| Day 24 - March 5,
2004
Install the Marquee
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Make/Install Marquee Holder Top Piece (call it
the J- Frame Piece)
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I have not found many MAME
project sites that document "how" to install the marquee. What
material to use, etc...
As it turns out, Happs sells a Marquee Retainer clip that is used
for this exact purpose. Wish I knew this when I placed my order.
Being in Canada, I did not want to place an order from Happs just
for this piece. That would mean a couple of weeks waiting for the part
to arrive, paying US exchange rate, shipping fees and customs duties
and taxes (yep, a $12 part ends up costing $50-$60 when you live in
Canada and order from the States...
So... I decided to build my own marquee retainer. I research the
Internet and arcadecontrols.com, posted many questions, and came up
with what follows. This was all done with $3 worth of material from
Home Depot!
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First, go to Home Depot to the drywall section and look for these
two corner beads. The one on the left is a corner molding with a two
sizes of edges, and the piece on the right looks like a J (call ed
J-Frame?)
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Here is a better picture of the J-Frame piece
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First, cut the J-Frame piece to the inside width of the cabinet
(mine was 26") . I used an old miter box and a hacksaw.
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Here is a picture of the top J-Frame piece...
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Here is is installed. U used 1/2" #6 Robertson screws and screwed
the frame into the top piece of the cabinet.
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Make/Install Marquee Holder Bottom Piece (call
it the L-Frame piece)
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OK, so now It's time to make the bottom piece. First, I cut a 26"
piece out of the drywall corner piece.
Because my Marquee is sandwiched between two sheets of Plexi that are
each 1/8" thick, I need a slot that is 1/4" wide.
To do this, I found a piece of trim I had laying around that was 1/4"
wide. In the picture, is is the piece on the right hand side.
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| Next, place the piece of trim into the
corner of the holding and hammer the excess over (about another 1/4")
over the top piece of the trim piece to firm a lip. In the picture,
some of it is already hammered. |
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When you are done, you should have a piece that looks something like
this...
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Now, install it on the edge of the speaker shelf with 1/2" screws.
Note that the speaker edge was already angled during the
construction phase.
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Here is a picture from a different angle with both pieces installed.
Now, with a tape measure, Meanure the inside dimension from the
indside top edge to the lower edge. This mearement is your Marquee
height.
Mine ended up being 6" (H) x 26" (W)
Now that I know this measurement, I can cut the marquee plexi and
start producing the graphic!
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Install ther Marquee...
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To install the Marquee, loosen
the screws of the speaker shelf (make sure you do not glue the speaker
panel in place). Slide the speaker piece down a little and insert the
marquee plexi in the bottom rail, the slip it into the top rail. Slide
the speaker shelf back up until it is plumb.
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And here is is installed. A couple of coats of Rust paint on here
and it will look just fine!
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Print Out/Tape Marquee
There are two ways to produce the graphic. Print one out yourself if
you have a color printer, or go to a local Print shop and have them
print one for you. Since I had a printer (Canon S-900), I decided
to do it myself.
In the end, I was not that pleased with the result. I could see
the seams where the pages were taped. Oh well, backup Marquee if
ever I need one.
I will get it printed professionally at the local Print shop
later.
In case you wanted to try creating one your self, here are the
steps I went through.
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First, print out TWO copies of
the Marquee on your bubble jet printer. I used Glossy Photo paper.
Since the dimension of the marquee is 6" x 26", I needed a way to
do this. One way to do it is to use Adobe Illustrator. Seeing how I
didn't have this piece of software, I needed something else.
A good tip from someone at arcadecontrols.com led me to a program
called Poster7. This is a
shareware product that lets you "stretch" a picture over a given
dimension. It gives you 10 free prints before you have to buy it. I
downloaded it and used it to produce the graphic you see. If you need
help with it, e-mail me and I'll give you a hand.
If you need to find the free artwork I used, go to Zakks size at
www.mameworld.net/massive.
They can be found there!
I imported the picture into Poster7 and set the picture as the
background. I just plugged in 6" by 26" dimension and hit the print
button. Instant gratification. A perfect rendering of the marquee!
Also, based on another tip, I decided to print TWO copies because
one will wash out if you just use one.
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| Brought the pictures downstairs and placed
them on a piece of panel that I will do the cuts on. |
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Another shot of the pictures... |
| Here they are with the edges trimmed
off... |
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Here they are with the sides trimmed off installed betwee the two
sheets of plexi. |
| Side the speaker shelf back and install
the marquee. Wonderful! The cab and marquee all need a good
dusting/cleaning. I'll do that later on... |
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Another shot of the marquee installed. |
Monitor Bezel
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OK. Now for the Monitor bezel. I decided to use picture framing
board. I went to the local craft shop (Micheals, I think they are in
the States too) and bought a piece of 32 x 40 " black frame matt.
I then laid my monitor bezel (28" x 26") over the framing matt. |
| A coulple of passes with an exacto knife
and... |
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And now I have the beginnings of a Monitor Bezel (its actually under
the Monitor plexi in this picture.
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| Like the marquee, I decided to sandwich
the monitor bezel between two sheets of 1/8" plexi. Based on reaearch,
I decided to use a sheet of tinted plexi and a sheet of regular
(clear) plexi. This gives the game a nice look. In fact, the picture
is much clearer with the tinted plexi. Notice in the picture the
tinted piece on the left hand side... |
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Progress So Far...
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And after a whole bunch of hours, I moved the machine a little
closer to the finish line. |
| A picture taken from another angle... |
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| Day 26 (Mar 28) - Finishing touches... |
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| This picture show two things. First, the
T-Molding is installed around the Marquee... Looks very good and definitely
gives the cabinet a professional look and feel. The second part is that I
found that the light from the marquee light was spilling through the speaker
shelf. To rectify this, I simply added some black clothe to cover the
speaker hole, then installed the speaker over the cloth. This was quite
effective in shutting out the light... |
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