Kingdom Cronos Arcade- Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things



Ahhhhhh! Project DarkStar! What began simply as Project Immersion has evolved past the stages of a mere concept and is growing inside my creative womb steadily into a strapping vesitge of reality! But what is it... For year I have whispered of my intent to build a cockpit type arcade machine... But not just any old racer, or starfighter, or mech commander machine. I wanted one ring to rule them all! Afterall, this is an expensive and very time consuming hobby yo! So without further adeiu! The arcade project that will change the face of the hobby forever... PROJECT DARKSIDE!!! Ahhhhhhhh yeah! Know what your thinking! Not quite up to the hype yet! In fact, that's gotta be the lamest project photo you've ever seen right? HAW! I actually had a vectorized version of this which was a little bit less lame... But alas... It's misplaced at the moment! Let me show you what inspired this crappy stick figure attempt at a concept drawing and you'll surely get a better feel for what I'm going for here... There that's better eh? Well... What the end result will exactly be nobody knows including myself (Although I have a much better idea than anyone else), but it's gonna be curayzee!!! I was juggling around the notion of putting ina rotating control panel which rotated side to side instead of up and down like you usually see. Theroy and initial sketches were sound... Problem is for this panel to look good and support the bare minimum of controls that I want it to (Force and 360 wheels and a flight yoke)... I need to build a cab that'll never fit through a door! SO I thought of how I could build the cab in modular pieces. Can be done... Big pain in the butt when it comes time to move it. But can be done. But then I thought.... How about just making the freakin' control panel modular! That was it's a lot less work PLUS I can fit in a wider range of special controls! I could add in Battlezone type controls, motorbike controls, replica Discs of Tron controls since a push/pull spinner is back on the market. Sure I would lose on the fly controller swapping. But if done right, swapping controls could be as easy as fetching a beer from the cooler! So that's what I'm pretty much set on. Something half open cockpit like a Starblade cab with modular controls and a whole crapload of bells and whistles for a nice virtual effect. I'm currently in a parts gathering phase, but I've only a few easily obtained items on my shopping list left. The time to cut wood is almost here baby! Be prepared for rather frequent updates on this project! Till then here's a few more bits and pieces I've picked up to incorporate into project DarkStar. Get those creative juices flowin' and think of it like a jigsaw puzzle at this point!
When it's done I'll fill this out... Till then peep the pics!
Q: Did you drop some acid when you thought of this? A: Not to my knowledge. But then again I do seem to recall that Brainiac 13 told me it could be done because I'm the Lex Luthor of this hobby!
Use Plywood! The debate does not still wage on! If you use MDFyou do do because your a cheap bastard. Hey that's your perogative! But please don't attempt to justify your cheapness by making uneducated and/or stubborn claims to the contrary that MDF is a sturdier material! MDF is sawdust which is compressed densely and held together with glue! It weighs much more than playwood (Even OakPly), will begin to dissolve if even a spec of water touches it, and is not as easy to work with nor as strong as plywood. MDF will dull blades quickly and also it's almost impossible to patch with filler because of the moisture content. I recommend birch plywood because of it's weight and softer grain which will spare your tools and time! If your going for paint or stain use the more expensive furniture grade or else you'll just spend more in sandpaper trying to get the rough out enough for the finish. If your using laminate or plan on doing filler as an overlay for custom shaping... A cheaper grade is totally fine... Just make sure you sand a bit to get any loose grain off. One of the most common of the big frustrating mistakes I hear cab builders mention is that the sides of their cab don't match up! When you need to cut identical pieces such as the cabinet sides... Clamp the pieces together, draw your pattern on top, make the straight cuts with a circular saw, and finish any curvatures or tight angles with a jigsaw. This will guarantee the closet possible uniform match, and is safe as long as you have 1/2" of excess blade coming through the bottom of the cut. I have done it with only 1/4" but you increase the chance of a kickback.... So if your feeling ballsy, do so at your own risk and at least make sure you maintain a tight grip throughout your cuts! BE PATIENT! This applies to all areas of cab building. Think things out, then double, and even triple think them out. When cutting with a hand tool such as a router, jigsaw, or circular saw... Go at a comfortable and even pace for you and keep a firm grip on the tool at all time. Patience especially applies to finish work! Take the time to patch and sand before you paint or else it'll show in the end result. Several light coats of finish are better than one heavy coat!

Ahhhhhh! Project DarkStar! What began simply as Project Immersion has evolved past the stages of a mere concept and is growing inside my creative womb steadily into a strapping vesitge of reality! But what is it... For year I have whispered of my intent to build a cockpit type arcade machine... But not just any old racer, or starfighter, or mech commander machine. I wanted one ring to rule them all! Afterall, this is an expensive and very time consuming hobby yo!

So without further adeiu! The arcade project that will change the face of the hobby forever...

PROJECT DARKSIDE!!!

Ahhhhhhhh yeah! Know what your thinking! Not quite up to the hype yet! In fact, that's gotta be the lamest project photo you've ever seen right? HAW! I actually had a vectorized version of this which was a little bit less lame... But alas... It's misplaced at the moment! Let me show you what inspired this crappy stick figure attempt at a concept drawing and you'll surely get a better feel for what I'm going for here...

There that's better eh? Well... What the end result will exactly be nobody knows including myself (Although I have a much better idea than anyone else), but it's gonna be curayzee!!! I was juggling around the notion of putting ina rotating control panel which rotated side to side instead of up and down like you usually see. Theroy and initial sketches were sound... Problem is for this panel to look good and support the bare minimum of controls that I want it to (Force and 360 wheels and a flight yoke)... I need to build a cab that'll never fit through a door! SO I thought of how I could build the cab in modular pieces. Can be done... Big pain in the butt when it comes time to move it. But can be done.

But then I thought.... How about just making the freakin' control panel modular! That was it's a lot less work PLUS I can fit in a wider range of special controls! I could add in Battlezone type controls, motorbike controls, replica Discs of Tron controls since a push/pull spinner is back on the market. Sure I would lose on the fly controller swapping. But if done right, swapping controls could be as easy as fetching a beer from the cooler!

So that's what I'm pretty much set on. Something half open cockpit like a Starblade cab with modular controls and a whole crapload of bells and whistles for a nice virtual effect. I'm currently in a parts gathering phase, but I've only a few easily obtained items on my shopping list left. The time to cut wood is almost here baby!

Be prepared for rather frequent updates on this project! Till then here's a few more bits and pieces I've picked up to incorporate into project DarkStar. Get those creative juices flowin' and think of it like a jigsaw puzzle at this point!