TakeAChance
TYM White Knight
So, I always wanted to have my very own arcade cabinet. As a kid I was going to arcades basically during the tail end of their popularity, but I LOVED playing those old coin games.
When I was around 8 years old they were so scare around my area that convenience stores were pretty much our only option, and that meant the same games for years. A buddy of mine and I loved to play Aerofighters on one of these cabs and spent countless ammounts of quarters in a mom and pop convenience store playing their cab.
Then, one day, that cab left the store and never returned. The only other arcade just shut down and it became a rarity to find cabs near me.
Well, I did some internet searching and found out that a lot of people build mame cabinets. Mame is a emulator that plays all of the old arcade classics. This peaked my interest and I began digging further...
I want to turn my unfinished basement (concrete) into somewhat of a man cave, however, the dimensions are not in my favour. The ceilings are 6ft high and unfinished (rafters) and the door way is about 28" wide so I don't have a lot of clearance. Getting a prebuilt cab down there was impossible, so it left me no choice but to build it down there.
I had to work with dimensions that were beneficial to my basement and decided to create a 2ft wide cab which would fit a 22" widescreen monitor (which is what I plan on throwing in it) or a 19" crt.
I wanted to do this the cheapest way possible. I have no wood working experience, hell I barely have any tools...but my uncle and I are in the process of re wiring the upstairs so I have his tools at my disposal. I found a plan and set to work. Here is said plan:
I had some old Chip board up in my attic (discovered during the rewiring process) and while it may look garish now, I plan on putting some wood vaneer on it to make it have that nice looking wood finish.
I haven't used a circular saw since high school so I was a bit intimidated at first. However, after a few cuts I began to get comfortable. The first evening I cut one of my side panels after carefully measuring the dimensions on the plan above.
This was the result. One of my side panels is completed! I called it a night there.
Today I went out and used the original cut to trace yet another side panel. Saw slipped a couple times, but luckily it will be on the inside of the unit (it didn't go through, just scuffed the wood).
I then shaved off a couple 8ths of wood to make sure they were the exact same size. After that, I measure both side panels (Both the same height!)
I then took that measuremeant and cut my back panel seen here:
With my sheets being exactly 2 feet wide, getting a proper sized base was easy. I had a piece from my scrap wood and just need to cut it down a few inches.
I then took these pieces (The biggest pieces that I will need to work with and transported them down into my basement. The fit!
In my excitement outside (and because I don't have wood clamps) I laid my sheets out just to get the general idea of how it was looking, here it is :
None of this is fastened.
My next step will be finding a piece of 2x4 and creating supports along the bottom of the cab to give it some weight and sturdyness.
I will update this thread as I go. I am having a lot of fun learning about wood working and seeing the cab even in it's current state makes me giddy.
Wish me luck!
When I was around 8 years old they were so scare around my area that convenience stores were pretty much our only option, and that meant the same games for years. A buddy of mine and I loved to play Aerofighters on one of these cabs and spent countless ammounts of quarters in a mom and pop convenience store playing their cab.
Then, one day, that cab left the store and never returned. The only other arcade just shut down and it became a rarity to find cabs near me.
Well, I did some internet searching and found out that a lot of people build mame cabinets. Mame is a emulator that plays all of the old arcade classics. This peaked my interest and I began digging further...
I want to turn my unfinished basement (concrete) into somewhat of a man cave, however, the dimensions are not in my favour. The ceilings are 6ft high and unfinished (rafters) and the door way is about 28" wide so I don't have a lot of clearance. Getting a prebuilt cab down there was impossible, so it left me no choice but to build it down there.
I had to work with dimensions that were beneficial to my basement and decided to create a 2ft wide cab which would fit a 22" widescreen monitor (which is what I plan on throwing in it) or a 19" crt.
I wanted to do this the cheapest way possible. I have no wood working experience, hell I barely have any tools...but my uncle and I are in the process of re wiring the upstairs so I have his tools at my disposal. I found a plan and set to work. Here is said plan:
I had some old Chip board up in my attic (discovered during the rewiring process) and while it may look garish now, I plan on putting some wood vaneer on it to make it have that nice looking wood finish.
I haven't used a circular saw since high school so I was a bit intimidated at first. However, after a few cuts I began to get comfortable. The first evening I cut one of my side panels after carefully measuring the dimensions on the plan above.
This was the result. One of my side panels is completed! I called it a night there.
Today I went out and used the original cut to trace yet another side panel. Saw slipped a couple times, but luckily it will be on the inside of the unit (it didn't go through, just scuffed the wood).
I then shaved off a couple 8ths of wood to make sure they were the exact same size. After that, I measure both side panels (Both the same height!)
I then took that measuremeant and cut my back panel seen here:
With my sheets being exactly 2 feet wide, getting a proper sized base was easy. I had a piece from my scrap wood and just need to cut it down a few inches.
I then took these pieces (The biggest pieces that I will need to work with and transported them down into my basement. The fit!
In my excitement outside (and because I don't have wood clamps) I laid my sheets out just to get the general idea of how it was looking, here it is :
None of this is fastened.
My next step will be finding a piece of 2x4 and creating supports along the bottom of the cab to give it some weight and sturdyness.
I will update this thread as I go. I am having a lot of fun learning about wood working and seeing the cab even in it's current state makes me giddy.
Wish me luck!
