Today I went out to my garage to grab a joystick I had left out there (I had to do some research for another one of my Atari nodes). When I got out there I noticed my empty Pac-Man arcade cabinet along with my newly refinished (minus the sideart), Double Dragon machine. But I couldn't play either one. My ever resourceful buddy Dave managed to step on one of the jamma boards to the Double Dragon and the Pac-Man is just an empty case (I plan to restore the Pac-Man eventually, but all I have aquired so far is a power supply and monitor).
Next thing you know I have decided to build a new MAME cabinet. I decide to use the Double Dragon, which was actually a Defender in a former life. My roommate Ryan helps me get it in the house through the second story window. Within 2 hours I have it pretty much put together. Although I have already built a couple of these before, so it went much quicker, it didn't hurt that I already had a hacked Sidewinder controller wired up to an old arcade control panel because that is what takes the most time.
Here is what I have so far. The cabinet is a refinished Williams Defender that has been painted gloss red with black t-molding. I used a 19 inch PC monitor. Right now the control panel has a single 8 way joystick and 9 buttons (I have a button filling the spot where I plan to put a spinner). I have a generic marquee with some Kung-Fu guys on it, which I still plan on replacing. Finally there is no sideart as of yet, but I have a few ideas.
This weekend I hope to finish it up by adding a trackball and better integrating the PC that is running it, although everything already works perfectly. Not bad for a few hours work.