Pipes, Pints, and Polyhedrons

This weekend I wanted to kick off some work on the arcade cab, but first I needed to get tools and the wood. Couldn't fit the boards in my SUV, so I had to ask my neighbor to run up to Home Depot and bring them back in his truck. He was totally cool with helping out so I managed to get a single sheet of 3/4" MDF, which will be used for the cab sides and a single sheet of 1/2" MDF, which will be used for everything else (front panel, back panel, top, speaker plate, and control board).

This stuff is heavy. You definitely benefit from having someone help lug the full sheets around. Prices on the wood, the sheets I picked up were 4'x8', the 3/4" ran $32, the 1/2" sheet about $25. Essential for just over $60, I should have all of the wood I need to build the full cabinet. I may need to pick up some brace boards to run along the back of the frame, otherwise, this should be 99% of it all.


In my previous post, I mentioned some tools I would need to get, in order to make this happen. Pricing things out, it was going to be pretty up there. Router, jigsaw, sander, plus all of the blades and bits, etc. This doesn't even include the screws, glue, primer, or paint. Probably somewhere around $200 just for the power tools, luckily I was able to ask around to some friends who have done wood crafting here and there. I managed to snag a jigsaw and sander, I just have to get blades and the sand paper. I also found a router from my neighbor, though I'll have to get the right bit to cut the t-molding groove along the cab edges. Still, saving all of that money is a good thing. At some point, if I like the way this project turns out, I will probably buy everything to have on hand for future projects. One of the more obscure items I had to find was a tape measure with metric system units on it because the plans I'm using for the cab is in millimeters. Home Depot had a small 6' tape measure for about $4 so I picked that up because aside from the back panel, 6' should be long enough to measure out the rest of the pieces in one go.

Since I didn't have the wood yesterday to start laying out the measurements for the frame, I decided to start initial work for the control panel. I downloaded my preferred button layout from this site: SlagCoin. I printed out two of the 8-button layouts, but then trimmed off the two far right buttons, since I don't intend to use this cab for anything that would need more than six buttons. I also wanted to make sure there was enough room for two players to be comfortable playing on the control board.

In order to get an idea of what will be placed where, I stuck the two sheets on a piece of foam core board, cut to the dimension of the control board.


It was already somewhat late when I did this, I didn't bother to tape anything down. I still have to finish the mock up and add buttons for player selections and a couple other things. The real work will be next weekend. I'll finally get the chance to get the wood onto the saw horses, the measurements drawn out, and with luck, all of the pieces completely cut.

Welp. I did a thing.

I actually started the project yesterday and in the amount of time I've spent working, managed to get pretty far along.

Saturday I drew out the side panels and them cut them out. IMO, this is one of the most difficult parts of the project. Cutting out the smaller boards, which are generally straight lines, isn't too difficult. I've never done any wood working prior to this project, not even a shop class in high school. Using a jigsaw isn't hard, but you have to go slow and steady to get a good straight cut. Unfortunately, up close, you can see some waver in the edges of the cabinet side panels. Thankfully, with a little bit of sanding and the fact I'm adding T-Molding, the imperfections should be unnoticeable.


Hindsight, I would definitely suggest using a table saw to cut the majority of the pieces to ensure cleaner cuts or at least a jigsaw with track. After getting the sides cut, I picked up some pre-cut, 6ft pine strips to use as the molding inside the cabinet. This made things much easier and saved time compared to cutting blocks from the MDF board. With the molding cut, I measured out the spots, laid them out, then used wood glue and a few screws to start anchoring them down.


That was pretty much where things stood Saturday evening. On Sunday, I got back to it, cutting out the smaller boards for the back, front, top, bottom, and speakers. I added on the back molding that had been missing along with a couple smaller blocks. Once all of that was done, I was finally ready to put the two sides together with the bottom and top pieces.

It was really cool to see the majority of the cabinet put together, I was very pleased, especially with my lack of experience doing this sort of thing.


After that, it was on to the front panel. The only thing I really needed to do, was cut out the hole for the coin door. Some quick measurements and then some work with a hole saw and the jigsaw and BOOM, done.


The rain rolled in and daylight faded faster than usual so I wrapped up a bit early. Here is the cab as I left it this evening.


I ordered in the speakers, amp and some other items which should show up tomorrow from Amazon. Before I put in the speaker panel, I need to measure out and cut the holes for the speakers to fit through. Once that's done, I'll be cutting out a hole in the back panel to put a power switch, and then a hole or six for airflow in the cabinet. I'll probably also begin placement of the monitor along with work on the control panel, maybe starting layout of the holes for the buttons and joysticks.

All in all, a great start to this project, really looking forward to the final product.

You can totally tell how great that’s going to look already!! So cool. Definitely a cool project.

Thanks Ron!

Did a little bit more today, got the speaker holes cut, albeit begrudgingly. Lol. Cutting a small hole with a jigsaw is a lot of trial and error, even when going slow. Still, once sanded down, painted and the speaker grills are put on, you won't see any of the raw cuts.


Also mounted the control panel molding. If all goes as planned and the items for the inside comes in this week, I'm hoping to have all of the cabinet pieces done by Friday. If the weather isn't too yuck, I'd like to get it primed and painted Saturday or latest, Sunday. The biggest time sink is priming, waiting to dry, sanding smooth, priming again, waiting to dry, sanding again, then painting, drying, painting again.

Kick ass, bro! That is coming along most kosherly!

That looks awesome, Jay! You could turn this into a hobby business on the side, I bet!

Allan.

grodog wrote: ↑February 19th, 2020, 10:09 pm That looks awesome, Jay! You could turn this into a hobby business on the side, I bet!

Allan.

Haha, thanks Allan, you're not to first to suggest that.

Alright, a small update from today. I'd initially planned to be much further along, since I had Friday off, but Em got sick and had to stay home and Friday was down in the high 40s and low 50s, so it was a tad too chilly to be outside, even in the garage working so I just decided skip any work on the cab.

Got back out there today, but random issues kept creeping into my time, either running errands for various things, or running to Home Depot to pick up stuff I needed as I was working. Overall, though I'm not too put out, I knocked out some big things I wanted to get done, though tomorrow I still have a good bit. I was hoping to start painting this weekend but I don't think I'll be there just yet.

First thing I did was go buy a router, the one I borrowed didn't want to loosen up so I could swap out the bit. I really didn't want to shell out the money for a router, but I need one to cut the groove for the T-Molding, so oh well, now I own one for whatever comes up in the future. Overall, the process was easy. It took a few tries to get the bit at the right height to cut in the center of the panel edges. The first side I did went smooth and turned out great. The second side, I had a couple spots where I either lifted or turned the router the wrong way and it cut grooves a bit wider than planned. The molding should still seat ok, but I'm probably going to have to glue it down to ensure it doesn't bubble up.


Second thing I did was drill out the holes for the speaker screws and do a dry run of putting a couple in to make sure it was going to work.


The gaps from the rugged cut were a bit noticeable from the side, but I think once everything is painted and the back of the cabinet is closed, you won't be able to see anything from the angle of the speakers, in place. If for any reason there is light bleed or anything off, I'll probably just get some black speaker cloth and put it over the holes, behind the grill.

Got the speaker panel actually mounted into the cab and then I moved on to mounting the monitor. I used some foam core to cut out a square the size of the monitor stand connector, then pressed it down to get the indention of screws so I could see where to drill the holes. I traced the foam square on some wood, cut it out, then taped the foam on top, then drilled out the holes. Next I cut a piece of wood the width of the cabinet to use as the actual mounting board. I realized I had bought the wrong length screws and had to run to Home Depot to get the right ones. Came back, centered the wood square to the mounting board then screwed it down, then drilled holes through the mounting board so I could screw down into the back panel of the monitor.


Hindsight, I probably could have just done away with the smaller wood square and just screwed the mounting board into the panel, but I didn't like the idea of there being a 1/4th inch gap. Regardless, either way would have worked and this feels like the monitor is really secure.


Once I got the monitor screwed down onto the mounting panel, placed it in the cab where I had the mounting strips. Unfortunately, the strips were just not in the right place to fit the monitor at the angles it was at. So, after some thought I just unscrewed the strips and used a hammer and flat head screwdriver to rip them off. Once off, I spent a good bit of time sorting out the best spot and angle to mount the monitor, also ensuring I would have room to included a bezel and piece of glass, to cover the monitor. I finally had some luck and it looks like everything will fit as I'd like, so as it stands tonight, here is what the cab looks like with the monitor dry mounted into the cabinet.

And after today, I'm happy to say, this cabinet is almost complete for the building part of the project. There are some minor things I have left to do.

Add some extra brackets to the monitor frame to keep it in from tilting forward in the event the cab were to tilt forward
Cut a small hole in the back panel door for running in the cord from a power strip to the wall.
Add inserts into the control panel frame to bolt down the control panel once it's ready.
Drill out the holes in the control panel.

Once all of that is done, which shouldn't take more than an hour or two, I can finally begin the priming and painting. Unfortunately I just didn't get to it this weekend. Oh well.

Here are some pics from today.