Mac-Man Arcade: 4. My Arcade Cabinet

My Arcade Cabinet

This is the part that I was not very confident in doing. I don't have a wood working bone in my body. My unskilled hands refused to work with my mind. I suffered from blisters and cuts throughout this part of the project but I got through it eventually. Also, I don't have a workshop, so everything was done on the living room floor!

I bought my Arcade Cabinet kit from eBay. It was plywood and was pretty rough around the edges and relatively heavy. It was so far the cheapest that I saw for the size that I liked.

It required a lot of sanding. As I previously mentioned, the pre-drilled holes didn't fit the push buttons that I bought. I wasn't sure it was meant for a different size of buttons. I had to buy a hole-saw to enlarge the existing hole. It did burr the edges a bit but I was able to save the surface by using some wood filler. Also the side holes were too close to the Joystick Control Panel. It just didn't fit well and I had to give up the side buttons on the Arcade Cabinet.

Assembly
It wasn't as bad as I thought... just need to measure things correctly and everything turned out pretty well. The wood filler really works well in filling up holes and dents. After that, more sanding....

I used Veneer Edging to cover up the plywood edges. It was pretty straight forward. All I needed was to use a hot iron to iron it in. The hot iron melted the glue on the back of the veneer and stuck it to the plywood. It is not the perfect solution but was a cheap way to do it. I would have liked the colorful T-Molding plastic trim where it gives it a cool finish, but that would have required routing a groove, which was more tools and skill than I have! I trimmed off the excess Veneer Edging and then use more wood filler and more sanding. It looked great after that.

Painting: 2 layers of primer, followed by many layers of actual paint. It takes a while to dry.

Related Posts for 2 Player Bartop Arcade Machine:

Inspiration
Getting Started
Prototype
My Arcade Cabinet
Mac-Man / Machinko (Marquee Artwork)
03/14/2015 - The Pi Day