Dyed Tiger Maple Arcade Stick

This is another arcade stick I built for personal use.
I actually had the case done for a while, but I wasn’t sure how to finish it, so it just sat in the shop for a while.

A recent commission consisted of a big tiger maple case dyed blue, so after doing a few finish tests I decided I wanted this one to be dyed blue as well, just a bit darker than the client’s case.

Construction details:
• Blue dyed (transfast water soluble dyes) tiger maple joined together with loose tenons
• Baltic birch plywood control panel
• Tuffak polycarbonate top and bottom panels
• Threaded inserts for the bottom feet
• Wireless for PS3
• Sanwa buttons and joystick
• Neutrik USB passthrough for charging and sync

For the finish I sprayed on about 4-5 coats of transfast blue water soluble dye. I ddin’t sand the case until I applied a couple coats of clear. For that I used crystalac super premium gloss. Once it was smooth I sprayed on a few more coats and used a combination of steel wool and the gray abrasive pads to bring it down to a satin sheen.

I’m happy with it, but my next one will be a bit bigger, and I’ll use screws to hold the top plexi down. I plan to build it out of cherry or flame birch.

-- He who dies with the most tools... dies with the emptiest wallet.