Building my Arcade Machine

It has always been a dream of mine to have an arcade machine in my house. Growing up as an arcade dweller after school at the mall and watching countless episodes of Silver Spoons, I thought it would be awesome to have an arcade game of my own. I planned for this for about three months and finally decided to move forward and build.

Originally all the wood I had was going to be used for a lego/train table in the basement but thanks to craigslist and some guy in the middle of nowhere in Elizabethtown PA, I didn't have to build one. He had built one years ago and was selling it because his kids were moving away to college amd didn't need it any more.

So, I started searching the internet for plans and came across blueprints for a Mortal Kombat II cabinet and decided that was the route I was going to take.

All the materials are leftovers from redoing the roof on our old house and dumpster diving each night in the construction site behind our house. (Side note: the builder said take anything I wanted. They were throwing it out anyway.) There was a lot of good stuff in there.

First here is the frame. My mother-in-law did all the cutting because it required the bandsaw. She has a bit more experience and my wife does not feel comfortable with me using anything other than the jig saw. A wise thought considering my past - almost severing a finger with an exacto knife. So we got it altogether and here it is.

Next, I added the sides and the board to support the monitor.
To come: the control panel, the bezel and the light up marquee.