I have finally started my cabinet!!! (Now With Pictures! 13-APR-2008)

[Jdurg]

Got the Lexan completely cut and routed today, and also bought a gallon of paint.  The paint I got is like a pumpkin/brown mix that I think will look good and is the gawdy orange/brown color that many bars seem to be painted in.  Since I'm doing a "Drunken Clam" Family Guy style cabinet, I think this will work best.

For artwork, I'm going to go and have Mamemarquees print out a vinyl CP overlay, but on the cab sides I'll hand paint/stencil the cartoon figures there as it shouldn't be too difficult and I think the price of full artwork would be a bit much.

More pictures will come once I've got the entire CP painted properly.  Still need to figure out how to latch the top down to the CP Box, but I think some velcro will easily handle that.  I'll just glue some support blocks to the interior walls and use velcro to keep it all together.  Then I'll get the 1" T-Molding for the CP and it will be done! 

[Jdurg]

Alrighty.  Time to post some pictures of what I've done thus far.  What I'm most upset about is that I did NOT document my coin-door restoration project.  Seeing how great it came out, I REALLY wish that I had taken photographs of it when it was really beat up and in bad shape upon arriving.  Total, I spent about $60 on the door if you include all the spare parts I had to buy and the materials needed to restore it.

First off is the photo of the door with the keys down below it.  I bought the two locks (with matching keys) from the hardware section of Home Depot and they look just like the originals should have looked.

The next photo is of the coin mechs fully restored and the coin box re-finished. When I got this coin door, the door itself was pretty dented, the coin box was HORRIFICALLY rusted, and the mechs looked horrendous.  Nothing would work right and one out of every two quarters would get stuck and not come out.  Help from folks here on this board and from some elbow grease cleaned it up and turned it into a flawless door that will be used in my cabinet.  (Right now, the coin door is the world's greatest piggy bank.  I just can't stop putting quarters in there.  I must have $50 or so worth of quarters saved in there).

[Jdurg]

In the three photos below, you'll first see the mess that was created by my first attempt at woodworking.  The failed initial attempt at making the control panel resulted in a new "shelf" of sorts to rest junk on.  Prior to starting on this panel, I had absolutely no woodworking experience.  Now, after failing once, I have a pretty good amount.   

Picture two is a shot from my spare bedroom where the coin-door restoration took place and where I've got most of the parts for the control panel just lying about.  Dozens of buttons, some joysticks, microswitches, wire, etc. just sit on the bed.  Eventually, I'll be moving the bed and dresser out of this spare bedroom into my office room upstairs and turning this room into my game room.  (I already have a dart board in there, and if I knock down the closet in the corner I could fit a couple cabs in here and maybe a dry bar if I squeeze things in.  It's not really a huge room, but it can be fun if I work on it).

Picture three is of the Lexan that I cut out using the score and snap method, then routed out the button holes and trackball hole.  The router just ate right through the Lexan like a hot knife through butter, and the vacuum attachment kept all the hot plastic dust out of my way.  The Lexan fits beautifully, and while the controller holes were a bit messy, I'm of the "dust washer on top" philosophy so the messed up holes will be covered. 

[Jdurg]

And finally, my built CP after being painted and waiting to dry.  I've already painted the bottom and have six or seven coats of paint on it.  I will be giving it a sanding with some very fine grit sand paper (by hand) once the finish has cured for a few weeks.  I just want to give it plenty of time.  The orange color just really stuck out at me when I was looking for colors at Home Depot.  For some reason, I really see it matching well with some Black T-Molding, and a dark maroon/brown color for the top half of the cab.  The cab is going to have a Family Guy Theme to it and will either be called the Drunke Clam, or the Drunken Cade.  (I think the Drunken Cade would work great, and I could use the Drunken Clam type image but with an arcade drinking instead of the clam). 

For the artwork, I will be using a bar-top like design with an ash-tray representing the trackball area, Pawtucket Patriot coaster type designs around the joysticks, and some wood-grain type patterns (cartoonish, of course) for the main top.  The sides of the cab will be a continuation of the bar (it will look like the cab bottom is the bottom half of a bar) and the top will be the maroonish/brown color to differentiate between the top and bottom.  I will then have drawings of Peter (drunk off his ass), Quagmire and Brian with Stewie perhaps adoring the front.  I haven't even begun to think about the artwork though as that will take me a lot of time to figure out the exact specifics and draw everything out since I don't think the poses I need exist in any epsiode of Family Guy.