An Arcade Machine...Work in progress

[martink]

Looking like the real thing. You are never too young.

I'd try to get one in here somewhere, but I can't fit it. I was going to buy a tabletop version with my Dad several years ago - Frogger, Galaga, 1942 etc. in another life, but we never got there.

Why buy it when you can make it! Think about it for a second, it's cheaper, you can make it to fit the space you have, you get the ultimate say on the features it will have and what it will look like and best of all it's an excuse to use all those woodworking tools!

Ciao,

M.

[Waldo]

Why buy it when you can make it! Think about it for a second, it's cheaper, you can make it to fit the space you have, you get the ultimate say on the features it will have and what it will look like and best of all it's an excuse to use all those woodworking tools!

Ciao,

M.

That's why I'm really enjoying watching your progress and how you are tackling it.

[martink]

OK, the next thing to do is to make the bezel look good. Now remember that I need to have the monitor rotate and at the same time have no ugly gaps which means it's back to cutting circles out of plywood for me.

All the parts that make up the front bezel are going to be covered in black felt not only to accentuate the monitor but also to provide a little give so there is no gap between the moving and static parts.

So to get onto it, I first cut two circles, one for the monitor and a second that will be attached to the cabinet. The Circle for the monitor is larger than the hole I cut in the bezel section that is attached to the cabinet so I have some overlap. The monitor disk will rub against the cabinet mounted bezel plate and with both covered in felt there should be no visible gap between them whilst at the same time allowing just enough room to allow for the monitor to turn with little friction.

From the first photo I have already cut the cabinet section of the bezel and begun covering it with felt.

The next trick is to fill in the gap that will be left between the monitor bezel disk and the monitor. The disk is flat but the monitor is not; it's an old monitor with a curved screen. This means two things, it's a real pain to make it flat and secondly (most importantly for me) gives teh machine a nice authentic look!

To make a flat into a curve I stuck balsa to the underside edges of the rectangular hole then used a rasp to shape it to the curve of the monitor. I used the original plastic case the monitor was extracted from as a guide in this process. Once this was done I covered it with a layer of felt. There will be another layer of felt attached to this later on once it's glued to the monitor assembly.

Next I made up some stand-offs or brackets (whatever you would like to call them) to mount the disk to the monitor assembly. I didn't want to stick these directly to the monitor glass as this would not be a very good support and sticking to glass is a pain. I also placed many layers of cling wrap over the screen of the monitor to protect it from stray glue and filler that I would be using in the finishing process once the monitor disk was glued on.

The final part of this process was to glue on the disk to the monitor after test fitting. Who ever said you can have enough clamps Once this was dry I filled in any gaps between the monitor and bezel then covered teh whole lot with another layer of felt and trimmed it up.

For those of you with a keen eye you can see the painted arcade machine cabinet in the background. I'll go into how I did this in the next post.

Ciao,

M.

[martink]

Onto the painting! I don't have enough photos of the in progress painting but I'll describe the process.

Before I start in on this I probably should tell you what I wanted the finish to look like. I wanted a gloss black finish but didn't want it to show finger prints so a fine textured gloss finish was what I was after. Off to bunnies and grabbed some white undercoat and black gloss exterior paint. While I was there I also picked up some 115mm little foam rollers and a 50mm paint brush to put it on with.

The foam roller will give a nice fine textured finish while still allowing for a shiny look.

Onto the laborious steps. First I filled all the screw holes with auto filler then sanded and skimmed any blemishes with water based wood filler. Once this was all nice and flat I then applied with white undercoat. The roller made this a reasonable quick task and I used the brush to get into the nooks and crannies. I then sanded that nice and flat with some 180 grit and began applying the black paint using the same method. After the first coat of black paint I sanded with 220 grit paper and applied the second coat. Sanded again with 220 grit and applied a third and final coat.

The end result was just what I was after. I did have intentions of putting some nice graphics on the sides but it ended up looking very good with just the black and I have decided that this will be fine. Besides my artistic skills are not that fantastic!!!

Once the paint was on I decided it was time to start fitting some of the other bits to the cabinet. I mounted all the speakers to the front of the cabinet (4 in all), the fluorescent light strip at the top of the cabinet for the marquee and also mounted the coin door. Now this was starting to look like the real deal. I also glued the felt to the MDF bezel that was mounted in the cabinet earlier and trimmed it up. Finally to removing the crappy edges (or should I say covering them up!). I pounded in the t-moulding on the edges that were exposed using a solid rubber hammer.

The end result is a cabinet that is starting to look worthy of being let into the house!

Ciao,

M.