After weeks of me talking about my MAME Arcade my buddy at work decided that he wanted to build one too, but he is much luckier than I am. 

I came into work one day and Jay was waiting for me.  He was very excited! On his way to work he had spotted an arcade cabinet setting next to the road.  It was big trash day in his neighborhood!.  I went with him on lunch to see if it was still there, and it was.  It had some water damage on the bottom, but all in all it was in pretty good shape.  Most everything was there, PCB, display, marquee and coin-door. You know, all the stuff I had to buy for mine.  The "Shoot Out"  arcade is currently living in my garage.  (If you're wondering about the Pac-man graphic, I drew that just to see how a 17" monitor would look like in the arcade.)

The cabinet looked as if it was some sort of flying game in a past life. The graphics around the display looks like an airplane cockpit.  If anyone has any idea what this thing was originally please drop me a note.

1. First step was to remove all the old junk from the inside. We did rescue it from the landfill so I didn't feel too bad about ripping out the insides.  This also made it quite a bit lighter and easier to move around. 

2. 1/2" was removed from the bottom using a skill saw this took care of most of the rot. A couple of 2x4 braces were added to stiffen it up.

3. The back panel below the door was also replaced with 3/4 MDF and a network plug was added.

4. 1" appliance wheels were installed.

5. New Plexiglas was purchased for the marquee, display and control panel.

6. New joysticks and buttons were ordered from Ebay.

7. Mounting brackets were installed to hold the 17" monitor.

8. Monitor and coin door were painted black.

9. Began sanding  outside.

10. The original control panel was made of thick steel and was in pretty bad shape.  It had a lot of extra holes, and some of the holes were cut pretty rough, but I thought I could make it work. The hardest part was removing the plastic covering from the control panel.  It was held on there with some sort of space-age polymer that had the consistency of boogers.  It just wouldn't come off.  I ended up using a small grinder with a big wire wheel.  Even with that it took almost 2 hours to get that crap off.

11. Now I needed to fill the existing holes.  I used a piece of 1/4" plywood as a backer and used putty to fill the front.  After some sanding and a couple coats of paint it looked really good.

12. I had a template in Visio of the joystick and button sizes that I printed and taped to the control panel. I then taped the Plexiglas on top of that.  That way I could cut them both at the same time.

13.  A few hours and 2 broken bits later I gave up on the metal control panel.  The metal was too thick for the tools at my disposal.  

14. New plan... replace the existing metal (piece of crap) control panel with a wooden one.  After a few quick measurements it seemed possible.  All I would need would be a piece of MDF 8"x23"x3/4" with a 45 degree bevel on one side where it would meet the glass for the display.

15. I attached my mangled templates I had used on the (piece of crap) metal control panel and started drilling.

16. Everything was going too smooth now, so something had to go wrong and it did.  

17. The arcade buttons require a 1 1/16" hole.  A hole saw that size is kinda hard to find.  1 1/8" is easier to find, but the buttons fit a little loose.  I thought I lucked out and on my last trip to Harbor Freight, I found a hole saw kit that had a 1 1/16" saw for only $2.99.  What a deal...right? 

18.  Wrong... after the first hole the saw was dull.  I ended spending the next 2 hours burning 15 more holes into the control panel.  When I say burning, I mean BURNING!  I haven't seen that much smoke in my garage since I broke my t-molding bit and had to burn my way through my "Time Warp" arcade.  The next day and 2 showers later I can still smell that crap.  I think it some how worked it's way into my sinus cavities.  I should have used some kind of lube or water to cool the blade as it cut, but I was afraid of damaging the MDF.  MDF doesn't like water and paint might have a hard time sticking to the lube.

20.  I then mounted the buttons and joysticks.  This time I mounted the joysticks from the bottom.  This way the top is smooth, no screw heads sticking through.  I'm not sure how well this will hold up, but if it doesn't then it's an easy fix, just drill the holes all the way through and install carriage bolts like everyone else uses.

25.  I painted the back of the coindoor and installed a couple of 12v lights donated from a 81' Malibu dash assembly.  They will need to be wired to the PC power supply, I'll let Jay take care of that.

26.  Jay came over and sanded some more on the cabinet.  It's getting there.