Original Cabinet

The cabinet is a refurbished Videomaster 2 player jamma cabinet.

Dimensions

58cm wide
1.6m high approx.
75 cm deep approx.

It came with locks and keys, but no manuals. When I received it, it was in quite a state. It looked as if it had been sitting in some persons garage, under about 2 feet of water, for a long time. There were spider’s webs inside and more dust than you would believe. It took a good few hours to clean out all the crap, for which I used good old soap and water and my trusty vacuum cleaner. After that it was time to start the real work. (not to suggest that cleaning isn't real work...)

SANDING
The next thing I did was to sand back the paint job on both sides. I didn't take any photos of any of the work I did until it was finished, which I really regret now, but I didn't really think about it back then because I was just eager to get finished.
The original paint job was some red lines on a black background. Pretty boring stuff. That was soon to change.
I was going to sand back right to the wood, but it would have taken ages, and it really wasn't necessary, so instead I just sanded it back until all the red was gone. I used a cheap power sander, which had a vacuum attachment that really came in handy for keeping the dust from getting on everything.

PAINTING
Next I painted the sides black. I used a satin paint from Wilko. This is the thickest stuff I have ever seen. It doesn't need stirring, it just goes straight on. But make sure you get the right roller! I made the mistake of using a matt roller, when in fact you need a gloss one. If you try to use a matt one like I did, bits of it come off and mix into the paint, leaving little hairs all over your cabinet. Not a nice look, I can tell you. So after sanding it back again, I got a new roller and started the whole process over.

FLAMES
So after applying a few coats of black all over it was looking pretty slick. But it wasn't enough. I wanted this machine to look HOT, thus the flames. I had loved the look of the retro kind of flames you see on old hotrods, but I found it hard to find examples of it on the net. Nowhere was there any vector graphics of flames that I could use as a template, so I had to make up my own design. In the end it didn't turn out too bad.

I drew up my design on art board using a pencil and one of those bendy plastic curve-drawing tools. Then I cut it out with a Stanley knife so that I had a stencil that I could tape to the side of the cabinet and then spray paint over. I used the original and traced another stencil for the other side.

I then got some double-sided tape and taped one stencil to each side. IMPORTANT. Make sure you get tape that comes off easily. Ask the guy at the store whether it will strip off paint. My guy said he didn't think it would, but he couldn't guarantee it. Make sure your guy can. The tape I used did not come off without a paint scraper, which really pissed me off.

Anyway after that it is time to paint the flames. I chose to use spray paint because I had already bought some cans. I wouldn't make the same mistake again. I am crap at spray painting, but luckily it didn't show. A roller is SO much easier and gives a much better result.
Anyway, once the red paint had dried I tried to put some touches of yellow on. As you can see I went a bit overboard. It is more yellow than red now, but still looks kick ass.

After it all dried and I had re painted the bits where the tape ripped the paint off, it came time for varnish. My mum did this bit for me while I was at work. She only did 2 coats and we thought 2 looked fine so we left it at that.
So now the painting was finished. Time to move on.

T-MOULDING
Next thing was the T-moulding. This was fairly tricky, as I pulled out some of the chip board when I removed the old stuff. A bit of hot melt glue keeps things on fairly well though. I think I might have got slightly the wrong size moulding as the middle part looks slightly too long to fit into the groove. It fits, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I don't think it fits well enough. Everyone else I've shown thinks it looks great, so it’s just me. I messed up one bit, where I cut the T-moulding in half. I had to fill in the gap with putty, painted black. It is not really noticeable, but I still wish I'd got it right. Live and learn eh?

BACK DOOR
So, with the T-moulding finished I moved on to the back door. It was slightly chipped on the bottom corners, and looked a bit scrappy. It also had rusty metal meshing over the top and bottom so I used a hammer to bash it out. Then after painting and varnishing, I put a strip of chrome metal carpet joiner along the bottom. It came up about 3 inches from the base and covered the whole width of the door, but not the vent. This covered any dodgy bits, and made it look pretty swish.

COIN DOOR AND FRONT
So after that, I took the whole front apart, piece-by-piece, sanded it back, and painted it. This was quite easy for the wooden panel in which the coin door was set, but turned out really rather hard for the metal parts, such as the coin door itself and the door on the cash box. I went through many, many sanding sheets, mainly because I was using the wrong kind of sander, but that’s another matter...

So after hours of sanding back to shiny metal, I put on a metal primer, waited for it to dry, and then put on a few coats of black. So rather than being rusty and flaking, it looked sexy and black.
Sweet! So then came putting it back together. God how I wish I wrote stuff down. It took me a good half hour to figure out how to get it all back together and even then I needed my mum to come and tell me what I was doing wrong. Anyway we finally got it back together and it was time to move on again.

GLASS
Next came the glass. The original glass was scratched and the design printed on it looked way lame, so it had to go. Replacement glass was only about 15 pounds for hardened glass. I chose not to get the corners polished, which is something I probably should have done. I think it would make taking it out easier. Taking the glass out would also have been easier were my measuring device not a crappy fabric ruler I got from a Christmas-cracker that had stretched about a half centimeter too long. Once hardened glass is cut, I don't think you can cut it again. So I had to make a slight adjustment to the inside of the cabinet to fit it in. It should have been square so that the thing could rotate, but seeing I stuffed up the measurement it can only be horizontal. This doesn't stop the monitor from rotating, but if you wanted to play vertical games you might want to try getting the glass cut, or getting some glass. I play vertical games squashed up. I thought about mounting the monitor on a wheel but it looked like too much work, and I was running out of money and time, as it was.

So once I had the glass I had to find someone to print the bezel onto it. Easier said than done. It took many hours of ringing people up to find someone who could do it for a reasonable price. In the end I chose a place called Rickwood displays in Milton, who were pretty good. If you go with them make sure you explain everything VERY CLEARLY. They stuffed up my order the first time. I specifically told the guy that I wanted my bezel on the glass to be horizontal, as the glass only fit in one way.
I told him that the glass was 54cm left to right and that the widest part of the window had to be left to right so that it lined up with the monitor underneath. So when I finally get the glass back it is the wrong way round. Luckily they changed it for me for free. If I had got the glass cut to the right size it wouldn't have been a problem, but it doesn't end there. I told them about the marquee, and how I wanted the design to be printed in reverse and applied to the back of the Lexan sheet I gave them, so that you saw the design THROUGH the Lexan, and what do they do? They print the design on the front. They told me it would be on a HP DesignJet or something like that and then when I get back they say they did it on a Gerber Edge. It still looks pretty good, but it has a sort of mottled effect, that wasn't what I personally wanted. It just goes to show that you really have to make things clear to avoid getting screwed over. I felt like telling them to do it again, but I don't think that would have gone down too well. At least they delivered it for free, even if they did take longer than they said they would.

POWER

So after I had all the outside looking pretty I still needed to have a place to plug everything in to. Rather than making a complicated circuit that turned everything on at the right time, I decided to go the simple and cheap route once again. I put in a six way switched power board along the bottom, right behind the cut out part of the back door. That way I could just reach in and turn on the monitor at the right time, and turn off the speakers and the marquee light when finished, rather than unplugging the whole thing from the wall. I also added another 4-way board to the left side of the cabinet, near the top, because the speaker and marquee lights were too short to reach the bottom. I then plugged this into the main board at the bottom.

The cabinet came with a fat transformer that sat right on the bottom, near my power board, and it also had an arcade type power box for the jamma loom. I just left all that in place, in case I, or the new owner, ever wanted to play jamma games.

COIN MECH

This was a Sentinel Coin Mech with a Credit Control Unit plugged into it. It was obviously really old, but luckily it had Sentinel's number on the side. I gave the number a call, having little hope that it would still be the same after all these years. But someone actually picked up! And more than that, they were willing to help! They took my email address and then sent me off the manual for the credit control unit and the service manual and tech manuals for the mech itself. This was the best customer service I had ever seen in the UK, and I hadn't even bought anything!
Without those manuals it would have taken me years to figure out what all the little switches did.
I include them here for all those who might find them useful. The Sentinel mech is discontinued stock.

So that was pretty much all of the cabinet done, except for the control panel. You can find details of that in its own section. Go there now, if you want. This bit's done with.