Hey Guys!
It's Mike from The Geek Pub!
And on this episode we're going to finish this awesome arcade cabinet!
Well hey guys!
Welcome to part 3 of our arcade cabinet build.
And in this episode we're going to finish it up by finishing up the lighted marquee
and applying all of the graphics.
Now unfortunately one of my graphic panels has still not arrived and so we're going to
go ahead and finish the video without that, and I'll show you how it looks in a follow
up video or one of the future pub talks.
To light the marquee I got this LED light (It's just a light strip that plugs in) at
a local big box store.
And I'm just going to install this into the back of the marquee box.
But before we do that I'm going to line it using spray adhesive and aluminum foil.
That will make it a little bit more reflective.
So let's get started.
I'm just going to use my razor knife to cut everything to size.
And I'm just going to install the light fixture.
It's pretty easy its just one screw.
OK.
I'm going to cut two 4 x 27 inches sheets of acrylic out of this large sheet and this
will be the sandwich for the marquee artwork.
And I highly recommend that when you cut acrylic you cut it on the table saw and that you use
something like a Micro-Jig to hold it flat during the process.
Otherwise it might crack.
So what I've done here is I've taken one one of these pieces of acrylic glass and I've
clamped it down on top of my Space Invaders marquee background, and I'm just going to
use my razor knife with a brand new very sharp blade to trim it out to the exact finished
size.
And then finally just remove the clear plastic that is on their from the manufacturer and
that will reveal the finished product.
And just slide the marquee into place.
OK.
So I have went ahead and completely disassembled the arcade and brought it upstairs into the
game room.
And I did this because I wanted to have a very clean dust free environment in order
to install the graphics on.
And I have those here with me and they are of course also Space Invader themed.
And so what I am going to do is going to remove the adhesive back and I'm going to apply them
and then I'm just going to use a razor knife to cut them to the size of the cabinet.
I'm just going to use a razor knife and I'm going to trim it along the edges of the cabinet.
OK.
So if your remember part one of our arcade cabinet build we routed all of these slots
into the front fascias and the lighted marquee, and that is to accept this T-track and this
T-track has these little ribbed slots that stick out and they will compress into the
slots that we routed with the router.
I've found that rather to cut the entire T-track, its better to just cut this little notch in
the bottom of it.
And that way I can fold it over and it provides for a much more finished look.
Hahaha.
Alright.
Well that wraps up the arcade cabinet build.
I'm so glad that you joined me for this.
This was probably one of the funnest projects that I've done in a long time.
I grew up with arcades as a kid.
There was one on every corner.
In fact, arcades were in Wal-Marts and local gas stations, and everywhere you went because
there was no such thing as a home arcade system or an iPhone that you could play video games
on anywhere that you went.
And there certainly wasn't anything like an XBOX.
So you had to go make a trip if you wanted to play an arcade.
And so that's what we did all the time.
And other than the missing graphic on the kick-panel the arcade is fundamentally complete.
I've also only so far installed MAME and a front-end for it called Maximus arcade, but
in the future I'm going to put emulators for Commodore 64, Nintendo Entertainment System,
Atari 2600, Neo-Geo, and other emulators.
I just haven't got around to doing that yet and I'll probably make a video about all of
that as well.
I'll probably do one more follow up video on things that you didn't get to see such
as the software install and those types of things.
I'd also like to talk about some of the mistakes that I made, and none of them are major but
I think they would help you in your cabinet build.
So some of you probably think that I am crazy having a Space Invaders marquee and side art,
and a Pac-Man control panel.
Well in the future I will also have a Pac-Man kick panel when that comes in.
Because the machine is a multi-arcade and it can play just about any game, I wanted
to have a little bit of fun with that and kind of show that.
And so I am kind of doing a multi-arcade theme and I may over time change stuff.
I've actually considered changing my marquee over to a Geek Pub logo.
Well hey!
Thanks for watching this video!
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And if you want to follow along with me go to Facebook.com/TheGeekPub.