close to painting mine, and ive searched the boards for what primer to use but got like 4000000 different opinions, yours looks good...what kind of primer did you use?  and the name brand of it would be helpful too  

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guys who are looking for bar stools:
i got mine freee from my older brother, and they are industry strong/quality that you would get from happs or from a restaraunt.  he works for Porter Cable power tools, and he has to go to home depot and lowes and stuff to make sure that the tools are set up right, and to show demos, etc.  heres what he said to me about the stools he gave to me: "i have about 20 of these things in my garage that we GIVE out for free to customers at home depot."

so maybe you should go to home depot and ask them if they have any of those "shop stools" for sale or for free!  the only  bad thing, is that my stools, although sturdy and the seat cover is really nice...they have a big white Porter Cable label on the seat.  all i would have to do is have it reapolstered, but they are really good anyway.  just thought i would throw that in there.  happy stool searching (heh)

[drunkatuw]

hulkster,
For my primer, I just went to home depot and asked for high gloss black paint and said I needed some primer to go with it.  They got me behr premium enamel undercover primer & sealer.  If they're nice, they might even tint the primer.  For me they put a little bit of black dye into the primer so the white primer wouldn't show through the black paint as much.

And surprisingly, I put mine together with particle board as I couldn't find any 5/8" MDF in my area and particle board was less than half of what MDF was at the time.

[rchadd]

Here's a closeup of my trackball.  You can see that the lip of the trackball is almost completely flush with the plexi.

have you any tips on how you got such a good finish?

[drunkatuw]

have you any tips on how you got such a good finish?

Learn from your own mistakes  Actually, I screwed up my first trackball mounting plate because the router got out of hand and cut right thru the metal.  So I used the old one and created a wood template that my flush router bit could use as a guide on the plexi.  I just transfered the wood from the ruined mounting plate to the new one and routed out the plexi.  It almost fit perfectly the first try, but I have to admit that I did use a very fine file to allow the trackball to fit perfectly.  Of course if you have a 3" hole saw, then you could easily create the template that way, but I didn't have one nor did I want to spend anymore money on drill our router bits.

Hope this helps.  I've attached a picture of my template.

[drunkatuw]

flampoo suggested the black and white background.  I'm not sure which version I like better.

Any suggestions?

[Madman]

Meijer's has stools that look almost exactly like those blue ones except they are black. They are 29 inches and perfect for an arcade (I bought two).


they are 39.00 bucks!

If anyone wants to see what they look like let me know!