Project: Dallas Arcade

[llama]

I've wanted to do this for a long time, and I've finally started my own cabinet.  My initial inspiration was probably Pocketz "Ultimate" arcade cabinet, which I stumbled across five or six years ago. 

I've been following the guidelines from Saint's great book, and I modified the design somewhat with inspiration from Knievel's Dynamo style cabinets.  Knievel has been a tremendous help providing measurements, and he's actually routing out my CP top, as that seemed beyond my meager woodworking skills.  Everything else I'm tackling myself.

At this point, I'm actually about two weeks into the project and I'm pretty far along...the frame is just about finished, and I'm at the painting stage.  Pics and commentary are available here...

http://www.kodakgallery.com/wheeler/main/dallas_arcade

I've been lurking here for a long time, so a big thanks goes out to all who have unwittingly answered 99% of any questions I may have had.

[javeryh]

It looks very nice so far - how did you cut the nice curves in the sides?  I'm guessing you were careful with the jigsaw and then just did a nice job sanding but maybe I'm missing a woodworking trick or something...

[llama]

No, I definitely don't know any woodworking tricks.  You had it right...I just drew the design on the MDF and then carefully cut it out with the jigsaw.  I had to make sure I had a blade that bent enough to cut curves.  Then I sanded it down and used a flush trim bit in my router to make the duplicate side.  It really came out a lot better than I expected!

[javeryh]

That's exactly how I would have done it - those pattern cutting bits are awesome.  I actually use that with a straightedge to make straight cuts after cutting to about 1/8" to the line with my jigsaw because I don't have a table saw ... yet.

My next project is going to be an upright if I ever finish my cocktail.

[spyderdsm]

coming out good...I like the design...Do you have the plans available??

[dkammer]

Hey...looks nice!  You seem to be making a little quicker progress then I am.

Are you close to Plano?  Maybe we should meet up and compare notes.

   Darren
 

[llama]

Most of my plans are hand drawn, but when I get a chance I'll put something together and post it.  Before I started I really wanted to have specific plans to go by, but when it came down to the acutal construction, I kind of just winged it.

Thanks for the compliments Darren...I've been following your build as well, although I didn't feel confident enough to tackle a similiar modular panel.  You'll notice I copied your kodak gallery layout.  I've had some free time recently, so that's why I've made some good progress.  As for Plano, no, I'm not really close...I'm in Maryland.  Dallas is just my street name. 

[llama]

I've posted some more pictures.  I'm getting close to finishing my project.  The custom CP from Knievel arrived this week, and I've spent the last couple of days putting it together.  I think the artwork....(from someone else here, but I'm not sure who) looks pretty cool. 

http://www.kodakgallery.com/wheeler/main/dallas_arcade

Issues:
-The Ms.Pac-Man/Galaga reunion stick is really stiff and not very responsive.  I'll have to figure out why, as I plan to use this stick alot for classic games. 

-The mouse and spinner don't seem to be recognized yet either.  I've got them wired into a Opti-pac....I'll have to double check the wiring.  (edit...fixed...the axes were labeled wrong, and I had the jumpers wrong)

-The Betson monitor sure does make an annoying high pitched whine.  I hope that can be tweaked or resolved, as high frequency noises drive me nuts.

-My computer has a case of the random restarts.  I'm using an old P3 800mhz with 512mb ram.  More than enough horsepower to run old games.  I think its a hardware issue as the same symptom would occur when I had linux installed on it a few months ago.  I've already tested the power supply and memory, so that's not it.  Lately its occurring when I try to install WinIpac.msi from Ultimarc.  It'll get almost to the very end of the install procedure and then the computer will suddenly reboot.  Quite annoying to say the least.

That's all for now.  Comments are always welcome!  Thanks!

[Crafty]

Looking fantastic..

It must be very hard to keep working on it now that its so functional...