These are the cabinet design and measuring pages

There's a old saw that says "measure twice, cut once." This is an excellent idea when constructing a cabinet. Indeed, you should not only measure everything several times to ensure that it's all correct, if you have the materials you should mock up at least the control panel.

Control panel design

This is the part of the cabinet that will most affect how you feel when playing, so think about it for a week or two, draw it out on paper (full size) and see how it "feels" and then get a scrap of wood and build a mockup.

This step saved me from several problems that I would have had if I didn't create the mockup. Even if you measure, when you're working in three dimensions, it's easy to overlook how two different pieces will interact when the whole cab is assembled. I used a scrap shelf from an old bookshelf, drilled holes for the controls and installed them. Or attempted to. The joystick body was larger than I expected, and interfered with button placement, so I re-drilled and tried again. If you don't do anything else I suggest, at least mock up the control panel.

Think about the kinds of games you like to play most. Newer fighting games may require as many as six buttons per player. Older games (Pacman, Centipede, Joust) seldom require more than two. I decided on a three button configuration, placing a joysticks and three buttons for each of two players

 

Beyond joysticks and buttons, think about other controls you might need for favorite games. I personally love Centipede and Tempest. Centipede requires a trackball, and Tempest a spinner. Since these games use an "alternating" mode for two-player games, I placed one trackball and one spinner on my control panel layout.

On to designing the cab.