I recently finished building my own bar top arcade cabinet. It is made out of 3/4" plywood and is around 2' tall. I decided to design the cabinet off of the Memphis art style of the 80s because of the shapes and vibrant colors used during the period. I also mimicked that particular art style because many of the games supported by the cabinet came out in the 80s.
Rear.
Front.
Right Side.
Left Side.
Process
Side panels, floorboard, and doorframe.
Marquee and control panel. Monitor was installed to test the support beam above the control panel.
LED lightbar and powerstrip installed.
Basecoat applied to cabinet.
Rear of cabinet. If you look closely, you can see sketches of the characters penciled in.
Cabinet's right side. I wanted to go for the Memphis art style of the 80s due to the zany patterns and vibrant colors.
Cabinet's left side. Depicts old designs of Mario and Bowser.
Cabinet's front panel design.
Creating this cabinet was hard work due to not having much experience in woodworking. I got some assistance from a family member who knew their way around a jigsaw. They cut the wood pieces, while I painted the cabinet and kept track of what needed to be cut and how. While the instructions and templates we used were helpful, there were some moments where we believed that deviating away from them would make a better cabinet. Some examples included: Using nails instead of creating tiny support pieces for each side (nails also made it sturdier), adding additional support to the monitor instead on just relying on friction, and making a stopper for the marquee so that it also wouldn't rely on friction to stay up.
