Alright, now that you have thoroughly racked your brain, and gotten everything all laid out and ready to go...it's time to build! You are going to need lots of tools here....well you can get by with minimal tools, but of course the more you have, the easier your job is. I would recommend at least:
1. Circular saw
2. Jig Saw
3. Straight edge/ruler - needs to be a sturdy one...no plastic 3rd grade rulers here :-)
4. Router (optional but recommended)
5. Vice Grips (short and long ones...they are kinda expensive though!)
Now, I don't have pictures of all these tools so if you have no clue what a router is, go to the BYOAC (Build Your Own Arcade Controls...or arcadecontrols.com) message boards and do a search for "router". You will come across a lot of posts from people asking how to use them, including myself! Use the search tool on those boards, it is your friend!
***note: all dimensions and measurements are available on the plans in the Downloads section***
Once you have these tools, or at least someone who is helping you has these tools, it's time to make your first trip to Home Depot. I say first, because I think I made about 20 trips...no really....about 20. To start off I would recommend getting 3-4 sheets of 3/4" MDF. That's Medium Density Fiberboard, don't worry I had never heard of it either, but its good stuff. Make sure you bring somebody with you to haul it back to your place in a truck or something, because it's super heavy. Oh and be mindful not to drop any of the MDF on your right big toe....believe me....it's not a pretty site. Also, while you are there, go clear out their supply of L-brackets. Don't get the huge metal ones, but the smallest brass ones that come in packs of 4. They aren't very expensive, but I bet I used 6 or 7 packs of L-brackets, if not more. Trust me, save yourself a trip and buy all you can. Also, get a cutting guide while you are there. I didn't know what one was either until I asked, but it's a metal beam type thing that comes with two little vice clamps. The beam sets on the wood after you have lined it up with your drawn lines, and you clamp it down. Then you can run the edge of your circular saw or jig saw along the edge of the guide, therefore giving you a straight cut! I didn't use one of these on my first cab as I just eye balled my cuts...not a good thing. If you do that, be prepared for uneven boards and gaps in your control panel. Once you have your MDF, L-brackets, and cutting guide in hand, head back home and get ready to draw out your pieces on the MDF. As you will see, the sheets are very big and don't exactly fit on a standard table or little wood bench, so I just use 4 cardboard boxes as seen here:
Well, you can't really see the boxes, but they are under the wood. As you can see, I have drawn out the way I want the sides of the control panel pedestal to look. Now I should note, that one of the very first steps you should take into consideration is to draw our your pieces on each sheet of MDF as much as you can stand it. Here I drew out the pieces for my control panel pedestal, but as you can see here, I have also started putting the templates down for my control panel to see exactly how wide I want to make it.
I just measured a little here and there, and basically finally set it up exactly how I wanted it. You will notice the two buttons above the trackball....I was going to use those, but decided not to because you can just make the player 1 buttons 1 and 2 as your Left and Right mouse buttons. But as you can see, that is just a sheet of MDF that I haven't cut just yet, but am drawing out exactly how I want everything to look before I cut it. Here is a closeup of the control panel:
So, after measuring several times and making sure I had my control panel the way I wanted it, I cut it out!
I went with that somewhat curved design on the front because I wanted to have plenty of room for each player. One thing to note here, is that I obviously allowed for a lot of room between players 1 and 2 and not so much for players 3 and 4. The reason I did this was for the simple fact that 1-2 people will be playing this more than 4, so I made it comfortable for 2, and acceptable for 4! For the holes I just used a spade bit that I bought at Home Depot. If you don't know what a spade bit is, go to Home Depot and ask....the size is 1 1/8". That is the exact size you will need for the pushbuttons that will be installed later!
Okay, so after cutting my control panel top, I went on to my second sheet of MDF and cut the two side panels that I had already measured and drawn with my circular saw. I then wanted to see what it would look like standing up, so I rigged it a little and came up with this:
Here is another picture from the side:
What you are also seeing underneath the control panel top, is the bottom of the control panel. What I did to get this was to figure out first, how much I want the control panel top to overlap the bottom box part. It needs to overlap a little just because it looks better mainly :-). So I measured about 3/4" from the sides and drew the lines all around the cp top. These lines would be the same shape as the cp top, only smaller. I took these measurements and drew the same shape on the MDF and cut that out giving me the bottom of the cp box! Okay, so after being satisfied with what I had so far, I started measuring, then cutting the sides of the control panel in order to make the control panel box. Here is the first piece that goes on the front...
What you see here is me gluing the front piece to bottom part of the control panel with some super glue. I also took care to put down some aluminum foil underneath the glued part, because if the glue leaks through to the garage floor....it wouldn't be pretty...but if the aluminum foil gets stuck to the bottom, I can just peel it off. And since it's kind of hard to keep it held into place, I just stacked weights in front and behind it and and left it there overnight and dried fine! So after seeing that this worked great, I continued onto the next pieces...
One thing to note here is that it was difficult (at least for me) to get those angled pieces to fit nicely. I used a miter saw to cut these pieces. Again, look on the internet or go to Home Depot to find out what a miter saw is if you don't know. I had to get the angles right and everything, but after doing that and cutting the pieces, they still didn't fit right, so I just sanded the crap out of them and put wood putty on the front, sanded again....and voila! So after gluing all the pieces into place, I wanted extra support for the sides so I added L-brackets to the inside as shown here:
I know, I used a lot, but I wanted it to be super sturdy! I then put the control panel on top to see what it would look like when finished, and to make sure everything lined up right....fingers crossed...
Success!! The overlap is just enough, and it looks great. You will notice that the trackball hole has not been cut yet....well that was next! I would recommend using a router here to cut your hole. I also drilled holes for the mounting plate, and installed that as shown here:
I got excited about my control panel setup, so I set everything up like before to see what it would look like. I also cut out the front panel for the pedestal and cut the hole for the trackball as well. I know, there is a gap in pictures, but I was doing so well with my construction that I forgot to take pictures in between! Sorry :-). I took the control panel part off, and then began to work on the cp pedestal base. Measured, cut, and assembled with glue and L-brackets but this time I had to use vice grips to hold the pieces together. I'm sure there is a better way to do that, but that was all I had to use. Here is a picture of the assembled base...
If you are wondering, the curved part doesn't really serve any purpose...it's just for looks! I will also note, that most people will slant their control panel boxes, however I slanted my control pedestal base, so that I wouldn't have to slant the cp box itself. The box just sets on top, and the slant is taken care of by the pedestal! Here is another pic of the pedestal:
Okay, now that the pedestal has been assembled, it's time to tackle the monitor base! This part wasn't too complicated...again, just measured, cut, glued, and then L-bracketed the crap out of the thing!
And another pic...
**note: I ended up leaving the back part that you see here off, for ventilation purposes....plus, you can't see the back anyway when you walk in the room!**
After the monitor base was assembled, I wanted to take a break from that and go ahead and install the coin door on the cp pedestal. I ordered it from a guy on the BYOAC message boards for $50! That's a steal considering you would pay like, $70 for it on happcontrols.com. Here it is installed:
And the back of it...
Beautiful! On to the monitor section! This part was complicated, and I didn't take too many pictures of it, so I would advise you to really think about how you want your monitor section to look. I decided to make mine a little rounded on the front, but you can get by with making the top part just a "box" look and it will look fine. here is a picture of what mine looked like about halfway through construction:
As you can see, that is the back of the monitor section, and that little board you see standing up in the middle is one of the sides of the speaker sections. The 27" TV will go in the middle, and be bordered by the speaker panels on either side. Here is a picture of the front with one of the speaker panels installed:
For the speaker panels, I bought some speaker grill cloth from an online retailer, but you can probably get it in a local craft store such as Michael's. I bought WAY too much though, as I only needed a little bit, but it was cheap. Here is a picture of the speaker panel, and how I covered it with the cloth:
I didn't have a staple gun, so I used tacks instead. I would highly recommend using a staple gun though. It will make this a lot easier than it was for me. So now everything is coming together nicely, and ready to be painted! I started out painting the control panel box and pedestal, and then of course onto the monitor part as shown here:
As you can see, the cp box is bolted to the pedestal by carriage bolts which makes it nice and secure. Oh, and if you look to the bottom right of that picture, you can see a pizza pan that was given to my wife (at that time, fiance) and I for our wedding. I was trying to get this all built before we got married because I knew I wouldn't have space to build it in our apartment. And yes, she was and still is cool with this cab project, so that wasn't the reason ;-). Anyway, here is a picture of the painted monitor base:
After painting this part, it was time to build the marquee holder for the top of the monitor section. You can build this in many different ways, but I chose to do it by just cutting out two angled pieces and gluing them together with a piece of wood in the middle. Here is a picture to better illustrate it.
I had a leftover marquee retainer type thing from the first cab I bought, so I just used that to hold in the marquee. Now, everything is painted, so now it's time to go to the artwork and man....does that MAKE my cab complete!
**note: I realize I left out a lot of steps in this part, so if you are truly wanting more information email me and I will be happy to help!**