Welcome to the construction page! Here I'll try to show as many of the building steps as possible along with any tips I may have to share.

Cabinet Base and bottom panel : The first pieces I built were the base structure (made from a single piece of select pine and held together with biscuits, glue, and wood screws) and the bottom panel. The plans called for installing standard arcade leg levelers which are held into the base with T-nuts, but instead I used insert nuts (which in my opinion stay in place better) and leg levelers which had felt pads on the bottom instead of hard plastic (in order to protect our living room wood flooring). As simple as this piece looks it was a bit tricky to fabricate (in fact I had to make two of these - on the first one I glued the corner braces incorrectly). To round off the corners I had to rig up my belt sander to act like a stationary belt sander (I wasn't exactly in the mood to spend $200.00 for the real thing). The bottom panel was obviously much simpler to fabricate (just a square piece of MDF with four grooves on each side for the biscuits and a hole for the fan). Kyle's blueprints call for cutting two additional holes into the bottom panel - one for the power cord to run out through and the other for the On/Off switch. Instead of having the power cord coming through a hole in the bottom I thought it would be much better to have a detachable cord that would plug into a receptacle on the side of the cabinet then connect to the power strip that I planned to put inside. I was able to get such a receptacle from Mouser.com (I'll post more pictures on this including the power setup soon). For the On/Off switch I decided that I would stick with the plans and place that in the original location (on the bottom panel opposite the fan cutout). The switch will be connected directly to the power-on terminal leads on the PC motherboard. If you look at the switch photo you'll notice that some of the MDF is badly chipped just outside the hole. This was my fault - I cut the hole using a hole saw bit and applied too much pressure which caused the bit to rip through the material before the bit had penetrated (oh well, at least it's on the bottom where no one will see it!). Since my motherboard is in the ATX form factor, I had to be careful what type of switch I used. A standard two position switch would turn on the motherboard but would also shut if off after a few seconds (same effect as holding in the power button on a PC to shut it down), so I decided to use a "momentary" switch from Radio Shack that worked quite well. The switch was not long enough to mount through the 3/4" MDF, so I fashioned a plate out of 1/16" thick aluminum and mounted the switch onto that. For the connection wire I used an old CD-ROM audio cable - one end was soldered to the switch and the other end already had a connector which fit perfectly on the motherboard's power-on connection pins.
Base structure before paint and primer
All painted with the leg levelers installed
Bottom panel with hole cut for the fan
On/Off switch (inside and outside views)
My "Industrial Quality" belt sander for rounding the edges

Front and rear panels: The front panel holds the coin door while the rear panel is hinged in order to provide access to the inside. I was able to complete these within a day since they were fairly easy and straightforward to fabricate. I had to adjust the measurements for the coin door cutout since my coin door came from a Ms. Pacman machine (bigger than the original Pacman coin doors). Oddly enough, one of the bolts on the coin door frame is shorter than the other three, so when the frame is fitted into the panel the short bolt does not make it through the drilled hole. So, I had to recess an area around the hole so there would be enough bolt material for a nut and washer (I decided to do the same for the other holes just in case). Both of these panels (actually three since the rear is in two pieces) get 3/4" T-molding installed into the edges, so it was important to make sure that the T-molding groove was perfectly centered (otherwise I'd be trimming excess T-molding away which may not look so great). To cut the T-molding grooves I used a router fitted with a 3/32" slot cutting bit (I purchased the bit on Ebay for about $7.00 - a deal in my opinion since I've seen these sell for $25.00 and up elsewhere). And here's my big tip: If you're going to use a router on MDF make sure you have plenty of ventilation and a fan to blow the smoke away! I could not believe how much smoke the friction generated! Once the grooves were cut I painted the edges black - this was done so that any area not fully covered by the black T-molding would blend in (a tip from Kyle Lindstrom). The only other thing worth mentioning here is the piano hinge - I used what is called a 'full wraparound' piano hinge instead of your standard 'garden variety' type from Home Depot or Lowes. The wraparound hinges screw into the *back* of your material instead of the sides which is better when using MDF material. Rockler.com is the only place I know of where you can get one of these. They only come in one length but I was able to cut it to the size I needed using a power miter saw fitted with a metal cutting wheel (a hack saw might have done the job too) - just be sure to file down the sharp edges (ouch)!
Front panel with coin door cutout
Rear panels
Bottom rear panel with slot for T-molding
 Router bit for making T-molding slots
Wraparound hinge cut to size.

Left and right panels: Again, nothing very difficult with making these, and I had them done in a couple of hours. They still need to be cut for the player control panels but that is on hold until I get my control panels back from ArcadeDepot (more on this below). The right panel has the cutout for the one 6" x 9" speaker that will be used by the sound system. Since the speaker itself is oval shaped as opposed to round I needed something with an oval shape that was approximately the same size to trace over the panel with for the cutout. Using the speaker itself wouldn't do, and I couldn't find anything lying around the house that had the shape I needed. Then I remembered that I still had a box of drafting tools that had belonged to my father - I figured there must be something in there that would help. Sure enough I found a template that I could use for drawing the cutout in the exact shape I needed (I believe these are called 'French curves'). The hole I had cut was according to size in Kyle Lindstrom's plans, however I didn't think of checking to make sure that my speaker grill covers would be large enough to cover the hole. As is turns out the grill just *barely* provided enough coverage - had I thought of this before hand I would have adjusted the hole size so that there would be at least a 1/2" of material between the edge of the grill and the edge of the hole.

Left and right panels with vent, speaker, and biscuit cuts
My trusty French curve!
Ready for vinyl laminate!

Vinyl Laminate: Applying the vinyl laminate to the panels turned out to be one of the easiest steps of all! It only took doing a couple of panels to refine my method:

1. First I would peel away 3 to 4 inches of the backing paper, folding it down.

2. Then I would align the exposed part of the vinyl onto the edge of the panel I was going to cover and press down. Next, holding a soft cotton cloth in my right hand, I would slowly start peeling away the backing paper with my left hand while smoothing out the vinyl with the cloth in a sweeping motion.

One thing you have to watch out for is that your panel surface is as clean as can be prior to laying down the vinyl - any little spec of dust or debris will show up through the vinyl when the light hits it just right. In anticipation of trimming the vinyl I purchased a laminate trimming router bit from Ebay ($7.00), thinking that I would need to use it in order to get a nice, professional-looking edge. Later on I realized that the router bit may not work well with vinyl, so I decided to try using a cutting knife instead to see how good of job it would do. First I did a test on a scrap piece of MDF - I applied a small piece of vinyl, flipped the test piece upside down (so that the vinyl was on the bottom), then ran my cutting knife along the edge. To my surprise it made a very clean cut all the way down and came out looking great! So I did all the panels in this fashion which didn't take very long at all. The straight cuts are easy but cutting around curved edges is a little bit tricky - for this I used an Xacto knife which gave me a bit more control. The only other advice I have for this step is to make sure that your work surface or table is completely clean of dirt and debris so that the vinyl does not get marred or scratched when you are trimming it, and buy extra laminate in case you make a mistake or need to repair a panel in the future. Also use contiguous pieces of laminate for the two rear panels, otherwise the wood grain pattern will not match.
Peel the backing paper then attach to your surface edge
Pull the backing paper off while smoothing down
Trim with cutting knife
The result!

Cabinet top: Originally I had planned to fabricate this piece myself using 1" Melamine, however with the October 11th deadline approaching (and my temporary disability) I thought it would be better if I could just buy one already made. For that I turned to ArcadeDepot. They sell cocktail cabinet kits based on the Ms. Pacman design, however their Web site states that they do 'custom jobs'. So I got in touch with Scott at ArcadeDepot and told him what I needed. As it turns out they were very willing to make only a cabinet top for me based on the original Pacman cocktail design! Well I was just thrilled with that prospect - this would not only save me time but was more cost effective in the long run (I would have needed to purchase some additional tools in order to make this piece myself). When I received the top I quickly inspected it and did a dry fit with my underlay artwork, the glass top, and my 1" T-molding - everything fit perfectly! The only thing I had to do with it was paint it black (which had already been done by ArcadeDepot but I wanted an exact color match with the paint used on the base). And since it was made of Birch wood instead of Melamine or MDF it was very light and would help keep the total weight of the cabinet down. So here's my plug for ArcadeDepot - these guys are great to work with and I unconditionally recommend them!

The cabinet top also has about a 3/8" wide recessed groove all around the inside edge - this is to hold monitor bezel. I got mine from Happ Controls which needs to be trimmed to size. It was not as difficult as you may think - the bezel is made from a fairly soft plastic material that can be easily cut with a knife. The only real challenge with this is making sure that the bezel will fit perfectly centered in the cabinet top after you have trimmed the excess - after making some careful measurements I used my large metal ruler as a straight edge (held down with a couple of "C" clamps) then scored the plastic with a cutting knife. After 3 or 4 strokes the excess can be snapped off leaving a very clean edge. After doing all four sides like this I had to round off the corners with a file since the groove in the cabinet top has rounded corners as well.

Completed cabinet top from ArcadeDepot.com
Bezel getting a much needed trim.
A perfect fit!

Coin door: This was purchased through Ebay and is the type that is used in Ms. Pacman cocktail cabinets (as well as many other games from Midway). It just needed a bit of restoration work, so I used a drill with a wire wheel attached to strip off the old paint and rust down to the bare metal. A few of the other components had rust as well and needed attention (e.g. the coin reject buttons and coin slots). For these I used a Dremel tool with a small wire brush to get the rust off. After it was all cleaned up I primered it using a metal primer made by Rustoleum and then gave it two coats of black paint. Choosing the right type of paint took some thought - I didn't want a super glossy finish which would not have looked very original, nor did I want a completely flat finish. I was able to find something in between at my local Lowes called "American Accents" (also made by Rustoleum) which is a line of 'satin' finish spray paint and had just the right amount of gloss that I was looking for (the color I used is called Canyon Black). The finishing touch was adding a new dress plate with the Midway logo (www.quarterarcade.com sells these for $14.00). Since I plan on actually using the coin door in my Mame machine (as opposed to just having it there for looks), I had to consider how I was going to interface it with the computer system. All of the original wiring (including the Molex connector) was there and intact, but I was against cutting off the connector and splicing wires. To avoid this I purchased the female end for the Molex connector from Mouser.com along with some connector pins - I thought this would be a very clean solution for hooking up the coin switches and lamps.
Coin door before restoration
Door and frame being primered
Coin door after restoration - what a difference!
New coin mechs from Happ Controls that take both quarters and 25mm tokens
Female Molex connector for the coin door
The little can of paint that worked wonders!

Control Panels: With my party deadline closing in, I decided to save myself some time by having ArcadeDepot fabricate the control panels sides and bottoms while they had my blank metal panels for drilling. They did a great job and they appear to have been made to the original Pacman cocktail specifications - the only thing I noticed was that they fabricated them from particle board when I was told (and had requested) that they would use MDF (to match the rest of my cabinet). Not really a big deal, and I wasn't about to complain after they were nice enough to refinish my blank metal panels for free. Particle board is not as smooth as MDF which was critical since I was covering the cabinet with a vinyl laminate, but I was able overcome this by sanding down the sides to a smooth enough finish. The CP sides and bottoms were attached to the cabinet using wood screws and wood dowels (see next section on why I did this).

The only other major work with the control panel construction was making the plastic pieces that go behind the CPs and installing a volume knob. Since Quarterarcade.com no longer sells the plexiglas pieces I had to make my own. I basically used a product similar to Plexiglas called "Crystalite" that is sold at any Home Depot or Lowes home improvement stores. I purchased some of this in 1/8" thickness and cut it to size using a knife (i.e. score with the knife then break). These were painted white on one side only when finished and are held in place to the cabinet with Z brackets (made from 1" x 1/8" aluminum flat bar).

Installing the volume control was a little tricky. In the first place there is no real obvious spot to install one. I wanted it installed in a place where it would be easily accessible, yet out of sight and safe from being accidentally hit or broken off. The best place I could come up with was underneath the player 1 control panel. There it would be hidden from view, yet easy to reach for and control during game play. The only problem with this was that the shaft on the control was not long enough to go through the 3/4" material while providing enough metal for the volume knob to attach to, so I had to make a custom mounting plate for it out of aluminum flat bar (this stuff sure is handy!), then route some of the material out of the CP bottom so that the mounting plate would sit recessed. This allowed the shaft to protrude enough out of the bottom for the volume control knob to attach to. Oscarcontrols.com has a great tutorial for wiring up a volume control in a Mame cabinet which is where I got the IQ points from!

Player 2 control panel getting a 'dry fit'
Crystalite back piece and volume control in place
A view from the front
CP back pieces in the 'paint shop'
Volume control and mounting plate
Volume knob (in Pacman red) underneath the player 1 control panel

Cabinet assembly: This is probably one of the more rewarding parts of the construction process since you get to see the cabinet take shape rather quickly. There's probably many ways to attach the panels together - Kyle Lindstrom's instructions say to use biscuits and glue which I had done to attach the left and right panels to the bottom. This worked quite well since the left and right panels are flush with the bottom piece - this made cutting the grooves with the plate joiner tool fairly easy. However, the front and rear panels do not line up flush with the side panels - instead there is about a 1/4" overhang on each side (this is by design). Cutting the biscuit grooves into the edges of the side panels would be easy, but then I would have to readjust the stop on the plate joiner so that the grooves to be cut on the front and rear panels would be offset about 1/4" (to compensate for the overhang). This would have been risky since the plate joiner I have is an inexpensive model - the stop is hard to adjust and kind of inaccurate. The grooves have to match up exactly, and if they don't, well, I would be SOL. So, I decided to use a different method of attachment for the front and rear panels - wood dowels. When installing dowels you first drill your hole on the the first piece, then you insert what's called a 'dowel center' into the hole (its a metal plug with a sharp point sticking out). You then align the second piece in place over the first, press down or tap with a mallet which causes the dowel center to make an imprint on the second piece, then voila! You now know precisely where to drill the holes into the second piece so that both holes match exactly for insertion of the wood dowel. So this was the approach I took for attaching the front and rear panels, and it worked wonderfully!

Side panels glued to the bottom with braces to keep things at 90°
Drilling holes for the dowels into the side and bottom panels
Dowel centers in place
Tapping the front panel with a mallet so the dowel centers can do their thing
Now I know where to drill!
Side and bottom panels with dowels and glue ready for front and rear panels
You can never have enough bar or C clamps!
Ah!, the fruits of my labor!
An inside view
Player 2 control panel frame
Both control panel frames in
Another view - this thing is really taking shape!

Computer/Electronics Installation: Probably the hardest part of this step is figuring out where all the PC and electrical components will go - very much like putting together a puzzle. Complicating this was the fact that the floor space in the cabinet is very small, and I already had the On/Off switch and fan in stationary positions which further limited the number of possible arrangements. After trying a couple of different combinations that were not optimal, I decided to install the hard drive on the side of the cabinet just above the fan. This gave me more room to play around with on the cabinet floor and would also help to keep the hard drive cool. I think the most important considerations with the electronics installation were these:

The motherboard, I-Pac, and Opti-Pac boards were all mounted with nylon spacers between them and the cabinet. For mounting the hard drive I used standard hard drive rails but instead attached them to the underside of the drive so that there would be some air space for cooling between the drive and cabinet. And I wasn't comfortable with having the sound and video cards just sitting there in the motherboard slots without any type of support, so I made a bracket out of aluminum flat bar to hold them securely in place (kind of like a mini chassis). I also found it helpful to use as many different colors of wiring and to attach numeric labels to each wire as a way of identifying what it connects to (I created a legend for this in an Excel spreadsheet).

I also installed a combination power cord receptacle/power switch on the rear panel in the lower left corner. This allows me to detach the power cord whenever necessary and turn on/off the monitor and power strip inside all at once (the power receptacle is directly wired to the power strip/surge protector inside). I still need to turn on the PC with yet another switch after flipping the switch on the power receptacle but I can live with this until I figure out a way to power up everything with just one switch. BTW, I got the IQ points for connecting a switch to the power strip from www.mameworld.net which has a tutorial on doing this.

Final arrangement of the electronics inside
My custom support bracket for the add-on cards (think this may be a first for a Mame cabinet)!
Combination power cord receptacle and power switch

Monitor: Mounting the monitor is what I considered to be the "Grand Finale" of the construction process. It's quite a hurdle because you're basically on your own at this point (there are no instructions in Kyle's plans for mounting any type of monitor). What makes it even more difficult is the fact that the Wells Gardner 19" arcade monitor I purchased barely fits inside of the cabinet with less than 3/4" clearance on each side. Basically I needed to secure the monitor in two places - first to the rear panel that folds down then to the underside of the cabinet top. At first I had considered buying a prefabricated arcade monitor bracket from www.mantisamusements.com (this is the only place I have seen that sells these). I was all ready to place my order but first called Mantis Amusements to ask a couple of questions - what I found out made me change my mind very quickly. In the first place, I was under the impression that my arcade monitor would simply 'fit' inside of their monitor bracket (chassis and all) - this is not the case! To use their monitor bracket you have to remove your monitor tube and electronics from its own chassis then install them into the new bracket by drilling your own holes. I didn't like the idea of taking apart my monitor and making it fit inside this bracket (not to mention the risk of getting shocked and possibly voiding my monitor warranty). The top of their bracket has a 3/4" flange on each side that is suppose to fit into a recessed groove in the cabinet top. My cabinet top does have this groove, however it is not 3/4" wide (more like 3/8"), so I would have needed to route the groove wider in order to accommodate the bracket. Then there was the cost - $65.00 plus $12.00 shipping - overpriced in my opinion for what is basically three pieces of sheet metal. All in all this solution was pricey and would have required a lot of work - and since it was prefabricated there was no guarantee it would be a perfect fit anyway.

So, I decided that I would make my own bracket. The most important considerations were that it had be sturdy and it had to fit within the tight space between the sides of the monitor chassis and the sides of the cabinet. After wracking my brain on this one I finally came up with a viable design - a custom bracket made out of aluminum. I couldn't use wood because of the space limitations, but 1/8" aluminum flat bar would certainly fit and would be strong enough. So basically I ended up fabricating two brackets (one for each side) - each bracket was made up of three pieces (a piece of aluminum angle and two pieces of aluminum flat bar). The two flat bar pieces were attached to the angle bar using machine screws - the angle piece was then attached to the bottom side of the cabinet top using five wood screws. Once that was in place all I had to do was attach the flat bar pieces to the sides of the monitor chassis by drilling holes and using machine screws. Fabricating the brackets and installing them only took about two hours total, and it worked great! And it feels real strong too, so I'm not worried about the monitor ever getting loose from the cabinet top.

Getting the right height with wood shims
The rear panel monitor mount ready to go!
Monitor now in place on the rear panel - notice the corner braces for extra support.
One of two custom monitor brackets for the cabinet top
Side view of my custom bracket after installation
Another view from the top

Finishing Touches: The final items to install were the cabinet latches, artwork underlay, glass top, glass clips, and the cash box (the T-molding had already been installed prior to this). The latches were placed near the top corners of the cabinet so I could easily reach them through the coin door. Once I had the underlay and glass top aligned I used a couple of small bar clamps to hold them down tight while I installed the glass clips. As it turned out the 1" T-molding around the cabinet top stuck out from underneath about 1/16" - not much but it was enough to keep the clips from fitting properly. To remedy this I had to trim away the extra 1/16" molding on the bottom with a razor blade (just the area where each clip was installed). For the cash box I had been trying to figure out what I could use. The cash box in Kyle Lindstrom's plans is basically a wood box that sits on the floor of the cabinet (is this what the original Pacman cocktails had?) - anyway this wouldn't work me since I was out of space on the bottom of the cabinet. I checked Happ Controls and a couple other arcade vendors for a suitable cash box but couldn't find anything. Then I stumbled upon the answer while in a local Kmart store - a small metal bread pan that I found in the cookware department! It was just the right size - all I did was punch a couple of holes in the sides so it could be suspended by picture hanging hooks that I attached to the inside of the cabinet just below the coin door. And it makes that great 'Ka-Plunk!' sound when the coins land in it!

One of two latches to lock down the top
5" bar clamps lending a hand while I install the glass clips
My 'Blue Light Special' cash box!
My Collection of 25mm arcade tokens for game play, kept in (what else?) an authenic 1980's Pacman tin!

Finished Product: And here for your viewing pleasure (Fanfare please!) is the finished machine which I am really pleased with!

Mini FAQ:

But wait, there's more! There are still a few items and refinements needed, such as: