Control Panel Prototype

I built a prototype of my control panel just to make sure everything fit like it was supposed to.

It was a tight fit in some places, but shouldn't be a problem to move things an eighth an inch or so. I wanted to keep it a two player cabinet while making it as small as possible.

Panel Cutting

I traced the cardboard pattern onto 1/4" hardboard and sanded the edges smooth. Then borrowed my brother in laws router and clamped the hardboard pattern to a sheet of 1/2" MDF and cut out 2 copies. Then clamped those together and sanded the edges smooth.

I again scaled down Jakobud's pattern to 80% to get my width between my cabinet sides to be 18". I cut out a top and bottom panel and the control panel pieces. I then got work on the speaker opening.

I had to do this by hand as I didn't have a router bit this small. I drilled holes at each end of the slot and cut the slots with a copping saw.

It was a little rough to start, but a little filing and sanding cleaned it up nice.

Start of my Mario Bros Arcade Cabinet

I built a MAME cabinet about 10 years ago from a Crime Fighters cabinet. After 3 moves I finally decided that it was way too big and heavy, so I stripped it of it's components and trashed the cabinet. I decided to build a cabinet from scratch. I wanted it small so it was easy to move around but still large enough for 2 players. I decided on a Mario Bros cabinet at 80% scale and only from the control panel up. Since I'm going 80% scale I could use 1/2" MDF. I started my build at jakobud.com. Instead of trying to draw out this at full size I used PosteRazor and printed the multiple sheets and then taped it all together.
Then transfered this over to carboard.