In the summer of 2009, I helped new friends I meet through IFP Phoenix, Bob and Jessica Marquis, create a film for the 48-Hour Film Challenge.  Our short film, “An Uplifting Tale” ended up taking 2nd place in the competition, but in the final rounds in early 2010 we learned that the film had been selected to show as pre-screening entertainment at Harkins Theaters valley-wide.  Our little film had won more than just an award, it has won a way to get it seen by audiences, which is what every filmmaker dreams about.

In January of 2011, Executive Director of IFP Phoenix Amanda Melby asked me if I would take over as the Executive Director of the organization.  I was honored by the proposal, but scared out of my pants.  The position is voluntary, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to balance the requirements of the job with my career as a cinematographer and director.  I couldn’t pass up the opportunity!  I knew that I had ideas that could make a difference in our community, I just hoped that I had the time and energy to implement everything I wanted.

So, in April of 2011, just after the Phoenix Film Festival, I officially took over as the new Executive Director of IFP Phoenix.  Things are going great so far.  With the help of my friend and fellow filmmaker Keegan Ead, we’ve come up with a whole new season of filmmaker challenges to get our filmmakers out there making films.  I’ve been in development on a new website which I hope to launch in July, and in August I’m hoping to re-vamp our membership levels and benefits package.  Ultimately, I want to make IFP Phoenix the organization that all Arizona filmmakers would want to me a member of.  We should offer services and resources that help all of our local indie filmmakers achieve their goals.  And, hopefully along the way, I’m also able to put together some resources that I’ll be able to take advantage of myself to pursue my own filmmaking career.

So, the BIG thing I need to re-iterate is that I am still a professional cinematographer, editor and director and more now than ever I need to make sure that jobs keep coming in so that I am able to volunteer the remainder of my free time to help build the Arizona filmmaking community through IFP Phoenix.  If you’d like to reach me over at IFP Phoenix, my new email address is webb@ifpphx.org.

The AZSC Inception Meeting

On August 28, 2010, I held the AZSC Inception Meeting and Presentation at the University of Advancing Technology (UAT).  I gave an hour-long presentation, and had a great discussion with everyone that attended.   With the help of friend and colleague Jay Lee, we were able to shoot and release the video of my presentation.  This was crucial so that the professionals who could not be there, would be able to hear for themselves what I’d like to put together.  Overall, the event was a success, and we’re now looking forward to the next steps to making this group a reality.

Phoenix Comicon Collectors Edition

We had been working with the great guys over at the Phoenix Comicon Film Festival for almost a year.  We told them of our plans to create the series, and we asked them if we could collaborate to cross-promote our web series with their yearly pop-culture event.  They were excited about the idea!  So, we agreed to modify our release schedule so that the season finale episode would coincide with their film festival.  We made the screening of the finale episode an exclusive, big-screen event for the Phoenix Comicon attendees.  As we released the show, it gave us something to continually work towards and help to promote.

Ok, so what’s the deal with the Phoenix Comicon Collectors Edition DVD then?  Well, since we were going to be promoting the Phoenix Comicon so heavily for our season finale, we decided to jump FULL in by getting ourselves a table in the exhibitors hall.   It would be a great opportunity to sell our DVD’s and get the word out about the show.  You know how comicon attendees are about “collectible” stuff, right?  So, why not create a special edition of our final DVD just for comicon!  We printed only 100 copies of the DVD (which are hand-numbered), they had a special cover, included a special mini-comic by Mike Little, and were signed by the lead cast, and producers.  As of this writing, there are still a few copies left, which you can purchase from the PROBED:signals website.

Regular Edition

After the collectible DVD’s are gone, we will continue to have shrink-wrapped, regular DVD’s available for sale until they’re gone.  The regular DVD’s are not signed by the cast or crew, but I’m sure if you asked nicely, we’d be happy to do it for you.   You can buy the regular PROBED:signals DVD on Amazon.com.

I’m Excited!

I’ve known my fellow producers of this project, Brenda, Kevin, and Kevin, for 5 years now.  We’ve made lots of films together, but most have been fan-related and could not be sold due to copyright restrictions.  I’m just excited to have a full-length project out in the world, that can by properly marketed and sold.  Please check out the series, and support the project by buying a DVD.  Thanks!

In 2003, I worked on a short Star Wars fan film called Spirits of the Force. For that film, the character Jerec was supposed to be haunting the lead character through nightmares but never in-person.  It just happened to be that Jerec is bald, and so was I… so I asked the Director Joel Cranson what he would think if Jerec made a brief appearance during the final battle when his evil spirit was excised.  Joel loved the idea and so I threw together a really horrible costume of the Dark Lord Jerec.  It only had to be good enough to appear for 3 seconds, and partially transparent as I was only appearing as a spirit.  I jumped in front of a blue screen I had setup for some testing and recorded few takes, and you can still see that final shot in the film.

In 2005, the creator of Spirits of the Force Joel Cranson thought it would be cool to create a “Special Edition” of the film. The new scenes in the special edition called for a full-out appearance of Jerec, a reprisal of my original role, and hence the need for a more complete costume. So, who did I call for help? Non other than Joel’s dad, Alan Cranson of Cranson Upholstery.   Joel and Alan were no newbies in the realm of costumes and props, as they had made several costumes together including Joel’s Kyle Katarn costume.  So, Alan helped with making the armor, shoulder pieces, boots, belt and gauntlets. I took on the tabbards, glasses and lightsaber. Overall, I must say that it came out amazingly well.  Our challenge wasn’t in construction it was in finding enough visual references to make an accurate costume.

The Armor

The armor is made out of cardboard covered in black vinyl. We used the original armor that I used for my first costume as a starting point. After making a few tweaks we cut out two identical pieces, one for the front, one for the back. The vinyl was cut slightly larger than the cardboard so that it could fold over and be sewn around the edges. The seam around the edge really gives it a nice look.

The shoulder straps are vinyl as well, with extra stitching every 1/2″ to simulate ribs. I wanted the shoulder straps to look similar to the straps on a Stormtrooper costume.

The torso straps are made from seat belt strapping and were sewn in place to the front armor piece, and snaps were added to the back to make it easier to take on and off.

The shoulder pads took a few design tweaks before we got them to look the way we wanted. The references pics available from Jedi Knight and books are not that detailed so we had to take some artistic liberties. We attached each shoulder pad to the armor plates with two metal snaps, one on the front, one on the back. These snaps also help the shoulder pads rotate slightly as my arms move and gives the costume a little bit more “life” and realism.

The Boots

The boots I wear are actually not boots at all. They are full sized vinyl spats” that are worn over a normal pair of black shoes that make it look like I’m wearing full-sized boots. The design was actually developed and perfected by Joel and Alan Cranson. They work great and look like real boots unless you look *reaaaaly* closely. If you watch Spirits of the Force, you can see what they look like on film in scene where Kyle walks into the Jedi Academy.

These Faux Boots are made from, you guessed it, black vinyl. Straps are added around the top of the boot just to give it a bit more interesting texture and to help hide the seams up the back and front of the boot. The bottom of the boot has a strap which velcros across the bottom of your shoe and holds it in place.

The Glasses

The character of Jerec is blind and he wears special glasses. The glasses used by the actor Christopher Neame in the video game were definitely a specialty made item. The glasses were contoured to fit around his nose, bridge over his eyes, then wrap all the way around his head with some sort of elastic band. The area where you could see out looked like either a fine mesh of fabric, or something similar to how they made Jordi LeForge’s glasses on Star Trek. Either way, this wasn’t going to happen in the 2 weeks I need to make this costume for the film.

I ended up going to a dollar store and buying a pair of shades that had a really slick look to them. I put masking tape on the shades themselves to protect them as I used a Dremel tool to cut them down to just a sliver of their former self. I also drastically cut down the inside bridge where the nose sits so that the glasses would sit much lower on my nose than they used to. A coat of flat black spray paint on the frames cleaned them up, but the lenses themselves still didn’t look right. The lenses still had a nifty reflective surface on them… which looked cool when used as shades, but would not look cool for Jerec. So, a single fast spray of black spray paint on the lens itself was enough to dull down the reflection, but still be enough to look through and safely do the lightsaber choreography.

The Lightsaber

What Star Wars costume would be complete without a lightsaber! Actually, the lightsaber I made had to function as a stunt saber for the film. In other words, we had to be able to mount a wooden dowel inside so that we could “bang sticks” for the lightsaber choreography, and then be able to take out the wooden dowels when the saber was off. This was going to be the 7th stunt lightsaber I’ve built, so I knew what was going to work and what wasn’t. The shiny part of the saber is a standard chrome 1 1/4″ sink pipe replacement part cut down to the desired length. I then Dremeled a piece of PVC piping that had in *inner* dimension of 1 1/4″, painted it black and slipped it over top of the chrome pipe. A few rivets hold everything into place. I use another PVC pipe inside the chrome pipe that has an inner diameter of 3/4″, and will hold the wooden dowel. An activator button was glued into place which is actually a PC-case thumbscrew (hard to see in this pic). Pretty simple design overall.

Yeah, that’s the reaction that I typically get from anyone I tell. Actually, the conversation goes like this:

It cracks me up!!! But, since you’ve found this website, you apparently already know what I’m talking about. So here it goes…

Who?

Hello all, my name is Webb Pickersgill and I’m just another 20-something guy that grew up during the popularity of the 80′s arcades. I’ve always wanted to own one of those classic arcade machines, but never wanted to put the $$ out to buy one and I didn’t know which one to buy since I liked so many of them. I’m the kind of guy that likes to make things.. and when I heard about MAME, this project became a “calling” for me.

Why?

Ok, so maybe you don’t know what this is all about, let me explain it for you. The idea is that there is a really cool PC program called MAME (as well as many other similar emulators) that allow you to run those good ol’ retro arcade games. Yeah, you got it: PacMan, Donkey Kong, DigDug, Crystal Castles, Punch-Out!, Tempest. So, you download the program and a few ROMS and you play them on your computer system using the keyboard, but there’s something missing! You’re missing the physical arcade experience! You need the cabinet, authentic arcade buttons and joystick. THAT’S what I’m building, a cabinet, control panel and PC to act as an arcade machine to get that total authentic arcade experience. I always wanted an arcade machine. (grin)

How??

Well, that is the reason for the rest of this website. I’ve taken some time to take pictures and take notes as I did the project so that I could share the project with everyone on the Internet who wants to do the same thing.  If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

Stages of Development

• Cutting
• Assembled
• Control Panel
• Painted
• Monitor Bezel
• Joysticks & Buttons
• Temp Marquee
• Coin Door
• Final Cabinet

Well, I’ve always wanted to make films. Recently I’ve had the honor of working with Joel Cranson to film 3 Star Wars fan films. The first film was called Spirits of the Force, and was essentially a proof of concept to see what we could do.  Having never made a film before, or done special effects before, it was challenging and fun!  In the end, most of the camerawork was locked down and pretty basic, probably because I was too scared to “do something stupid” so I tried not to get too crazy with my camera work. There were a few shots during the film that I had to do hand-held because we had no other option, and I realized that not having a camera stabilizer made those shots look very unprofessional.  You know… the handheld camcorder shot, we’ve all seen them.

So, when Joel approached me about making the second two films, Fool’s Errand and Reflections of Evil, I wanted to make sure we could get some cool new shots that would enhance the story, not distract you from it.  So, I looked online and a name-brand Steadicam system was running in the neighborhood of around $10,000 for a good used system.  Not exactly what I was ready to spend for a rig.  (yet, anyway)  So, realizing that I’m an intelligent and crafty sort of person, I figured I would be able to learn how this all works and build myself my own rig.  How hard could it be?  Really?   I came to this realization in April of 2004, and the first shot for our film was scheduled for June 13th. I had 2 months to build, test/debug, and learn how to use a camera stabilizer… fasten your seatbelts, here we go.

How Did I Build It?

After searching the Internet, I discovered the most incredible resource called Home Built Stabilizers which is a nice group of very knowledgeable people who know how to build these things.   So, I started reading and studying the designs. I started building my own, but then quickly realized I had NO idea what I was doing.  You see, I am very comfortable working with wood, but I have never worked with metal before. So, not only was there a huge learning curve with camera stabilization, I was also learning how to work with metal and still be able to count to 10 with my fingers.

I spent as much as I could reading up on all the websites that shared their projects.  One of the most inspirational websites I came across was Cody Deegan’s Stabilizer site.  I would just study the pictures, watch the videos and try to understand all the physics that were going into making this marvel of metal-balance all work.  I studied the physics of static balance as well as dynamic balance and how the design of your rig should allow for these subtle calibrations.

The Parts

I ended up buying 99% of the parts I needed from my local Ace Hardware. Mostly I bought a lot of raw aluminum tubing, and a ton of nuts and bolts.  I still remember walking up and down the isles of the store and having the associate ask me if I can help him.  I’d almost giggle as I said “no thanks.”  I could just imagine pulling out some pictures from my back pocket and asking, “ok.. so I’m trying to build this three axis gimbal and I need help trying to find a set-screw what can withstand the stress of a 30 pound load.  Any suggestions?”  Yeah, I pretty much kept to myself.  I’m sure the security guy in the monitor room was working overtime watching me because I would just walk around picking up parts, looking at them, trying to connect them with other parts, putting them back, etc… for hours.

Enough rambling about that, below I’ll give you a quick rundown on each part of a camera stabilization system and essentially how it went together.

The Arm

The arm was created using 3/4″ and 1″ square aluminum tubing. The pieces form 2 parallelograms connected in the middle with a short “elbow” joint. As you can see, the longer pieces were created with the 3/4″ tubing, and the 1″ tubing was used for the shorter “risers.”  Two short pieces of the 1″ tubing were sandwiched together to form the short elbow joint.  The entire arm connects to the vest via a similar elbow joint. Inside each vertical tube, there are 4 inline-skate bearings (2 per bolt) making each piece of the arm completely friction-less. Inline-skate bearings are relatively cheap and if one goes bad, you can get them readily at most sports stores. I picked up 2 packs of 16 bearings at my local Sports Authority for $20 a pack. Each arm section is loaded with 2 springs. I know there is a science to this whole camera stabilization thing, but to get started I just got the heaviest springs that they had at the local Ace Hardware. They seem to work just right for now, I can always refine this later if I need to. The top pin connector is some part I picked up in the “gates and hinges” section, it is part of a gate hinge I think. Works great.

The Gimbal

This piece is vital to controlling your camera. It allows rotation on all 3 axis, allowing the camera to pan, tilt, as well as roll. The main post is 3/4″ aluminum pole. The large bearing in the middle of the post is held in place with 2 collars, one above the main bearing and one below.  Each of these collars is then held in place with set screws. The collars can be moved up/down the post so that the center of gravity of the entire rig can be moved in order to balance the entire rig. In order to attach the “U” shaped piece to the main bearing, I needed to put the main bearing into some sort of metal sleeve.  You can’t drill directly into the bearing without damaging it, so I needed something that I could put around the bearing that I could drill into.  I was able to make a collar out of a steel piece of threaded piping that I cut down to size and then ground down the threads to get the bearing to fit inside. I left some of the threads inside the pipe so that the bearing would have something to rest on.   The bearing slips into the collar and a few set screws keep it in place. The square “U” piece around the main bearing is made with 1″x 14″ aluminum and 1.5″ “L” aluminum cut down to 1″ pieces. The handle is a piece of 90-degree bend PVC piping with bearings inside allowing the whole bearing to pivot at the handle.

The Stage

Of all the pieces that I made, I’m most proud of the final design of the stage because of it’s adjustability.  The stage can be adjusted in both the X and Y planes, allowing for fine adjustments for balance. Wing nuts underneath loosen the platform to adjust for left/right balance. The black knobs on the sides can be loosened to allow the platform to be moved forward/backward for front/back balance. Also, there are 3 separate holes in the platform so you can mount your camera in a different place depending on mounted accessories. The collar is attached to the platform with JB Weld (because I couldn’t fine anyone who could do aluminum welding in my area) and has a set-screw to attach it to the main post. The bottom of the platform does have a hole cut in it so that a video cable can be run down through the middle of the post to the LCD screen on the sled. I put some rubber-like material on the top of the platform to give some protection and grip to the camera.

The Vest

Of all the parts in the system, this is my least favorite and is still very much NOT completed. The metal portion of the vest is made from 2″ x 1/8″ aluminum bent, then doubled-up for strength. The waist band is 2″ nylon strapping which I got from my local JoAnn Fabric store along with an adjustable plastic clasp. The upper-body strapping is currently 1″ wide, although I’m already considering 2″ because the 1″ pinches too much.

Special Design Consideration

There’s no secret that I’m a big guy..with a big gut. This proves to be quite a problem for building a vest for a camera stabilizer. The “block” as it is referred to is the connector coming off the main belt, and in order for the rig to be balanced, it needs to be as straight and level as possible. With my belly sticking out, it was causing the belt to angle away from my body throwing *everything* off.  It makes it feel like the entire rig wants to pull away from you, all the time.  I had some connections at Cranson Custom Upholstery and Alan the owner was awesome enough to help me make some special padding for my vest. The waist padding is special heavy foam that will keep the belt even with my belly, and keep everything on the rig working correctly. Alan is in the process of making the rib-padding and seat belt-style pads for the over-the-shoulder strapping. (No, the strapping will not go behind my neck as you see in the top picture right now… this is only temporary)

Final Costs

Of course, I tried my best to save receipts, track all the parts and tools required, and keep note of the time spent on the project but it really just all ran away from me.  I know I ended up buying several expensive tools to get this job done including a Drill Press, metal taps, special metal cutting tools, dremel bits, etc.  Obviously the cost of aluminum, but the one thing that surprised me was the cost of nuts and bolts.  They’re small but they add up QUICKLY.  Finally I had to buy the 12v battery and a small monitor for the bottom, which set me back about a hundred bucks or so.  I’d say that all-in-all, this project cost me about $800 to make.  But, ultimately it’s not about the cost… it’s about the results, which I’ll share below.

So.. What About the Results?

Here is the part that nobody wants to hear, but I think is VERY important to this entire article being valuable to anyone considering taking this project on. The bottom line is, I enjoyed the research, design, and building process.  Also, it was a lot of fun and challenging for me on a personal level.  However, the final result was really NOT GOOD.  I tried using it on about 5 different scenes, each came out really bouncy and out of control.  Also, every time I used it something came loose and broke.  Ultimately, the bearings all came loose in the arm making it unusable, and the JB Weld came loose on the stage and the entire stage fell off the main post.  Even after numerous attempts to fix everything, it never really worked very well.  I was getting frustrated that even after all that work, I still wasn’t getting the results I wanted.  I realized that there is a reason these things are so darn expensive.. they’re hard to build correctly to make them the solid, and have the ability to create dependable, repeatable results.   I wanted to know what it was supposed to be like, so in 2006 I purchased a real Steadicam.

Steadicam ProVid 2+

I considered several models, like the Steadicam Flyer, and the Glidecam V16, but they both still seemed to small and flimsy for me.  After some research I found a used Steadicam ProVid 2+ rig for $12,000 and included Anton Bauer bricks as well as some other goodies.  As part of the purchase, the owner even flew out to my house and gave me 2 days of hands-on training.  I couldn’t beat that deal!  After several months of practice I started to really understand what it was supposed to feel like.  I started booking work on small projects to get my skills developed, and over the course of the next several years I ended up working as a Steadicam Operator on many projects including a few independent feature films.  You can see my Steadicam Credits on my IMDB Page.

A professional rig gave me unprecedented control over fine-tuning the balance, and reliability I could count on from shoot to shoot.  Ultimately, in 2009 I ended up selling my Steadicam rig and decided to concentrate on my skills as a Director of Photography and Cinematographer.

What Would I Do Differently?

Oh.. where do I begin?  Now that I had worked with a real rig, I know all of the things that my home-built rig was missing.  The Arm: The arm’s springs needed to be adjustable.  Every camera will have a slightly different weight, even accessories added/removed from a camera will slightly change the weight and balance.  The springs need to be adjustable so you can keep the arm perfectly neutral.. not too tight or too loose, otherwise you’ll get bounce in your shot.  The Block: Next, “the block”, also know as the connector to the vest, needs to be adjustable.  You should be able to stand perfectly straight and your rig with hover directly in front of you.  With a lot of practice, a subtle and controlled rotation of your hips can make your sled will move around… all without even touching it with your hands.  Once again, your rig should be in balance and in neutral at all times.  By making the block adjustable you can then keep your rig in neutral, my rig wasn’t even close to having this feature.  The Vest: As I mentioned above, this is my least-favorite part.  A real vest is very snug and becomes part of your body.  This vest was loose, painful, and hard to get on and off.  The Gimbal: The gimbal had some slight movement in it, which was not good.  A slight shift of any part will throw off the balance of the entire rig.  The gimbal needed to be much more finely crafted with precision.  The post was not very adjustable.  You could adjust the position of the gimbal along the post to get balance, but it was not very convenient to do.  Also the post was not height-adjustable, which is necessary depending on the weight of the camera and for making quick balance changes while the rig is already flying.  This is just a few of the big things, there are many subtle things that needed to be changed, but there are probably too many of them to list here.

Hindsight is Always 20/20 (PLEASE Read)

Having tasted the beauty of “the real thing” for so many years, sorry to say I decided to scrap my home-built system.  But the real big question after this journey is: would I do it all again?  Yes, and No.  The process of research and building my own rig gave me an appreciation and understanding of the physics and skill required to operate something like this.  I love building things, and in a way just being able to design and make something from scratch is always satisfying.  Knowledge and experience is something that we all accumulate during our live, it is priceless, and makes us who we are.  On the other hand I did spend $800 in my “learning,” which was money that could have gone directly into my name-brand Steadicam rig purchase.  So.. it boils down to: I had $800 worth of fun and experience.  And even though I consider my home built stabilizer project a failure, I consider my learned skills as a Steadicam operator a complete success.

Yeah yeah.. I was so excited to see what the cabinet would look like, I had to make up a temporary marquee. Really boring, I know. but doing this temporary marquee taught me a few things. First, although you can’t see it plainly from the picture, apparently I made a minor error during measuring. The marquee area is actually 1/2″ larger on one side than the other. This became obvious when I measured to cut the plexiglass, and was important when I designed the finished logo in Photoshop.

Here, I wanted to give you a close-up shot of what effect the 2×2′s behind the plexiglass had on the overall backlight. You can clearly see where they are, so when I design the final marquee, I’ll need to be sure I don’t put any important pictures in these areas.

Designing the Final Marquee

Well, after a few hours in Photoshop I was able to finish my marquee. The final piece is 28″ by 7.5″ at 150dpi. (4200px by 1125px) I had it printed up at the local Kinkos for around $16. Although the plexiglass in this picture is making it appear glossier than it should, the Kinkos printout was supurb. The black ink they used was truely flat BLACK and turned out great. You’ll notice that I didn’t put anything above Qbert or below Spiderman… to avoid the lack of light behind those areas.  This picture also shows the bottom retaining plastic clear angle molding better than any of the other pictures.

Here’s a quick rundown on how I made it: There are a bunch of places that have the logo, but I eventually found the original creators of the main MAME logo that I used, and it is on OscarControls’ Website To capture each character I played that particular game in MAME and did the old alt-print-screen combo to capture a screen-shot. I pasted it as a new layer, did some transform-scale so that each character would be large enough to see, and then cleaned up the edges. The I went through my huge collection of fonts to find just the right combination for the “Webb’s” portion, and added a few effects to make it match the style of the MAME logo. After a little bit of shuffling around, I wound up with my marquee. That is about it. Pretty simple.

Here it is, in its final glory.

Download the Marquee

After MANY requests, I have finally decided to post the Photoshop source file for my marquee. The file is a 6.8MB ZIP file, and contains a Photoshop 7.0 file and the font I used for my name.
BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD: All I ask, is if you download and use this marquee as a starting point for your own marquee, and you post pictures of your cabinet online, that you give Oscar Control and myself credit, and post a link back to this page on my website. I just want to be sure everyone gets credit where credit is due. Enjoy!!! (OK, ok.. I agree to give credit where credit is due, let me download the file already.)

So, at this point my cabinet was pretty much done. It played really well and I was very happy with the result. However, one thing was bugging me… it didn’t have a coin door. There is something about seeing a coin door on the front which would give it that added experience. Of course, I had no intention of actually paying to play my own games, but there was just something visually about it that made me want to add it.

Buying the Door

A friend referred me to someone who had an Happ coin door for sale. It was several years old but it was never used, and still in the original packaging from Happ. For $35 I couldn’t resist. For me, a coin door on the front really helps make the cabinet look authentic!

Installing the Coin Door

Since the part was so old, I didn’t know if there were any measurements available, so I just measured the actual part. I measured the front door and measured the correct size in order to mount the coin door exactly centered. I used a t-square to be sure that the hole was exactly straight to the top and sides. The tricky part was trying to get the curves right. Basically I just eye-balled them and they worked out just fine.

Attaching the door to the front door was pretty easy. There are 5 “fingers” that come out from the back of the coin door. These fingers can be used to mount the door on 1/2″ or 3/4″ plywood, in my case 1/2″. The screws hold the fingers tight to the wood and presto!

The Final Result

On the right here is a picture of the final door from the outside. Looks pretty authentic to me.  The only final touches I would consider would be to wire the lights for the coin slots and replace the “Happ Controls” sign on the coin release button.  We’ll see, only so many hours in the day.

Here is a drawing of what the bit looks like. Truth is, I used the router bit for the t-molding, the returned it to Home Depot.. it was close to $25 for the bit, and I only needed it for about 10 minutes so I never took a picture of it. So this is a facsimile of what it looks like. Once you put it on your router, you actually set the shaft-depth and then tighten it up so that the bit is at the right depth to be exactly in the middle of the wood. The yellow circle-part of the bit is the part that digs into the wood and with the guide, it cuts an exact depth all the way around. I actually turned my cabinet on it’s side, then put the router down flat on the side of the cabinet and routed around the edge. You don’t have to think twice about keeping a straight line at all since the router is already locked into place to cut exactly in the center of the edge and the guide keeps the cutting depth just right.

I ordered 40 feet of t-molding from t-molding.com. You’d think that 40 feet is way too much, but I used all but 3 feet of it.

Using a hot-glue gun I installed the molding. I usually put down about 6-8″ of glue at a time and then held the t-molding in place for about 1 minute. Be sure not to do a long strip AND a corner at the same time, it’s harder to hold. Take your time, this is a detail that will make your cabinet look GREAT if done well. The angles that defy gravity… are hard. If you have the patience, you can put your cabinet on it’s back while gluing these angles to keep the hot glue from dripping on your final paint job.

On a side note, I bought a 24-pack of glue sticks for the project. I was thinking that would be WAY too much glue, but it turned out that I used ALL but 1 stick. Keep that in mind and it may save you an unexpected trip to Home Depot.