Just Another Refurbished Cabinet

[CapriRS302]

I in no way have gone near as far or worked nearly as hard as most people on this forum, however I have sank some considerable time/money into my machine ad I would like to share it with everybody here, so here goes.....

I have wanted one of these since I first saw MAME, around the year 2000 (actually, since I was about 10 in 1987) but it didn't reallt hit me again until about a month ago, when I was thumbing through craigslist and found someone selling an empty cab and  an X-Arcade for $100.  I missed the sale, but got the bug.  I then tracked down an old non-working machine (monitor was out) for about 80 bucks.  It had a game called "Avengers" in it at the time, and the outside stickers were painted over.  When I got it home, I stripped it clean, tossed the old monitor, marquee, and what not, stripped off all of the paint from the outside (revealing the original stickers, which were for "Krull") and continued to strip those off until the wood was clean.  For the life of me I could not get a smooth paint job so I went with a heavy roller and it put in a nice texture, which I think I actually like better.  Anyway, after doing the usual (replacing t-molding, repainting parts, etc.) I ordered a bunch of controls from ultimarc and designed my CP.  To make a long story short, in four short weeks I ended up with this...  (I didn't bother to take any pics of the building process, just too lazy I guess)

[CapriRS302]

And here are some more, including a few screenies of the skin I created for MaLa using a few "borrowed" graphics
(by the way, the pictures do not do the machine justice, the flash kills the picture, and the darkness fuzz's the screen.  I'm using a 21 inch flatscreen PC monitor and it looks great.  The tinted plexiglass in the front hides everything and gives off a wonderful "built-in" effect)

[ratzz]

Cab looks great - good job.

I have a feeling you may get some comments about the angle of those buttons though. they look like they could become uncomfortable after a while of playing. How do you find them?

[CapriRS302]

They're not bad.  I know that layout may be off, I didn't use any references when laying it out, but I've played for hours on end with no problem/complaints, so I think that they're okay.

[ratzz]

They're not bad.  I know that layout may be off, I didn't use any references when laying it out, but I've played for hours on end with no problem/complaints, so I think that they're okay.

Thats the main thing -- that you don't have problems playing and you enjoy! 

I'm still undecided about my button layout. Straight, kind of curved, to one angle!