why did they make the games so heavy, and how long till you can't move them?

They were heavy for two reasons:
1. So they would be cheap to make with smooth surfaces (which is why the cheaper chip board wasn't used).
2. So they would stay put (not easy to move).
3. MDF is glue and sawdust compressed, which is why it was cheap and favorable for the artwork. Smooth works well, as we see some of our more dedicated members using bondo and blocking to try to level out "dings" in their cabinets, or resorting to having people like you (previously) DPT them a new cab.

It was more 1 and 3 than 2. 2 helped keep the center of gravity low, so the cabs didn't overturn.

Okay, now we know they are as heavy as @(*$^@*(^$@ - what do we do?

1. Buy an Esclara or equivalent
2. Use the U-Haul "Hire Help" product, and pay someone to help you move them.
3. If you have young friends, ask THEM to help you move the games. Providing beer and pizza helps keep this from a favor that will never happen again to one where people might come back (if you go for GOOD pizza and GOOD beer!)
4. Move to a large, single level home with no thresholds, and still get an esclara or equivalent to help move them.
 
I am 54 and just had surgery on both hands. It's funny to me that I used to drag 300 pound cabinets up stairs all the time, and now I can barely budge them.

Let's face it, we are all getting old. The good news is I have the disposable income to hire a 20 year old to sling these games around for me now lol.
I know I'm coming in as the young whipper-snapper at 28 but I have a split level house and my arcade is on the lower floor. my lightest unit is about 180lbs (24" claw machine) and my next heaviest is 100lbs up from that. my heaviest tops out at over 500lbs. I take them all to charity events to raise money every year and after the second year I took serious thought into my personal health. Ended up getting an electric stair climbing dolly and my back has been much happier since.
Don't get me wrong, it's still a challenge with the dolly but it takes most of the pain out of doing it.
 
I'm 27 and I've lugged about 25 of these things up my stairs to my second floor. I don't necessarily enjoy it but I also do powerlifting/bodybuilding as a second hobby so I try to stay in shape and it DEFINITELY helps. Didn't hurt to get an industrial, ratchet strap dolly early on too.
 
I'm 27 and I've lugged about 25 of these things up my stairs to my second floor. I don't necessarily enjoy it but I also do powerlifting/bodybuilding as a second hobby so I try to stay in shape and it DEFINITELY helps. Didn't hurt to get an industrial, ratchet strap dolly early on too.
Yeah, that's key for me. I've been working out and lifting weights since 1989 and I still go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I also take one or two 3-5 mile walks daily. I really don't have too much trouble moving these things around at 52. But I have seen a lot of Arcade bodies in my day, and I don't think any of them have ever really exercised or stepped foot in a gym, which is probably why moving these games seems to be much more of a wide-spread growing concern among collectors. With Brett (OP), I know it's more because of injuries and surgeries, but a lot of people are just too damned sedentary all their lives.

Now that being said, early in my collecting career, about 2006 or so. I remember standing on my truck bed and acting like a human forklift lowering a full-size asteroids off the back of my truck by myself. In the last foot and a half or, so while I was bent over, I definitely popped something in my lower back and it took probably three years for me to finally heal enough that it wasn't a nagging problem. So I know the potential for injuries is real. I just feel the more you exercise and work out, the longer you'll be able to comfortably move these heavy bastards around. You'll probably live longer too.
 
I'm sure they used particle board to save money, but plywood cabs across the board would have been nice! Pretty much everyone here knows me and the cabs i used to make.
I go in march 4th for major back surgery #3. Getting rods and screws, and fused this time, do not have a choice. have a vertebrae that broke and didn't heal back together, and
it's 7cm off to one side and tilted. I think of the literally hundreds of cabinets i built, the 300+ games and cabinets i owned over a 10 year period. Shit, i've been out since 2018
and i STILL have a 10X20 storage unit full, a 12X16 yard barn full, and a couple games in my back room. Every single one of them took a little bit out of me, and it's time to pay
up for it. I'll be 55 on march 2nd, and i probably won't be moving any games after this!

Every time i got to shove one out of the way i dread it. Anyone else just physically ready to be done? The wear and tear on you is real!
Yes, I love my gameroom but I do very little turnover. I also put wheels on the bottom of all of them. And I keep shopping for a stair climber. My back is still good and I really want to keep it that way. My shoulders are going to need work though.
 
Yeah, that's key for me. I've been working out and lifting weights since 1989 and I still go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I also take one or two 3-5 mile walks daily. I really don't have too much trouble moving these things around at 52. But I have seen a lot of Arcade bodies in my day, and I don't think any of them have ever really exercised or stepped foot in a gym, which is probably why moving these games seems to be much more of a wide-spread growing concern among collectors. With Brett (OP), I know it's more because of injuries and surgeries, but a lot of people are just too damned sedentary all their lives.

Now that being said, early in my collecting career, about 2006 or so. I remember standing on my truck bed and acting like a human forklift lowering a full-size asteroids off the back of my truck by myself. In the last foot and a half or, so while I was bent over, I definitely popped something in my lower back and it took probably three years for me to finally heal enough that it wasn't a nagging problem. So I know the potential for injuries is real. I just feel the more you exercise and work out, the longer you'll be able to comfortably move these heavy bastards around. You'll probably live longer too.
I honestly don't know how anyone does this without being in some sort of decent shape without just paying other people to do it for them which is just fine I suppose.

I'm more surprised anyone up in years that doesn't take moderately decent care of themselves isn't dying after moving a cabinet.
 
Yes, I love my gameroom but I do very little turnover. I also put wheels on the bottom of all of them.
This, I hold out for what specific games I'm looking for in my arcade and once they're up there....they are there to stay lol...... we do 1 game restore/pickup a year. They're on carpet sliders so they move around easy.

I don't have really anyone else who I feel comfortable asking to help stairs them, THESE stairs....we generally don't have basements here in Texas....this is what my games journey through to get to my arcade....I have no probs hiring someone.....the games get upstairs in the condition I fixed them to, I don't get injured, I won't feel bad or worry about a KI tumbling down the stairs and landing on anyone else in the process, no damage to the house....my games literally didn't get a scratch on them getting up there(they just free handed em' up there!).....worth it to me. I move them/get them to the garage, and hire someone to deal with this:

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I honestly don't know how anyone does this without being in some sort of decent shape without just paying other people to do it for them which is just fine I suppose.
You're damn right it is lol...I get them to the garage(I usually do a pickup with a buddy/brother in law)....and hire people to deal with stairs, and they get up there in the condition I fix them to. Moving them/pickups are not a problem as I invested in one of these and use the sliding a game on it's back on cardboard method...really easy...general moving them around is easy enough, just the huge flight of stairs at the end of the process lol. Some of y'all crazy with 500 pound cockpits lol, KI is the biggun in my collection(though the Atari Games are tanks)

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Yeah, that's key for me. I've been working out and lifting weights since 1989 and I still go to the gym 3-4 times a week. I also take one or two 3-5 mile walks daily. I really don't have too much trouble moving these things around at 52.
I've thought about getting into it through the years, but I worried it would slow me down 🎸 ....I know George Lynch said it slowed him down and regretted doing it. How are your wrist tendons/hands/fine motor dexterity, did lifting all those years effect it?

My idea of staying in shape is don't get fat and eat right(sugar is the devil)...don't be sitting on your ass all the time, got shit to do!:LOL:
 
Yes, I love my gameroom but I do very little turnover. I also put wheels on the bottom of all of them. And I keep shopping for a stair climber. My back is still good and I really want to keep it that way. My shoulders are going to need work though.
If you want I can link you to the one I have
 
I am 53 and all of my games are in my Basement. They have to go through the house and down the steps. It sucks when I have to pull one out. If I ever move I'm paying someone.
 
I'm very grateful for a great friend who allows me to barrow his Escalera stair climber, if it wasn't for that I wouldn't be able to get games up and down stairs.
 
Yeah... 20+ years ago, a friend used to do bulk buys out of operator warehouses. I'd help him move and load/unload games by the (26 foot) truckloads. We quickly came to recognize cabinet types by their shape: Nintendo (light), Williams or Midway (medium), Atari (heavy), any converted laserdisc game cabinet (made from collapsed dwarf star material). I wouldn't want to do any of that now that I'm over 50.
I also recall deadlifting cocktail games up into and down from the beds of pickup trucks by myself. I won't attempt that anymore.

At home, most of my pinball games are at ground level. (Have to come up two steps to bring them in from the garage.) They're on magic sliders on carpet so that I can move them around the room easily when needed, and it's straightforward to bring them in and out of the house by myself.

Unfortunately, all of my video games and the rest of the pinballs are down half a level (~8 steps) from there. When we moved into the house nine years ago, a friend and I hauled down all the vids with my appliance dolly (after pulling them all out of storage, loading them on a truck, and unloading them again) - all in one afternoon. That pretty much wrecked me for the next two weeks. Since then, I've brought a few more down there by myself, but only hauled a couple back up (and they were mini cabinets or cocktails).
They're all on magic sliders, so it's not bad to move them around the room on the carpet.

When the day eventually comes that they need to come up out of there, I'm either renting a stair-climber, or just hiring movers to come and do it.
At least one game (Rush 2049 sitdown) may be down there permanently.
 
I like to think I've got a good system down with moving these machines. The right dolly and some ratchet straps.

Like others have mentioned, it does help to be a little physically fit. I've had a bad back since before I started thinking about collecting cabinets. It got so bad that every once in a while a disc would herniate or slip and pinch a bunch of nerves rendering me a blubbering baby sprawled out and in pain for days straight. The doctor told me that I would need invasive surgery or to work on exercising my core strength and proper stretching. So I started going to the gym a bit and eventually got a weight bench in the garage and since I've started working out regularly I don't have any more "episodes" with my back. *furiously knocking on wood*

I think the worst one I've tried to move was a Virtual Fighter. Not only is that cabinet huge, it's got metal brackets all over it. The day I got it I thought it'd be cool to put in my teeny tiny shed where the workbench is and once all four of us got it in it took up a not small chunk of floor space and I instantly regretted it but didn't want to go through the hassle of moving it again so there it stayed for a while.
 
plywood cabs across the board would have been nice!
Double sheathed industrial grade plywood on sit down MACH 3. Wasn't any lighter.

They didn't worry about operators. They were supposed to have their own man power to move equipment. And for most locations was a simple in and out. Not like houses with stairs, twists and turns, narrow doorways.

As you get older a couple younger strong buddies and a bucket of Colonel Sanders finest, can go a long way towards not killing yourself.

LTG : )
 
Single story house. Gameroom is 20' from the front door and cabs all have Teflon coated leg levelers. And not much game turnover.

So I feel for you guys, but it's not been much of a problem here. I'm also older than many of you guys but far from the oldest here, so this is a good arrangement for me. I'm probably good for the next 15 years. After that, I'll likely sell off most of my games.
 
I myself started collecting when we upgraded to a walkout ranch(not planned, just blind luck). Fortunate, no stairs. Did not realize how pervasive collecting would be(piker, 16 pieces). I have everything on sliders on a carpeted floor. With age(58 3/4) and infirmities, I am noticing I cannot move the machines like I used to(damned Atari machines), I had to have my wife(64) to help me with the last machine move.

I don't like the direction this is heading.....heh :)
 
for now, thankfully, i'm physically capable and it's just laziness that gets in the way.
pushing 50 but strict (have to be, not getting younger :)) with diet and exercise. we all give out eventually but gonna keep fighting for now

it's that or get 1Ups 😧
No!!!!! 😂
Im 50 and do everything i can to plan ahead. The only thing I had to deal with is double hernia surgery 5-6 years ago. Im sending a shoutout to those that collected cabarets 😎
 
I hear ya, have only had one back surgery, but feels like another is in the not so distant future. Add a torn hip and everything else that hurts into the mix as well lol (And I'm not even 50 yet). I used to buy a decent amount of games to fix and flip, not anymore. My body just can't take it anymore, hence why I bought an Escalera, for when anything has to go in or out of my basement. Every time I see a cheap project I just have to say to myself, "No more projects! It will take you months of swearing to restore, and you have zero room to keep it. You can make more working your day off OT, and do you really want to deal with tire kickers when you sell it?"

(And I still bought a roached Tapper that I recently finished a full restoration on, that took me a year.....I'm an idiot lol)
 
Every time I see a cheap project I just have to say to myself, "No more projects! It will take you months of swearing to restore, and you have zero room to keep it. You can make more working your day off OT, and do you really want to deal with tire kickers when you sell it?"

(And I still bought a roached Tapper that I recently finished a full restoration on, that took me a year.....I'm an idiot lol)
I hear you there but for me its the joy of working on them that keeps me doing it. I want to start a repair and refab business eventually but at the moment I don't have any more room for units and I'm currently limited to metal fab and woodworking small-medium parts because even my workshop is full of units.
 
I hear you there but for me its the joy of working on them that keeps me doing it. I want to start a repair and refab business eventually but at the moment I don't have any more room for units and I'm currently limited to metal fab and woodworking small-medium parts because even my workshop is full of units.
I enjoy working on them too, it's therapeutic... usually lol. I'm just never doing full cab art or stencils again... finish work is not my thing. Time is another issue, I have six or so games in my basement arcade that I need to repair small things on, just haven't felt like doing it lately.
 
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