the Cab

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the Cabinet

(the main body of the game)

The cabinet for Atari 2-Player Football has two main pieces: (1) The cab body which houses the game itself, plus (2) a stand that game can sit on.

The cabinet for my game had severe water damage. I used the poor condition cabinet as the plans to build a new one.

The cabinet is made out of particle board, with some plywood pieces. Plywood is used for the base of the game, the base of the stand, the monitor deck, and the control panel supports.

Side #1 has the coin door, with wood grain vinyl and side art:

Side #2 is just the wood grain vinyl and side art:

Side #3 is a single piece covered with Morocco-style black vinyl:

Side #4 is composed of three pieces, including the service door (which is missing in this picture):

The stand:

The bottom of the stand:

The cab I built is based on the original design of the cab (although I'm sure I wasn't as exact).

JakeOBud has basic cabinet dimensions.

Here is the stand (later, I made the whole in the bottom larger):

The bottom of the stand has four leg levelers.

For the new cab, I reused four pieces from the original cab. This is the monitor deck and control panel supports, and the glass supports (all of the black pieces in these pictures):

The bottom of the cab also has place for 4 leg levelers (for when the stand is not being used).

It takes 4 bolts to attach the cab to the stand.

The next task is to move the internal parts from the old cab to the new one. This includes the coin box assembly, the PCB cage, the wiring harness, speakers, power supply, etc.

You will need a lot of screws for this. The screw you need is an 8 x 3/4" Pan Phillips Screw:

You will also need some nylon cable clamps to keep the wiring organized and screwed into the game. I used the 3/4" ones, but you may some smaller ones in places.

Here are some pictures as I started putting the "guts" back into the machine.

There are two power interlock switches in the game. One is behind the coin door, the other is behind the service door. The power interlock switch cuts off the power when these doors are opened (the plunger can be pulled when the door is open to restore power). Both of mine damaged. Fortunately, new ones can still be purchased.

Mike's Arcade sells the Cherry AC Interlock switch ($4.60 - June, 2009) and the bracket ($2.35 - June, 2009).

Several areas need to be painted black to better blend in with the artwork and vinyl.

I built a new service door (including a new key lock). I also put the black morocco-style vinyl on sides 3 & 4.

(not done yet...just where I'm at right now).

T-Molding goes along the perimeter of sides 1 & 2 (on the stand as well).

You need black 3/4" T-Molding. To cut the groove for the T-Molding, you need a router with a slot cutter.

I got one from MLCS Woodworking. You will need a 1/16" 3-wing slot cutter with the arbor and bearing. You need to know if you have a 1/4" or 1/2" shank on your router.

The main problem for sides 1 & 2 is the wood-grain plastic vinyl and the football player artwork.

The specific color and wood grain style of the original plastic vinyl is no longer made. The trick is to find one that matches as best as you can. I have leads on some possible substitutes to use. I will post information later. It will be IMPOSSIBLE to find an exact match.

On the original cabinet, the football player side-art is painted directly onto the plastic wood grain vinyl.

Fortunately, the football player sideart is in production. Jeff Rothe scanned it in and vectorized it. This Old Game is producing the artwork and should be ready sometime in July, 2009.

Purchased wood-grain vinyl from MBA Worldwide. I settled on the mila-naturel 11.095 Mahogany.

It's now quite as dark as the siding on my original game, but it's as close as I could find.

I've noticed that the siding isn't consistent among the games I've seen. Some are much liter, and some are darker.

Here is the cab with the wood-grain vinyl installed: