Cowboy Arcade Project

We’ve begun!

Today we cut the first sheet of plywood for the Cowboy Arcade Redux. I learned to draft from my grandfather and father and then in engineering school (Oklahoma State) in 2D. We didn’t have 3D modeling software. I still am most comfortable designing and drawing in 2D. After getting the dimensions of an original Tempest cab from Classic Arcade Cabinets and examining every pic I could find I still needed to specific dimensional data. I asked a member of Build Your Own Arcade Forum who was restoring a couple Tempest cabs and he took measurements for me. I took all I had and drew my cut-away model:

The blocking is my design. The keys are original where the surfaces matter and adjusted elsewhere. The people building arcade cabinets in the early 80’s didn’t have access to the cutting equipment we have, so today we can do some things better.

I then created cut drawings to be imported into the software that drives the CNC router table:

My son is also an engineer and has learned how to program and run the CNC Router table, so he sets up the files and we get started:

So far so good….