The weekends are about the only time I get to work on this thing any more. Oh well. It beats sitting around doing nothing. At least right now it does. So today I started assembling The Beast. I first glued some 2 X 2's to the main sides to act as a support for the floors and tops. Once the glue dried I used 8 X 1 1/2 zinc wood screws to hold the wood firmly. After that, I started connecting the sides together with the floor boards and then the top and top-back panel pieces. It came together real nice. I still have to mount a base for the monitor and a front panel to house the coin mech and the speaker mount. Once I get those done, the hard part will be done.

Handy Tool Tip: If you're using your drill to screw in your screws, you may want to use something other than zinc screws. They seem to strip pretty easy at times, and then they break your drill bit other times. At least they could do just one or the other and make things easy on me.  ¶ 3/20/2004 10:22:00 PM

  It's been a few weeks but I'm back to work on the arcade once again. On Thursday I went to the local lumber store and purchased 3 sheets of 4' X 8', 3/4" oak plywood. Here's some advice when going to your local lumber store. Don't! It's too darn expensive. I could have bought the same thing at Lowes for about 1/2 the price I paid for it. Oh well. Here's to supporting the local economy. Today I started drawing and cutting out my pieces. I'm about half done so far. I should have all my pieces cut and some of them sanded by night fall.

Tool Tip: Make sure you have a hardy jigsaw. It will help out a great deal! A little plastic one gets hot and smells and takes FOREVER to cut just a few inches on 3/4" thick piece of wood. It's why I have a circular saw for the straight pieces.  ¶ 3/13/2004 11:12:00 AM