Strong to the Finich / Cause He Eats His Spinach / He's Popeye the Cabaret Man!

dungeonmastr

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Strong to the Finich / Cause He Eats His Spinach / He's Popeye the Cabaret Man!

Well folks, it's time for another scratch build! This one's still in progress, so this won't be a complete wall of text right off the bat. ;)

Several weeks ago, the wife and I got all the cabinets moved into the back room after deciding to sell the now horribly uncomfortable futon. Once everything was in place, I noticed that there was enough room for "just one more" and noted such aloud. Surprisingly, this was not greeted with the admonishment one might expect. She approved, but the line was now drawn - nothing more here until we have a house next year. There wasn't too much space available, so whatever it was going to be had to be small. After stumbling across Phet's old thread a long while back, I was intrigued by the concept of a Nintendo cabaret and tucked the idea away at the back of my mind. Now it nagged at me like a hackneyed '50s sitcom wife, imploring that its existence be made manifest. But what life to breath into it...?

Popeye, of course! My favorite Nintendo game, and probably one my favorites overall, lovable ol' Popeye was going to get a brand new home. I'd had the board for a while now, but nothing to put him in since Donkey Kong came back from channelmanic early last year. After toying with (and drawing up) the idea of using a 19" monitor, seeing as 13" ones aren't exactly common, I happened upon a little WG 13K7301 with a bit of burn-in, but that was otherwise practically brand-new looking. Once my heart was set, I started working on plans. It took a few weeks of work in my spare time, but I came up with a set of drawings that looked both pleasing and somewhat accurate. Once satisfied, I was off to hill country to spend a weekend with Dad...

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So, cutting the cabinet walls on this thing went a heck of a lot quicker than the last couple. Once the plywood was cut to width (or depth, I suppose), it was just a matter of taping the drawing to the top sheet, stacking 'em, clamping 'em, and taking a skil saw to the setup. For this build, 5/8" Chinese birch was used - this was more experimental than the previous builds, so we went with a wood that was much less expensive than primo, furniture grade plywood, and could be easily sourced and replaced if we goofed up.

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Blocking the outer bits of the frame was a cinch...

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The top and back-top, not so much. This style of cabaret has no blocking supporting either of these panels, so either dowels or biscuits would be needed. I don't know for sure how NoJ would have done it, but I'm assuming they would have gone with dowels, since a drill and jig would make for quick work. This baby, however, would be getting biscuits. Since I have no experience using a cutter, this wound being a cool learning opportunity. It was nowhere near as difficult as I thought to line up the walls and panels, nor was it difficult to make the cuts. I only really made one screw-up, but it was easily correctable (just a slightly off angle on a cut). The t-molding grooves were also cut at this time.

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Once it was ready to assemble we needed to move fast. The glue set fairly quickly and the top panels took a little longer than we anticipated to get lined up perfectly, so the rest of the cabinet needed to be put together with a sense of urgency so we could get the clamps on. After some final checks to make sure everything was in place, we were just about ready to call it a night.

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Once assembled, it was time for a hot meal, a refreshing beer, and a shower.
 
The next morning, we were back at it bright and early.

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This little guy was a quick and easy bit of work.

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Now that the cab was assembled, we could start getting the front panel cut out. As you may have noticed, the project, at this point, deviates from a traditional Nintendo cabaret. I decided to follow in the vein of Phet's build and opted for a recessed plexi marquee instead of a traditional sticker applied below the control panel. This required the speaker grille to be lowered a bit, so it lies flush with the top of the coin door, as with Phet's build.

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Everything's all tacked down, traced out, and ready to cut!

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Aaaaand, we're done. Well, not totally - we spent a bit finishing up some fitting and additional fab work, but on the whole it was starting to really come together. There was a bit of a drive ahead, and the weather was not looking too cooperative, so we loaded up the cab and additional parts and I made my way back home. In case you were wondering, you can, in fact, fit a Nintendo cabaret into the backseat of a Ford Focus if you first disengage the base and wheels.

Of the cabinet, not the car. ;)

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And here it is, in all it's unfinished glory!

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On the whole, so far, I'm pretty proud of this little guy! The input my dad has offered is just awesome - teaching me about woodworking aside, he's always able to point out all the little stuff I'm just not experienced enought to catch and help me figure out better ways to accomplish different desired elements of a build, especially this one. I've learned a lot over the last couple of these builds, and this one went incredibly quickly and smoothly because of that. I owe a lot to the man for his insight and guidance; I'm just glad I get to build something together with him. :)

Well, until later in the week, this is all I've got for now; hope it was a fun read so far.

Y'all take care!
 
looks amazing. 5/8" was the perfect, inexpensive replacement choice for this cab as the original NOJ cabs were 15mm.

My only worry is how much of a viewing angle you may lose (or gain depending on the angle) with a 19 inch monitor in there. I built my own DK style cabaret some time ago and that was one of my biggest issues. I wound up cutting about an inch off the visor area and still wasn't satisfied.
 
looks amazing. 5/8" was the perfect, inexpensive replacement choice for this cab as the original NOJ cabs were 15mm.

My only worry is how much of a viewing angle you may lose (or gain depending on the angle) with a 19 inch monitor in there. I built my own DK style cabaret some time ago and that was one of my biggest issues. I wound up cutting about an inch off the visor area and still wasn't satisfied.

Thanks! Yeah, I recall reading about the 15mm material width at some point and thinking "what the heck?" I'd say that's a stupid width, but I'd probably be in the minority, considering most of the rest of the planet uses metric and this is probably a bog standard plywood width literally everywhere else on the Earth. :p

As for the monitor, I managed to find a 13" to go into it, so I won't have to tangle with a 19" one. Did you make the CNC cut Super Mario Bros. machine, by any chance? The white one? If so, that thing was absolutely gorgeous. Heck, it's what made me finally pull the trigger on this thing! I was wondering how the heck you got a 19" tube in there, given the cramped quarters.
 
Aaand, we're back.

Got a solid chunk of work done this week! Since there's a few different things to cover, we'll start with the joystick since it's the simplest bit.

I had a stick on hand (not a Wico, mind you), but the ball was way too dark blue. After a little bit of researching, I found a BYOAC thread about painting joystick knobs that looked promising. Found a rustoleum color that matched pretty close to what I was looking for and decided to go for it.

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Panel one is after taking a hit from pretty rough steel wool; panels two and three are during and after priming. I opted to use some vehicle primer I had on hand, which worked just fine. The last panel is the [almost] finished product. Still needs to be triple-thicked, but, bingo! It's as smooth as wet glass; several coats of clear-coat should wrap it up nicely.

Dropped by Regal Plastics over in Irving for the smoked plexi and CPO:

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Not too much to see at the moment; I miscalculated on the CPO plexi, so I'll need to snap about 1/4" off the width, dangit. Just about have the artwork wrapped up for it, so I'll throw an image of that up soon as well (along with the marquee).

I worked from home on Thursday, which gave me an opportunity to get the primer on during lunch. For the record, I never have good luck with rolled primer. Or sprayed. I'm bad with paint, okay?

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OH GOD, MAKE IT STOP!

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Whew, that's better! So, allow me, for a moment, to sing the praises of Floetrol. It's the best thing ever invented for folks like me, who cannot roll down paint to save their lives. I can use an HVLP sprayer with some degree of proficiency now, but rolling paint is never going to be something I'm good at. Floetrol has changed that. I probably should have used Penetrol in the primer (it was oil-based - I didn't want to take a chance on using something water-based on the paper-thin veneer the plywood had) but, eh, you win some and you lose some. The visible interior has been sprayed with epoxy-based black appliance paint; it's a deep and dark black, so deep that my phone couldn't even really see it, hence why there's no direct pictures of the viewing area. It might not be the best choice for texture (though it can be wet sanded with 2000 grit for a mirror finish) but it will produce a durable, reliable finish that will stand the test of time. Unless I need a matte finish on something that needs to be painted black, it's getting hit with this stuff - coin doors, bolts, hardware fixtures, you name it.

That about wraps it up for tonight - I'll have another coat of paint on it tomorrow and it should be good to bring in after that. Just some minor physical work beyond that, along with assembling the electrical/electronic bits and getting the artwork printed.

Y'all take care!
 
WOW!!!! That is a beauty!!!

Thanks! :D

Alright, quick update y'all.

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Storms down here have kept me from getting anything else done tonight, but the t-molding's on and done. Dropped the plastics off at the printer this morning - should have them back Friday. Here's a scaled down version of what went out:

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I wanted to preserve as much of the CPO as possible, seeing as the DK cabaret control panels tended to pare down the aesthetics to "just business."

That's all for tonight - storms look like they've moved on, but stay safe out there fellow North Texas KLOVers!
 
As for the monitor, I managed to find a 13" to go into it, so I won't have to tangle with a 19" one. Did you make the CNC cut Super Mario Bros. machine, by any chance? The white one? If so, that thing was absolutely gorgeous. Heck, it's what made me finally pull the trigger on this thing! I was wondering how the heck you got a 19" tube in there, given the cramped quarters.

unfortunately no, i didn't make that SMB cab. I made one a few years back. Hated the way it turned out and ended up giving it to my old neighbor.
 
Another quick one before hitting the hay this evening. Electronics are just about done - just wanted to get everything up and running to test. Art should be back tomorrow, then it's just final assembly! Anyways, without further ado, he lives!

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Updates? Ready for some more!

You got it! Game's kind of packed-in at the moment, so it's hard to get a good glimpse of what it really looks like. I'll wheel it out and get some good photos later in the week when I've got the room put back in order.

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Another quick one before hitting the hay this evening. Electronics are just about done - just wanted to get everything up and running to test. Art should be back tomorrow, then it's just final assembly! Anyways, without further ado, he lives!

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That a sanyo?
 
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