Arcade Cocktail Cabinet Project
The Parts and Software
Assembling The Case
Installing The Electronics
Final view
The Case
The first problem was where to get the case. I found
that www.arcadepot.com
had a cocktail cabinet kit for around $150 dollars but the shipping
cost
would add another $100. But then I found out Home Depot had
kits
too. Well, they call it a slightly different name: A 4' x 8' board.
Some assembly and tools required.  I had found some plans
(thanks Kyle Lindstrom) for
a cocktail cabinet and decided to build it
on my own. I had some tools (jigsaw, dremel, etc) and thought
it
might actually be more satisfying to know I had done it from scratch.
But it took a ltttle longer than I anticipated. Okay, a lot
longer. And it had some
problems. Let me give you some free advice: Use a
table
saw
instead of a jigsaw. I'm guessing that would have saved me a lot of
time and trouble as that would have given me straight, perfect cuts. I
had issues where my jigsaw blade was not at 90 degrees so while the
line was straight, the side was not flat. Not good when you
go to
put the boards together. But I don't regret doing
it
because I learned a lot. Considering I had never build
anything
this complicated from scratch it turned out pretty well. And
besides, hobbies are supposed to
waste time.
So first I got the 4' x 8'
board. I actually
had Home Depot cut it in 3 pieces so it would fit in my
suv.
One thing I did luck out on
was that this was a cabinet quality board and it was a special buy:
$23! |
So I started cutting it
into the various pieces.
I did not follow the plans exactly. I cut my holes
different. And I did
not care about a coin box. This big hole is where the powe r supply is
going to go so I can take advatange off the fan in the power supply to
provide some air flow. I did neglect to consider that the
power
supply was going to plug into a power strip and not directly in the
wall. But I found a way around that. See the
electronics
section.
 Along
the way I kept trying to make sure things were the right size and
seemed to fit together. Here you see the begining to some
actual
assembly of the base.
Hint: Look around at some other cases to see how they did
things like mounting the control panels, dealing with corners, etc
For us non-carperters some ways might cost more but are
easier.
Such as it would have be easier to use L-brackets on the
corners
instead of cutting triangles from wood blocks.
|
Here are the boards ready for final assembly.
 I've
cut the
speaker
holes and an air hole, and the control panel parts. I've also
drilled
the holes for the dowel pins and done a test dry assembly.
It was at
that point I realized some of the boards were not perfectly straight
and/or not perfectly flat on the sides. But nothing
so bad as to to
stop me now. Some wood filler would help fix some of the
visible
flaws. Hint: If you plan to stain the case (as I did), then use
stainable wood filler instead of standard wood filler. I had
also used
a dremel to cut the grooves for the t-molding but that was a big pain.
I suspect a table saw could do that much easier for most
parts.
|
I also opted to use
wheels instead of leg levelers.
Here's another
helpful hint: Get a dowel kit. It will make things much
easier as it
has the correct drill bit, a peice to control how deep the bit goes,
and parts to help mark where the holes go on the joining board |
I also finally cut the hole for my 17" monitor.
Here are all the
parts glued/screwed together.
 |
The 4 brackets for
the back of the control panels were made from a peice
of metal I had laying around. It took trail and error to bend four
peices that fit right. A mop bucket and three boards help prop the door
when it is open.
 |
There was one final mystery I had not solved yet and that was how to
mount the lcd monitor. No one seems to talk about that.
I
considered somehow mounting it directly to the top. But I did
not
trust the weight of it hanging down. My solution was to make
a
stand. It's not glued in. It was just measured to fit very
snug.
It can be removed to get access to the computer parts easier.
The height was calculated using the monitor so there would be 1/8" to
2/8" space left between the top on the moniter and the botttom of the
case top.
I glued two strips of felt on top to protect the monitor.
The next step was staining the case. And then I painted the
top black. I may add an overlay later.
I could install the T-molding and speaker covers at this point but
decided they could wait until the very end, I wanted to put
the
electronics in and actuallly test the system.
Next:
Installing
The Electronics
Date: 2/27/2010
