The Arcade Build - Part I: Cabinet Construction

After over three months of planning, designing, testing and reading (lots and lots of reading and watching YouTube), it is finally time to start building.

Day 1
As I had mentioned, I delayed starting the build until I has a week off work for Spring Break and to allow the weather to warm up.  Temperature at 8:30 a.m. this morning: 32°F.  But at least it warmed up to a balmy 42°F by the time I got started.

One point I had concerns about was, working alone, how I was going to be able to manhandle a 4x8 sheet of 3/4" MDF board (the web site from the hardware store lists the weight at just a tick under 96 lbs.), especially if I was going to try to cut it via a table saw.

But a good friend recommended looking into circular saw guides and as the ad says, "take your saw to the work and not the work to your saw".  So, I purchased the three items shown above.  And let me tell you, they ended up being worth every penny paid!

You do have to spend a little time calibrating these for your particular circular saw, so some scrap lumber is needed and that took a little time on day one.  I also took the time to put new blades in the circular saw, jig saw and hack saw.

Once this was done, I no longer needed to manhandle the 4x8 sheets on the table saw.  But trying to even get the 96 lb. sheet onto a work table or saw horses was also going to be challenge.  In steps another friend and co-worker with another great recommendation.

By sliding 2x4s under the MDF in various positions and setting the circular saw depth properly, all the cutting could occur on the ground.  He had suggested this a few days before I started building so I picked up some cheap 2x4 remnants from the local hardware store just to use for this part of the project.

About three hours later (yes, three hours... this is my first attempt at building anything this big or complex, and since I only have two 3/4" MDF sheets, I couldn't afford to screw up), the first side panel was cut:

The inset section where the display will go presented me with a bit of a challenge.  I couldn't come up with any way to get at this except with a plunge cut... something I had never did before and it could really run the risk of mucking everything up if I did it wrong.  But the saw guides helped here as well and I'm happy with the results... without any major screw ups!

Now, I needed the other side panel and it needed to be exactly the same size as the first.  I had thought maybe I could clamp the pieces together and use a router.  But my testing on some scrap wood led me to believe this wasn't the way to go.  Maybe my router isn't beefy enough or I had the wrong bit.

Instead, I clamped the first side to the second sheet and temporarily screwed them together to avoid any slipping.  I wasn't worried about the screw holes as I will eventually be countersinking my screw heads and will need to putty and sand anyway.  Again, using the saw guides and a lot of scrap pieces of lumber for support, the second side went quite a bit quicker and I ended up with two perfectly matched panels that will serve as the cabinet sides.

An hour or so of clean up ended day one.  I had hoped to be further along, but prep and setup took a little longer than planned, along with the time needed to assure I got it right.

Day 2
Today's starting temperature: 34°F... and windy!  There was still one more step to complete the side panels... adding grooves for the t-molding that would cover the rough edges.  This is pretty standard even on original arcade machines and will save a lot of time in sanding.

Next up was to cut all the panels that would make up the base of the cabinet, internal shelves/supports and all the faces (except the rear).  It would be important to assure these were all exactly the same 28 1/2" width so the cabinet would remain square when assembled.  For that, the circular saw rip guide was used and a test cut allowed it to be configured to the exact dimension needed.

Although these panels were only a 1/2" and could have been manhandled onto saw horses, the method for cutting the side panels worked so well, I decided to continue working off the floor for the 4x8 sheets.  One little thing I forgot to check however...

Oops!  The last thing I had used the circular saw for was to cut the second side panel (1 1/2" deep when stacked).  Now I was down to only a 1/2" panel but neglected to check/readjust the saw depth.  It didn't take long to discover the error!  Luckily the garage floor and saw blade weren't damaged significantly.  Lesson learned!

Two 4x8 sheets were ripped, then the remainder ripped into additional 28 1/2" wide panels along with a few 28 1/2" wide 3/4" panels from the scrap leftover from the side panels.  Finally, two 30" panels were cut from the 1/2" leftover that will serve as the test and final control panels.  Each panel was verified for an exact width match to the others.

This should be more than enough to serve as all needed panels and and supports, even if I screw up one or two in the bevel or measurement process.  I'm sure it will happen. 

That's it for day two.  I know, it doesn't seem like a lot and it is looking extremely unlikely that I'll get this built and painted in a week, especially since the weather is expected to get even colder over the next few days.  But I'm going to keep going at it!

Day 3
Another fine day in the neighborhood... starting temperature 32°F.  And eventually it would start snowing and spitting ice pellets.  Wind chill temps would drop to mid 20's by the afternoon.  But on I plow....

The goal today was to lay out the position of the face panels on each side and place the supports.  It is important to assure both sides match identically or problems will occur during assembly.

The bottom shelf/cross-support will be made from 3/4" MDF, as will the mid-shelf.  All other exterior facing panels will be 1/2" MDF.  Here you can see the offset for the bottom shelf to allow for the casters... which will protrude from the bottom by 1".

From this close up, the intersecting lines are shown and will eventually provide the bevel angles needed for adjoining panels.  Note that the support blocks will be mounted inside the line and the actual panel on the outside of the line.  When using the 1/2" MDF, this will mean there will be a 3/4" lip or overhang on the side panels.  This is pretty standard on original arcade machines as well, although the side overhang distance varies pretty widely.

Here's the right side panel laid out.  Note that it is important to mark the side panels as left/right and inside/outside to avoid confusion!  There are some slight differences between the support blocks.  The left side does not have the long support down the back, since a hinged door will be attached there.  Also, the bevels on the support just under the control panel location is reversed.  I labeled each support as I cut it just to be sure I kept everything where it belonged.

I spent quite a bit of time futzing around with the marquee area.  I'm still not sure if this is what the final version will eventually look like.  I want to maximize the vertical display area so it is at least 6 1/2" of backlit area, but no more than 7" since that's the height of the vinyl.  The vertical bar shown above will have a panel on the front side, creating something of a light box for the LED lightbars.  The inside of this box will also be painted white.

I had hoped to at least get these supports nailed into place today.  But by the time I had gotten to this point, the snow started flying and the wind was really picking up.  It was simply becoming too cold for "ungloved" hands to continue working.  Tomorrow actually looks a bit worse, so I will try to at least get the supports nailed into place.  The weather is forecast to slowly start warming after tomorrow, so I'll probably spend the rest of tomorrow working on some controller functions.

Day 4
Well, today started out a whopping 1° warmer than yesterday... 33°F.  But since there is no major sawing on the slate today, it allowed me to keep the garage door closed and thereby keep it at least bearable.  So, the first step was to nail down all the supports that were laid out yesterday.

This actually went fairly quickly with a nail gun and 1" finish nails.  I just took time to assure that the layout and dimensions between the two side panels matched precisely.  Also note that there are some slight differences between the right and left sides, basically at the rear where a hinged pegboard door will eventually reside.

Next up was to pre-drill all the holes where the cross-support and face panels will be attached between the sides. 

This will make assembly between the sides a bit easier, since it might get a little tricky trying to place the two sides together singlehandedly.  To make sure I didn't end up placing screw holes where there shouldn't be, I took care to make notes to myself!

Since the top panel will hinge up to allow access to the marquee light, it will not be screwed down.  In addition, I didn't pre-drill any holes around the monitor bezel or marquee display areas.  These will have to be figured out a bit on the fly and once the exact dimensions are known.  The side panels were then flipped over to the exterior sides.

On this side, each hole was drilled out using a countersink bit.  The goal is to have no exposed screw heads, so each will be countersunk, then puttied over and sanded before painting. 

The final step (for today) was to pre-drill the holes for the side pinball buttons on both panels and a hole for the master cabinet power switch on the left panel.

That's pretty much all there is to be done before finally attaching the two side panels together.  But to do so will heavily involve the table saw... something that can't be done in the garage with the door down.  At least not if I want to stay married... the wife is already just a bit perturbed at the sawdust.  I'm not complaining, but I know better than to tackle the table saw work in the garage.  So I'll have to hope for acceptable weather tomorrow if I want to get the next step complete.

Day 5
No such luck... starting temperature this morning was the coldest yet, 24°F!  And to top it all off, the warm up scheduled for this weekend has now been "cancelled" per the weatherman.  It might hit 50°F Thursday and Sunday at best.  But now the forecast is freezing rain mixed with snow Friday into Saturday.  OK... enough with the meteorology.  But it has caused me to alter plans.  Since I'm once again stuck inside the garage, I opted to move on to creating a sample/test control panel.

Since the control board will overlay on top of the side panels (so it can hinge up for access if needed), this panel is 30" wide instead of the normal 28 1/2".  The damaged corner will not be a part of the control panel, as it won't be that deep.

I started out by marking the top/depth of the control panel and the midpoints horizontally and vertically.  I then just tossed my joystick/button templates that I discussed in the planning articles on the board, along with a few cutouts to represent the administrative buttons.  The round black circle in the middle is the flange from the trackball and the red dial is obviously the spinner knob.  I moved things around a bit and placed my hands in various player positions to get things approximately where I thought they should go.  Note that the spinner is offset.  This is thanks to Chuck at Maverick's Arcade who pointed out that he initially placed his spinner directly above the trackball and folks kept smashing their fingers into the spinner when trying to use the trackball for games like Golden Tee Golf.  He recommended offsetting the spinner, so that's what I'm going to do here.

Just a quick sanity check to assure that the ordered overlay vinyl is still going to cover the planned size of the board.  Good thing I ordered it a little larger than my initial plans because I forgot to include the overhang needed on the front edge.  Good news.  It's still large enough... but just barely.

Another sanity check to assure everything on the underside of the board was going to fit without interference.  This did cause me to adjust things a bit.  The servo on the left joystick was just a little too close for comfort to the side panel, so both player controls were moved towards the center by about 1/4".  I had also hoped that the Ultimarc I/O board could be center mounted above the trackball.  This is my one and only complaint about Ultimarc.  All the controls and wiring harness cables are really short (you can see the harness from the trackball above).  This means that I will need to build a series of extension cables to reach the I/O board.  The I/O board supports up to 4 players, so large control boards are probably the norm.  How much more could it cost to add an additional 6-8" or so of wire to each of the harnesses?  Other than this one minor item, Ultimarc is fantastic. 

In my case, the only option to avoid an extension harness for the trackball was to swap the location of the spinner and I/O board.  I toyed with it and tried it, but opted to leave things as shown above.

Once everything was marked, the paper templates were taped down with Scotch tape. Note that all the buttons (player and admin) and the spinner all use a 1 1/8" hole.  The joysticks will work with the same size hole, but are better with a 1" hole.  The shaft of the joystick is quite a bit smaller than this, but there needs to be full travel to each of the axes without contacting the wood, so these will be 1".  The hole for the trackball is 3 1/2".

Nothing left to do but start drilling and hoping for the best.  From the prototype I built earlier, I learned the best technique was to first use a small nail to punch a hole through the paper template and mark the board underneath.  Trying to drill directly through the paper does not work very well!  After marking all the locations to be drilled with a nail, a small pilot hole was drilled to make a solid starting point for the spade bits and hole saw.

Things turned out pretty well.  I few "dry fits" of the trackball, spinner, joystick and buttons looks like everything is going to work.  Of course there will be something I didn't think of, but for now I'm happy with it.  Building of the control panel and the related wiring will be covered in a later post, but this gives me something I can work with inside when the weather isn't cooperating.  We'll see if tomorrow is finally the day I can use the table saw and get the side panels attached.

Day 6
Finally... a semi-decent day.  It was already 37°F by mid-morning and with a lot of sunshine and only a light breeze, it would warm up to the mid 50's by afternoon.  This needed to be heads-down, full-on day of work.  In fact, I didn't even take time to take many photos.

The goal for the day was to cut all the internal supports/shelves along with as many face panels as I could get done.  I eventually used about every tool in the arsenal to get this done... table saw, circular saw, jig saw, drill, etc.  Cutting the bottom and middle shelves (3/4" MDF) was pretty straightforward, but once I started in on the face panels, bevels along the long edge slowed down progress quite a bit.

Some panels were more tricky than others, as they had to be beveled on both ends in different directions and at different angles.  I took a lot of time cutting conservatively, test fitting and trimming.  I also had to trim a few boards that were just a tad over the standard width of 28 1/2".  As I mentioned before, it is imperative that all the shelves and face panels be exactly the same width.

By late afternoon, I had managed to cut all the panels.  But there was still some daylight left, so I went ahead and cut some boards that will serve to build the bezels around the display and marquee areas.  I suspect that these may eventually need to be trimmed just a bit at install time, but I wanted to get the major cutting done. 

This shows the majority of the face panels and bezel boards.  Each is labeled with the top edge indicated just so I don't end up mounting something backwards (sure to happen without the labels).  There was just one more cut to complete before clean up.

This is the cutout in the lower front panel where the coin door will go.  I should have taken a picture with the coin door inserted, but as you can tell from the shadows, it was getting on towards darkness and the wind was starting to pick up, so it was time to pack it in.

I did have a number of neighbors stop by throughout the day to see what I was building.  And my good friend (who loaned me the table saw) also stopped by.  I expressed some concern about tomorrow, trying to put the two sides together with the shelves.  Thankfully, he is going to stop by in the morning to lend me a hand in getting the two halves initially connected.  This can all be done in the garage, so the only weather concern is that I manage to get the garage warm enough that the glue can set before it freezes!

Day 7
The "Arcade Gods" must really have it out for me.  First it was the weather.  Then I wake up this morning, ready to have some help putting the sides together.  First step was to back the cars out of the garage.  Then I noticed this:

Yep, it's a broken garage door spring.  Not sure when this happened because it normally sounds like a gun shot when they break, but we didn't hear anything last night.  Regardless, I simply was not able to lift the door on my own to even back the cars out.  I'd have to wait for my help to show up and hope the two of us could get the door up.  In the meantime, I called an overhead door service and they said they'd have someone out by 10:00 a.m.

The good news is that when my friend showed up to help with the arcade, the two of us were able to get the door up and the cars backed out.  Back to the arcade build...

The lower shelf, middle shelf and an upper support panel were glued in place on one side panel.  Small finish nails were added to hold things in place while holes were pre-drilled into the panels.  Once these were screwed in place, it was time to add the second side panel on top.

It was critical to assure the cross panels were lined up exactly the same on both side panels so that things were square.  A few sanity checks with other panels and everything looked good (so far).  After this step, my friend departed and I was back on my own.

The first exterior panel to go into place was the lower front panel (where the coin door will go).  Since this was easily the largest exterior panel, it was time to see if all my extra work to assure everything was exactly the same width was going to pay off.  This panel snugged right between the side panels with just some gentle tapping.  Woohoo!  The same process of glue, finish nails and screws was followed here.

This is a view from the bottom, with the lower shelf and the just added front panel to the left.  Note that the front panel does not come all the way to the bottom of the sides.  As mentioned in the planning articles, I think I'm going to add audio controlled colored LED lighting to the underside of the bottom shelf, in effect, creating "ground effects" under the arcade.  That's the primary reason for leaving this gap.

Next up was the "bump out" right underneath the control panel.  Again, these were snug, but easily went into place.  What really surprised me was all the bevels lined up perfectly!  It was definitely worth all the time I spent the previous day on these bevels, although I was expecting to have to do some minimal trimming.  But when put together, there were no gaps and no overhangs. Woohoo again!  Oh, but the "Arcade Gods" are still watching and they are about to make me pay dearly for my early celebration.

Next panel to be installed was the administrative control panel.  Again, this is covered in more detail in the planning articles, but basically it is a vertical panel right behind the player control board that houses the Raspberry Pi power switch, a toggle switch for the joysticks (if needed), volume control and a couple of auxiliary USB ports.  I had done a test panel for this since it was going to involve routing out the back side due to the limited depth of some of the controls.  The photo above simply shows the planned layout.

After successfully drilling, routing and sawing all the necessary opening for the controls on the admin panel, it was time for another sanity check:

Uh oh... FIRST MAJOR DESIGN FLAW!  Again, from the planning articles, the idea was the player control panel would be hinged on the front edge and lift up towards the player to allow access to the underside of the controls, the Raspberry Pi, etc, without the need to open up the back.  But when the control panel is flush against the admin panel (as was designed) and it is hinged upward, it doesn't clear the controls as you can see above. Hmm... this was going to take some thought.  I didn't want to notch the control panel as it wouldn't look very good and it was waaaayyyy too late in the process to consider moving these controls somewhere else.  I decided to stew on it and move on to the rest of the panels.  That's what I get for celebrating too early!

This is the lower marquee panel with the cutouts for the speakers.  On the plus side, the same 3 1/2" hole saw used for the trackball on the control panel was also the perfect size for the speakers.  This was not initially by design, but just lucky happenstance since the only hole saw I had was the 3 1/2".

The final two panels were the top and top-rear panels of the marquee.  Again, these fit together perfectly but I'm not celebrating again!  i  learned my lesson and still have to figure out the control panel issue.  Note that the very top marquee panel is actually 1/16" short by design.  This is because this panel is not attached to the sides or anything else.  Instead, it will be attached to the rear panel with a piano hinge.  This allows the top to be lifted to access the marquee lighting and the speakers if necessary.  Fortunately, this did work out as designed and the slightly narrower top panel allows it to be lifted without scraping the sides.

Now back to that pesky panel issue.

After considering multiple options, none of which I liked, I opted to try to build a small spacer between the admin control panel and the player control panel.  This space is only 1/2" x 3/4", but is still 28 1/2" long.  To top it all off, it needed a slight 5° bezel on the back side since the player control panel tilts down just slightly towards the players.  The advantage of this spacer is that I will no longer need to notch both sides of the player control panel to fit between the sides and I will not have to bevel the control panel since the bevel is handled by the spacer.  After successfully cutting this on the table saw with no loss of fingers, the remaining challenge was how to mount it.  My first attempt was to use the finish nailer and 1" finish nails.  First nail went in OK... the second nail split the spacer!  So back to the table saw to create the second spacer.  For now, I've simply glued this in place.  I'll let it sit overnight and hit the hardware store tomorrow to see what I can come up with in terms of very small, narrow screws, brackets or other way to secure this mounting.  Hopefully, this will solve the problem.

The final step for today was to install the swivel casters, assuring they can turn 360° without hitting any sides.  I really, really wanted to stand the cabinet up tonight, but I need to let that glued spacer sit overnight.  But tomorrow I should be able to get it upright and see it like a real arcade cabinet for the first time.

Day 8
Day 8 starts out by getting the cabinet off its side and up on its feet!

I'm really happy with it, and for someone with very limited woodworking experience, I've actually surprised myself.  I'm glad I made the gameday decision to heighten the marquee area by 1" and to increase the base depth by 2".

The extra depth makes it look more proportional.  Oh, and the casters work great.  It can be easily moved or rotated with a single finger.  But this will soon present some challenges as I try to continue working on the cabinet.  I did not use locking casters as the locking mechanisms would not be accessible under the bottom shelf.  Instead, I have to use blocks to stop the cabinet from rolling away!  Once it is in place in the basement and on carpet, it ought to remain in place.  Also note that the control panel is in place only temporarily and will not have that much overhang once cut to final size.  Which brings us back to the spacer problem from the end of yesterday...

This was just glued overnight, and while it seemed pretty solid this morning, I wasn't going to rely on the glue alone... especially for long term.  So, off to the hardware store I went first thing this morning.

I returned with an assortment of brackets and screws.  Some of the brackets I already had and they will be used for the bezels and a few other internal components.  Plus any bracket would have to be placed on the outside of the cabinet and would be visible.  I opted to try to very carefully drill and install small #4 x 1" screws from the back side.  But if I messed up and split the board, I was going to be in for a lot of work as the spacer was now tightly glued to the back admin panel.  Messing up would probably mean starting over with a whole new admin panel.

Very slowly, I drilled pilot holes for the screws.  Recall that the spacer has a slight 5° downward bevel.  As you can tell, I had a few missteps and overcompensated for the bevel and came out on the underside of the spacer.  Luckily nothing split and these missteps won't be visible on the underside of the spacer.  Eventually I managed to get four screws successfully into the spacer with no splits.  A couple of the screws protrude slightly but this will be on the back side of the panel, so I didn't force it.  At least there are four screws to support the glue.

Overall, I'm pretty happy how it turned out.  It is very slightly raised in the middle, but once painted black and the Plexiglass is added to the control panel, this shouldn't be visible.  Now the control panel can pivot upwards without hitting any of the admin panel controls.  As an added bonus, there is now a shelf where players can place their phones and charge them via the USB ports while playing!

Since today was only forecast to be in the mid 30's and it was misting and drizzling, I opted to hold off on the bezels and rear door until tomorrow when it is forecast to be sunny and in the mid 50's.  Instead, I decided to work on a few other items that didn't involve heavy sawing and could be completed within the garage. First up was to deal with the volume knob and audio amplifier.

As you can see from the amp (sitting on top of the panel), the rheostat has a very short shaft... too short to even route out the back of the control panel.  So a 6 mm coupler was added to the rheostat shaft and a steel 6mm rod was ordered via Amazon.  This rod was  actually designed for a CNC lathe driller but was the only thing I could find that was the exact 6 mm size that I needed.  Obviously, it was going to have to be cut to length and a small shelf created for the amp to sit upon.

My first thought was a hack saw.  I also don't have a table mounted vise, so this was the best clamping option I could come up with.  The clamping worked fine, but the hack saw didn't even touch the steel rod.  I couldn't even get a groove started.  On to option 2.

The second option was a rotary tool (aka Dremel) with a cutting wheel.  This is one time that I definitely dragged out the safety glasses.  If you've used these cutting wheels before, you know that any side torque on the cutting disk causes it to shatter and fly all different directions... as you can tell happened here with the first disk.  But it was working, and I got nearly half way through with the first cutting disk.  Luckily, I have a vial with a lot of spare disks.  It was just hard to assure I was staying perfectly straight as the cutting process threw a lot of sparks.

With the second cutting wheel, I was able to get through the rod.  It wasn't the prettiest or neatest cut, but since the end would be inside of either the coupler or volume knob, it didn't really matter.  Just as long as it was the right length and could be snagged by the set screws on either end.

Here's the assembled unit prior to mounting.  The extension shaft was a good distance.  I just needed to mount the shelf in the proper position on the back side of the admin panel and place some PCB feet under the circuit board to raise it off the surface.

Here's the final mounting.  There is very little weight to the amp, so the small shelf is attached to the back control panel with a simple angle bracket.  As luck would have it, the mounting holes for the bracket lined up with the previous spacer!  So once again, extreme care was taken not to drill too deep and get into the spacer.  Once everything was lined up, the amp and volume knob were removed and put away, to be added again once final assembly and painting is complete.  The shelf and PCB feet remained.

Since the weather once again was preventing any outdoor work, there wasn't a lot else to be done at this point.  There are a lot of internal components to be mounted, but I didn't want to put in anything electronic until all sanding and painting was complete.  There was one final thing I decided to install before cleaning up and reorganizing for tomorrow.

This is one of a few fans, reclaimed from old PC's, that will be placed throughout the cabinet.  In this case, the Raspberry Pi will be mounted on this shelf.  As mentioned before, the Pi can get warm and even throw a high temperature warning when taxed and there isn't sufficient airflow.  All the fans run off of 12 VDC, so they will eventually be connected to the internal 12V bus.

Tomorrow is the final day off before heading back to work, and it appears the weather is going to cooperate.  But there is still a substantial list to be accomplished:

• Cut the control panel to final size
• Using the monitor VESA mounting holes, create the mounting system for the display and temporarily mount to assist in sizing the bezel
• Create the bezels for both the marquee and display areas
• Groove the bezels to hold the appropriate size plexiglass (this step has me worried the most)
• Groove the marquee bezel for t-molding
• Install the bezels, assuring they can be removed for Plexiglass cleaning/replacement if ever necessary
• Cut the pegboard for the rear door
• Cut the Plexiglass to size for the control board, marquee and display
• Drill the control panel Plexiglass for the controls.

It's highly unlikely that all this will get accomplished, as I try to be respectful of the neighbors and won't start any serious sawing outdoors before 10:00 a.m.  But we'll see how far I can get.  Everything else will be on hold likely until the following weekend.

Day 9
The day started out frosty, but the sun quickly warmed things up and I was raring to go.  First up was to trim the control board to the proper size for the added spacer.

The overhang allows for the continuous hinge to be mounted underneath and pivot upwards (and now clear the admin panel controls!).  That was the only easy thing from today's list.  Next, I wanted to work on the display area bezel, but it quickly became apparent that the monitor needed to be in place to accurately cut the bezel.  So, I shifted gears to tackle the one item that I really hadn't completely figured out... how to securely mount the monitor in the exact center of the open space and tilted so that it will be flush against the back of the bezel.

The given was to create a mounting plate for the VESA holes on the back of the display.  The monitor has 100mm VESA spacing and calls for M4 screws.  This was pretty straightforward and the use of millimeters actually made aligning things a bit easier.

The plywood square mounted nicely on the back of the monitor (first try, no less).  Now a crossbar needed to be added that would allow the monitor to be securely attached to the interior side walls of the cabinet.

Since I had a lot of scrap 1/2" MDF that was already cut to the required 28 1/2" width, it was just a matter of digging through the scrap pile to find something with the appropriate height.  I found the perfect piece that did not even require any cutting.  I do want to note one thing about the monitor that was covered in the planning and designing phase... and ultimately why this display was selected.  Note that all the control buttons, including the master power button, are located on the lower back corner.  This is important since the monitor will be flush mounted on the front.  But with the rear buttons, all controls will be accessible without any disassembly.  In fact, by raising the player control panel, these buttons should be accessible by simply reaching up behind the admin panel.  Anyway... now how to mount it.

The monitor was removed and some time was spent to locate the center of the opening and the proper angle.  Any mounting here was to be temporary just for creating the proper bezel spacing, but would also serve as a learning exercise for whatever final mounting system would be used.  And it was definitely a learning experience.

First, trying to hold the monitor in place and attach the brackets without assistance was the first challenge.  It also didn't take long to discover that although the VESA mount and support bar are precisely centered on the display, they are not on the center of gravity!  The monitor immediately wanted to tip forward from the top.  I also noted that the 1/2" MDF crossbar was bowing under the weight.  This would not work and I was afraid to even let go of the monitor for fear of the cross support breaking and damaging the monitor.  So everything was taken apart and the process began again.

For the second attempt, I used 3/4" pine for the crossbar and added an additional bracket to prevent the forward tilting.  Again, this was a handful and I'll probably want a second set of hands when it comes time to permanently mount the display.  But this will work as a starting point.

Another note for the final mounting system!  I'll want to use brackets that have slots instead of holes that will allow some fine tuning in terms of vertical position and tilt.  I want to stick with a bracket system in the event the monitor ever needs to be removed or replaced.  But again, this was just temporary.  Final mounting won't occur until after painting and the bezel is permanently mounted.

Once the monitor was up, it didn't take long to create the bezel.  The pre-cut pieces I made were pretty close and just needed some trimming and the top and bottom had to have a slight bevel added.  

Like the monitor, the front bezel will be removable, by mounting it via L-brackets to the small mounting blocks on the side walls.  Should the Plexiglass be damaged or if it, or the monitor, needs cleaning, simply removing the screws from the L-brackets will allow the bezel to be removed from the front of the arcade.

But the monitor process had taken way too much of the day.  And because of the nice weather, a lot of folks were out walking and I stopped numerous times to answer questions from the neighbors about the arcade.  I enjoyed speaking with them, but there was still a lot I wanted to get done before dark.  I opted to just label all the bezel parts and not assemble or mount them yet.

The one item I definitely wanted to get done was cutting of the pegboard for the rear door.  This was the last major cutting that needed to be done.  Pegboard was selected to allow ventilation and it is lightweight so it should mount nicely with a continuous hinge and allow full access to the back of the cabinet with no screw removal required.  But again, this was just cut and will not be permanently mounted until the tail end of the entire project.

The last task for the day (and the week) was to cut the grooves for the Plexiglass in both the display and marquee bezels, along with a groove for the t-molding around the player control panel and marquee.  My buddy had stopped by to check on my progress and convinced me to do this with the table saw instead of the router.  This actually worked out really well and the grooves in the display bezel and the player control panel were completed in no time.

The grooves for the marquee area was a little trickier, as it took two passes over the table saw for the Plexiglass (since two sheets will be used with the vinyl sandwiched between), plus a groove for the t-molding on the front edge.  The Plexi grooves had to be offset a bit from center so that the two opposing grooves did not meet and result in a corner falling off!  These aren't cut to size yet, but the marquee will be a bit more straightforward than the display bezel, so a few cuts on the miter saw can be done later.

This pretty much finishes up the major cabinet construction piece.  And since I'm back to work tomorrow, any future work will be limited to maybe a couple of hours in the evenings until next weekend.  I'm going to end this particular page at this point and will pick it up again in another post, focusing primarily on the final cabinet assembly, priming, painting and Plexiglass.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the week considering the weather, broken garage door and other issues.  It's really satisfying to see the cabinet really start to look like the vision I started planning over two months ago!

Up next:  Priming, Painting and Plexiglass... oh my!