grack.com

Started putting together the MAME cabinet on friday.  I managed to get as far as assembling the base.  Since it’s such an integral part of the entire cabinet, I spent a bunch of time with tubes of No More Nails and some good wood screws to make sure nothing moves. 

It supports me standing on top of it- hopefully it’ll support the weight of the cabinet and the TV (which probably weighs twice as much as me together!)

Fancy tip: pre-drilling all of the screw holes should ensure that none of your wood splits.

I’m still trying to figure out how to cut rounded corners for the cabinet.  I picked up a toonie-sized washer at Rona, hoping that I can use it with some double-sided tape to guide the router around the curve.  I’m not very confident in the success (or safety) of doing it this way.  I’ve noticed that a lot of cabinets seem to skip the rounding step - I suppose it won’t be too terrible if I just keep my 90-degree corners.

Since my last update, I’ve found a number of cabinet construction inspirations:

• http://www.garry.ca/: Nice pictures of cabinet construction, including T-moulding insertion.  Lots of detail about creating marquees.  Fellow canuck (big plus).
• arcadecontrols.org forum: Nifty implementation of a control screenshot with button labels.  I was thinking about doing this for my cabinet, but it would be nice to have something to just drop in.  Think of it as “context help” for the game you’re playing on your cabinet.
• Massive MAME Project: Canadian source for Oscar spinners.
• Stealth Boy’s MAME Cabinet: Lots of detail on good construction techniques.  Interesting links.