mjmjr25's Custom Wood Arcade Cabinet - DONE! 6/17/12

[noiseredux]

that is just freakin' amazing.

[Blu]

Really quite beautiful. I think you did a great job. I like the Sega flourish for your arcade pads. Nice and clean looking.

[fvgazi]

MJ, you are one extremely talented person. This is inspiring me to finish off my supergun stuff I've wanted to work on.

This project just looks plain fantastic. I am a sucker for wood grain and natural finish. Words can't do this project justice. I don't know if many people realize the skill that went into all the cutting and beveling/whatnot.

.. and I almost forgot! Congrats on your project!(nice choice on the blue bubbletops )

[CRTGAMER]

^Hmmm, not a crazy idea. I want to see what it looks like once I put a Marquee on top. I'm not sold on anything yet, other than it will be wood and have some design and / or engraving. Once that is on, I can see better if I want to add anything else or not. In the end, it needs to look like a nice piece of furniture when not in use since it is in our family room.

That coin reject switch is really easy. Just bend a metal bracket behind it to align a micro switch. The hardest part is rotozipping out the square hole in the wood for the button, not a big deal with your wood working skills.

A followup tease for Twinstick. Maybe give the PS1 Williams disc a try if you have it? Once you try out Robotron thru simple menu configuration settings, might convince to try the mod for other games?

From my Twinstick Guide:

Twinstick without expense or mod - A simple Menu Setup
An undocumented feature via Two Player controllers

PS1 allowed custom controls in the Arcade Classics series. Player two controller can be customized to work with player one. Robotron Player 1 can control movement and Player two can fire. Now if two Arcade digital sticks are plugged in, the player two stick can be made as the directional fire buttons. See where I am leading? Single player now has Dual Stick control just like the original Arcade! When I first discovered this I was truly back in Twin Stick heaven!

Notice there are no hardware mods, just configurations in the game menu.

[Luke]

Very unique.

[dsheinem]

A followup tease for Twinstick.

From my Twinstick Guide:

WTF

[CRTGAMER]

WTF

Okay kill another thread with your flames. Contribute or just go away.

[sevin0seven]

Mike, that is a beauty! great work bro!



BRILLIANT!

can't wait to come over and play with that thing..

[mjmjr25]

Thanks for all the nice comments guys.

It was definitely a labor of love - overall i'm pleased. I always have this grand idea in my head and when things come to fruition, there are always things you wish turned out better.

On this project, i'm really really pleased. Particularly with the function - so stoked to be playing all these SFC/SNES shooties and beat 'em ups on legit arcade sticks.

As for regrets - i'm going to countersink some more attractive nuts - so that will take care of those ugly phillips and flat screws that I used temporarily.

The only other thing I really wish had turned out differently, the side panels are plywood and needed some glue veneer banding. I've typically had good luck with veneers. However, for some reason this time, maybe the manufacturer put too much glue on? Dunno, but it oozed out a bit (never had that happen). I saw it when it happened but really nothing can be done about it, stuff dries up fast. At any rate - wasn't terribly worried until I went to stain and noticed that stain was absorbing in at all - so there are some lighter spots at those seems. It isn't terrible and seems to be showing up worse when using flash on the camera - and now it's bugging me. But when I stop taking photos, I won't notice it as much Also - our lower level is fairly dark due to lack of much natural light - so pretty nice for small imperfections.

My projects I do for my wife I always seem to take more time on and they turn out better (quilt rack, computer table, etc) and then I tend to rush my projects. I really took my time on this one as I see it being a piece of furniture as much as anything else. Afterall - that TV can be used for movies and such as well, or for using PC as it has VGA and DVi inputes.

Tonight i'll snap some pics of the back - honestly the coolest thing about this is the rotate feature, but also the way the monitor rests in the bezel, sorta cool.

[Casey120]

Kids playing and enjoying an Arcade automatically awards it the double awesome stamp from me !