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With today being a public holiday (Australia Day), I decided to spend an hour in the garage cutting some holes out for the handles and coin door.

I had been debating with myself about the value of handles on each side of the cocktail. In the end I figured they would be useful for moving it around (since there will be no wheels). I like that it will also mean people won’t need to lift the cocktail by the top panel, and instead just use the handles which should avoid any stress on the table top panel.

The handles are a vented set – I used the same ones on the door of my pac man cab – so will add some passive ventilation. They are also set into the panel itself, meaning there is nothing sticking out. The black colour will also fit in well with the DK theme.

Once the holes for both handles were cut and the rough edged sanded back, I moved onto the coin door. Placement for the coin door is a little tight. It can’t sit too high where the control panel will be, and it can’t be too central where the monitor will be. A grill will be located on the left for the speaker, so in the end, I opted for a lower right positioning (not that I had much choice). The hole was cut, and the coin door fitted perfectly.

The next bit is going to be a little tricky. Cutting the grill slots for the speaker will require some practice, so might spend some time seeing if I can come up with some sort of template or rig that will assist. After that will be designing the control panel, making sure it will fit – and then finally getting the base of the cocktail built.

A tiny update, but the artwork for the control panels arrived today from GameOnGrafix.

Very happy with the quality – measuring 565 x 195mm, I plan to cut it down a little but not much.

There are two bits there – one for each control panel.

With most of my energies devoted to my Pacman cab project this week, I didn’t get time to work on the construction. The main piece of news on this project is I ordered 40ft of white t molding and also the slot cutter from t-molding.com. I had been waiting for them to get the slot cutters back in stock, so once they did, I placed my order so I wouldn’t miss out.

I expect the postage will take around 3 weeks to arrive, but no real hurry

I managed to sneak away to the garage for a little bit this weekend, so have a few minor things to update with

Firstly, I cut out the left and right panels to their correct sizes, and also rounded off the lower corners as per my design.

With that done, I was also able to finalise the size for the front and back panels (which will face player 1 and 2).

This also means the base panel size can be finalised and cut, although I will save that for another day.

Finally, I decided to create a basic stencil that I will use for cutting out the coin door hole (in the Player 1 panel). I had a scrap offcut from my last cab laying around which was a good size so I got to work. In my previous cabs, I decided to create my own door. This looked ok and allowed me to create a bigger door at a nice price. This time, since the cocktail cab is much smaller, I can get away with a smaller coin door. I looked around and found this set at Austin Amusements – Two coin metal coin doors, a coin mech, two locks and coin door bolts for $45 – which is not half bad! (Link)

After resizing the stencil a few times, I got a nice fit – so this will end up being used to help size the hole correctly. I plan to spend some time and sand it down somewhat though before using to get it more event. Something you will see in a future update.

The Donkey Kong control panel artwork was ordered last weekend from GameOnGrafix – so I expect that will arrive in another week or so (can’t recall how long it took last time).

Meanwhile, I will get the router out and look at how to go about creating the round lines for the speaker (as seen on the donkey kong cab – left – below the control panel).

A minor update – parts purchased from a few places.

In2Amusments and AustinAmusments being the main two online stores I’ve purchased from. Initial planning has paid off as it has helped save on postage by grouping parts together where possible to limit the number of orders required.

Also the control panel artwork has been purchased from GameOnGrafix – I hope to have that in a week or so.