The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over but it can't. Not without your help.

The cabinet cutting, routing and fabricating is complete. All the pieces were moved over to my house for assembly. We'll likely be putting this beast together on Sunday.

That will pave the way for me to start focusing on the control panel. With any luck the control panel will be a fraction of the work of the cabinet.

I completely underestimated the amount of hours and work that was involved in the cabinet construction.


I didn't realize it at the time, but the European door hinges required a section to be routed out. The space had to be 1/2", keeping in mind we only had 3/4" of material to work with in the first place. To make matters more complicated, it was only 5mm from the edge, which we had already used a 3/32 bit on. To say I was concerned about punching through the side of the cabinet would be a big understatement.


J did a great job.


No wiggle room on the hinge at all, nice and snug.


My house, now filled with pieces of arcade cabinet.


The back piece of the cabinet upside down, with the angled back piece and speaker shelf resting against it. You can see the amount of MDF dust all over it.


I had assumed the Midway speaker grills were plastic. They are, in fact, some sort of aluminum. The pictures don't do them justice, they look great.

You can help me. Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand?

Another productive evening.

J and I managed to complete all the major cutting we need to do for the cabinet. There will be some minor frame support pieces tomorrow night, but they shouldn't be more than a few minutes.

The top, back, front door with coin door cutout, speaker shelf with cutout and all the fan cutouts are complete.

The coin door was the most difficult piece, it required some careful routing to ensure that the coin door fit properly. J touched it up a few times and now the coin door fits nicely.

Tomorrow we bring all the pieces to my place for assembly.

From there, my focus will be the control panel.


Using the 200mm DC fans to get a sense of size for the cutout.


Close up picture of the Antec 200mm fan.


Used a 1 1/2" spade bit to cut a hole for the router to fit into. The spade bit made short work of the melamine.


A few odd edges on the fan cutout, but it will be completely masked once the fan is mounted and the fan grills installed.


45 degree cut for the top back piece that sits at angle. Done with a circular saw, not a bad job.


Same technique as above used for the back panel. Another Antec 200mm fan will be installed to provide air intake from the back.


The layout for the coin door cutout. We were a little sloppy when we used the spade bit to cut the corners. We should have used the router to cut the corners, or more carefully measured. In the end it worked out fine because we had a 1/2" of play on either side of the coin door.


Cutout completed. As you can see, it's not exactly precise. Luckily the coin door hides any ugliness on the cut job.


With the coin door installed, nice and snug. As you can see the router kicks up tons of MDF dust. Breathing protection is a must.


No traces of gaps around the outside edge. It really looks great.


Speaker cutout. The book wasn't exactly clear on the inside dimensions of the cutout. In the end we used the dimensions of the Klipsch 2.1 speakers and simply subtracted 1/2" from either side to cut the inside dimensions.


Not exactly a thing of beauty, any imperfections here will be covered by the speaker grills.

They call it the Enterprise Room, man, because it's for people who wanna be beamed up to Scotty.

It was a shorter work day on Sunday, but not any less productive. I can see how practice and experience with the tools and the melamine makes every session more efficient.

J was poking fun at me, because during the last work session I was almost OCD about checking the underside (the side that will face outwards from the cabinet) to ensure that we hadn't drilled through the wood and perforated the outside edge. It got to the point where I was doing it with every screw.

We didn't have a lot of time to work with, so the goal was to be as productive as possible.

The goal for the evening was to finish the major cuts for the cabinet. We did complete that goal, although there are some finishing cuts that will need to be done.

What remains now is to attach the top, top back, back and front pieces to the cabinet. We'll need to finish the internal framing and attach the sides to the bottom, as well as attaching the casters to the bottom. There will also be some routing to do on the top back, lower back and front sections to accommodated the fans and coin door respectively.

I took a couple days off work (Tuesday and Wednesday) to recharge and get some painting done around the house. Tuesday and Wednesday evening J and I will focus on completing the cabinet assembly so I can put my energy towards the control panel.


A nice side view of the frame attached, as well as the shelving and top piece that will be installed.


What the side piece will look from the outside view.


Nice view of the marquee cuts. J is concerned about the angle but I think once it's assembled that nice sweeping angle is going to look great.


These boards will serve to mount the top of the cabinet as well as the speaker shelving.


Me hard at work measuring, measuring again. Starting over when I realized I measured incorrectly.


Keeping the Project Arcade book close at hand helps me to visualize the cabinet in 3 dimensions.


Measuring out 26" sections.


All the pieces cut, set against the wall so J can park his car in his garage.

We've made living biological attractions so astounding that they'll capture the imagination of the entire planet.

Well major construction started yesterday. Most of the morning was taken up with the layout and running around to get various tools and minor items that I missed. That just goes to show; no matter how many lists of supplies you make, you're going to have to do running around to get some items you missed.

My recommendation would be to either take a half day for planning and getting those items, or to start earlier in the day to minimize downtime.

Originally we had planned on laying two pieces of melamine together, and cutting them with a router. It turned out the bit required wouldn't fit into the router we had, so I ended up having to purchase a jigsaw. It was probably for the best anyway as cutting out the coin door, fan holes and speaker holes are going to be considerably easier with a jigsaw.

I ended up purchasing some 8 tooth blades, and they didn't do too badly. If they had a better selection I would have purchased 10 or 12 tooth blades and I think they would have minimized the thrashing at the edge of the melamine.

J had the perfect idea for cutting the melamine and I'd recommend it for anyone doing the project. Put your good sides facing in (lift, don't slide) and your bad sides facing out. What will happen is the tearing will occur on the outside edges which ultimately face to the inside of the cabinet and no one will see.

We also used masking tape on all the cuts to minimize the melamine edges being ripped apart. The circular saw did a nice job, and clean straight cuts. The jigsaw was a bit more challenging as it tended to flex on the edges of the MDF / melamine and bind at several points on the tape. Thankfully there were no major cutting errors and everything seemed to come together nicely.

Most of the major cuts were done by J with the circular saw, and the curve piece was done with a jigsaw. We used a 3/32 bit for the routing for the T-molding as I couldn't find a 1/16 bit at any of the stores we went to, including a specialty tool shop. J cut the inside support pieces with a double-bevel miter saw.

By the end of the day, we managed to cut both sides of the cabinet, and attach the spruce to the inside which will attach to an inside supporting frame. I know most cabinet builders don't go with an internal frame, but this cabinet will be moved as some point and I don't feel confident that bolts to the MDF will hold a 110lb 27" monitor in place. With an internal frame I can be reasonable confident it can be moved, and there should also be no shifting during game play.

When they say pre-drill the MDF / melamine, the reason for that is as you drill your 2" or 1 1/2" screws through into the MDF it's going to resist your screw. If you pre-drill it provides a nice anchor point for the wood (the screw will naturally go into the hole) and the MDF doesn't resist the screw. We tried two screws without pre-drilling and they wouldn't even go into the melamine, it simply pushed the board up.

We used 2" decking screws, which have nice chunky teeth on them, inside of fine teeth like a wood screw.

Today I'm going to have to do some more running around to switch out the door hinges and the casters. Two of the casters I purchased from the 3" bin turned out to be 2 1/2" casters. The door hinges I purchased were totally wrong and should have been cabinet hinges.


This is the saw horses set up in J's garage.


Close up view.


Two sheets of melamine laid back to back, bad sides out, good sides in.


You can see the 2x4 cross members providing center support for the melamine.


Showing the safety equipment we're wearing. J is quite pleased with me taking his photo. It was a toss up between these type of masks with carbon filters, or re breathers. Unfortunately the price tag on re breathers starts at $70 and goes up from there.


Using masking tape (in this case painters tape) to minimize the tearing at the edges. Even with the painters tape you can see significant chipping. Luckily this is the side that will face to the inside, while the piece that faces to the outside has zero chipping.


After fooling around with different router bits, it was decided I had to get a jigsaw to properly do this job. No cutting corners.


J made a slight slippage changing the router bit, and this is what it did to his thumb. This was the worst injury for the day, and hopefully the last.


The shape of the cabinet is taped out, and J measured it precisely including all the angles.


Better shot showing the tape and level.


J managed to do this sweeping round angle in one shot. Very nicely done I think it's going to look much better than straight cuts. You can see the nicely centered routed space for the T-molding.


There's a bit of a hump halfway down the cut from the jigsaw blade flexing, but we'll likely just touch it up a bit with the belt sander.


Attaching the frame to the inside pieces first, and then the frame will attach to that. Quite difficult as the glue acted like a lubricant and the pieces would move around quite a bit. We managed to get a system down and secure the pieces after pre-drilling into the spruce and melamine.


With both sides done, we call it a night and J tells me to get the hell out.

Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.

So I have everything I could possibly need, except for some small finishing touches like the speaker grills and the glass / plexi-glass that will sit in front of the monitor.

Oh, and the artwork. The damn artwork. That's in the back of my mind for now.

Started out as a simple trip to Rona, but they didn't have the lumber I was looking for. They did however have a super sweet deal on a Dewalt power drill. My thinking is that I'll need a more powerful drill for a lot of the routing and countersinking. My cordless drill can be used once the hole is drilled and countersunk with the Dewalt. That way I'm not having to change out bits all the time as well.

I drove down to Home Depot, unfortunately picking a day where two of the major roads were closed and there was some big event involving road closures and police escorts. I unfortunately didn't realize this until I was on my way back, my car full of lumber.



So all the pieces are in place, time to start building.

The world isn't run by weapons anymore, or energy, or money. It's run by little ones and zeroes, little bits of data. It's all just electrons.

So other than some 2x4's and 2x6's I have all the required supplies to start construction. Had a few hours before my shift today, so I used it to be productive and swing by the Rona to grab everything I could possibly need.

Everything I could possibly need turned out to be a few dollars. Hopefully some of the bits and tools that I purchased can be used for future endeavors.

I didn't have enough time today to update my costs spreadsheet or grab the remaining lumber I need for the internal framing. The spreadsheet will get updated this evening and I'll pick up the remaining lumber in the late afternoon tomorrow.

All that will remain is to fire up some power tools and get cutting.

All we know is that there's still no contact with the colony, and that a xenomorph may be involved.

Well I managed to accomplish some big things today, largely with the help of J. We managed to transport my non-existent black melamine (after much searching in the lumber bay).

We also stopped at Home Depot on the way back and grabbed some 5/8" black melamine for the control panel.

'Hey where do you guys have your melamine, I'm grabbing some black 5/8's stuff.'

'Ooohhh black, yah I don't think we have that.'

'I already called ahead, you do. What aisle is your stuff in?'

It's okay, I managed to find the non-existent black 5/8" melamine without his help. Why the resistance to black? They have cherry and walnut, but they think black is odd.

Riiight.




The fourth piece of good (I'm glad I got 4 instead of 3) is messed up on one side with the melamine. I'm sure I'll use that as the back piece to the cabinet and just face it inside.



Major assembly should start this coming Saturday assuming no unforeseen complications.

J is finalizing up the control panel layout, and getting some decent plans for 2x4 frame to support the monitor.

I'm still screwed on artwork, I haven't received positive responses from the limited amount of Rampart owners, and I may be forced to change the artwork theme for the cabinet.

Later. Right now lets play Global Thermonuclear War.

I realized that I probably designed the website for a scope of people who already know what I'm talking about.

For those of you not familiar with how Mame or other emulators work:
What happens is the original circuit board of whatever game you're trying to play, is converted from a physical 'ROM' chip to software. It's a faithful exact reproduction of the original information. Mame then uses this to reproduce the game exactly as if you were playing it in the arcade. My intent is to have a cabinet that will have the controls to play as many of those games as possible.

Some of the most influential games from my youth:

Centipede. I can remember being at Owl's Nest resort in BC every summer and coming out of the lake soaking wet. I'd run into the arcade and blow a few bucks on centipede. (Probably not the safest thing).

Ms Pacman was pretty awesome as well, but I lacked the appropriate skills and usually only made it to the 3rd or 4th screen.

Gauntlet was a game that captured my imagination. One of the first games I heard in the arcade talking, I spent months recreating mazes on paper, and many hundreds of dollars playing it. It was a great cooperative game as well.

Street Fighter 2 CE. What can I say, the game that caused me to blow insane amounts of cash polishing my upper cuts and hadoukens. I can remember catching the bus with J and Coon to ride across the city to the 7-11 which was the only place in the city at the time that had it. Kids were lined out of the arcade every day, all day.

Mortal Kombat 1/2. Finishing moves, blood, gore. It was fantastic.

Saturday Night Slam Masters. This game captured me in university, and it was one of the first games that I truly dominated on. I managed to win a tournament playing it, mostly because of the 360 degree skills I had mastered playing Zangief on Street Fighter. With the character Rasta, I would make short work of my opponents.

You must become more than just a man in the mind of your opponent.

Wood. In Calgary, the city is filled with it, and surrounded by it. We likely have 50 different building supply stores in the city, with some of the largest and most explosive housing boom any city has seen for a long time.

Why is it then, that I cannot order Black melamine MDF? I've spent the better part of 4 hours on hold with Totem. I've driven down 3 times. I've even paid for the product in advance. With all that, they seem incapable of supplying me wood.

At this point I think it would be easier for me to take a chainsaw, drive out of the city 20 minutes, cut down my own tree, bring it back to the city and make my own wood.

I can order electronic components from England, and they arrive in 3 days. I can order a 110lb monitor from the US, ship it ground, and it arrives in 8 days. Two weeks working on order my wood, and it's still not even on order.

Wood.

The guy at Totem said he'd look into it and call me back.

He won't be calling back.

I guarantee it.

Update:

Apparently I went Hulk a little bit too soon. He did in fact call back. What he meant by 'It's not on order in the system', is that it's arrived and has been sitting on a shelf for 3 days.

...

Right.

At this point I'm half expecting to get there and find out it's the wrong wood, or the wood isn't actually there.

After this much work I'll be taking pictures of the wood from every possible angle. If only to prove to myself it actually exists.

You always want to invest in things people can't do without. Water and cemeteries... pretty safe bets.

Late yesterday the remainder of my parts order came in. Essentially I have a room full of parts just waiting on the wood to assemble them.

Cost page has been updated to reflect the latest expenses.