Perfect. Thank you for the info!
Sometimes it's difficult to determine what is authentic and what has been modded on this thing, especially since it's a converted cabinet anyway. I appreciate the help. 
In your estimation does everything else look original?  Wasn't sure about those black bolts on the sides, toward the front of the cabinet at the control panel level. I wonder if they were added at some point to shore up the cabinet to keep it from falling apart. The cab seems to have a bit of a lean to the right, but that may be due to the wood base that is falling apart.


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Thanks for the input! That's kind of the direction I'm leaning, because I like the artwork on the DJR cabs.  I might also do the double-DK from arcade shops.  Looks like they have all of the artwork available for either option.
Another question...is the speaker grille on the front a standard-issue piece?  I thought that all of the Nintendo cabs had the horizontal slots cut into the wood for the speaker, so I was a bit surprised to see a metal grille on this one. It is bolted to the cabinet and looks as old as the cabinet, so I am guessing it is a factory-original piece. 


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Hello All!

I just joined the forum tonight but wanted to share pics of my other cabs. These were all built from the ground up.
The Cap cab is running MAME OS X on a Mac Mini, and it is using an iPac4 so I can have 4 player action on some games (including the marquee game). Although the iPac4 seems to have died for whatever reason, so right now I am using my spare iPac2 until I can replace the 4. Bummer!
The Space Invaders cab is running a 60-in-1 PCB and although the games are not 100% accurate most people love it. I am the only one that it really seems to bother!
The Atari cab is currently running the 19-in-1 PCB, which I hated at first but again everyone else who plays it seems to like a lot. Before that I was running the Pandoras Box 3 in it, and the cabinet is 36" wide so it really works well for the Capcom fighting games and the Neo Geo stuff like Metal Slug.






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Hello All!

So I just posted in the Introduce Yourself section a few minutes ago, but while it's fresh in my mind I wanted to get some feedback on what direction to take with this cab.  It's a DKJR according to the ID plate on the back of the plywood cabinet (which I was very pleased to realize that I had chosen my machine somewhat blindly, but wisely). 

I bought it because it has VS SMB, a game that I pumped many a into when I was a wee furniture nerd in the mid-late 1980s.
My family, neighbors and neighborhood kids all seem to gravitate to my garage in the evenings and weekends, and SMB is such a universally-loved game so I thought it should be my first real cabinet.

I'd like to bring this can back to its original glory, but I can't decide if I should keep it as VS, or put it back to DKJR on the outside.
Whatever I do, I am nearly certain the game itself will stay SMB.  I like DKJR but it was never one of my favorites. I thought about doing the Double-DK board set from Mike's Arcade, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't get played as much as SMB will. And if I put a bunch of work into bringing this thing back to its original glory, I want it to get PLAYED. A LOT. 

The reason I am struggling with a direction is twofold...
1) the VS SMB conversion is...not beautiful.
It's only slightly less utilitarian-looking than a Neo-Geo cabinet. It just slays me that one of their most successful games of all time didn't even have artwork on the glass!
2) I'm not a huge fan of the orange. 
If I had my pick between the orange and the blue Ninty cabinet colors, I'd take the blue any day of the week.

That being said, I like the artwork on any of the DK cabinets. I think that having a cabinet with original colors, side/cpo artwork, marquee, et cetera just completes the whole "time machine" feel of these old cabinets. I want the players to get the full Monty when they step up to play it.
I also don't want to ruin an original by making it into something that it's not...which Is why I'm asking for opinions! 

Thanks everyone!





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Here are some photos of my first REAL cabinet!


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Hello fellow Kansan! Hopefully we don't get too many 'Dorothy & Toto' references. Ha!

Just picked up my first REAL ninty cabinet last weekend! I've been building mame cabinets for a couple of years now.  Finally found an authentic cabinet on Craigslist that was (somewhat) reasonably-priced, so I drove two hours to get it and bring back to mi casa. 
It's a DKJR cabinet with the VS SMB conversion. At least, I think it's an authentic conversion as near as I can tell.
The cabinet is in need of some love, the monitor has a lot of burn and needs a new cap kit, amp has a lot of buzz to it... This thing reminds me of that scene in the movie Ghostbusters when Ray is explaining to Peter all of the things that are wrong with the car, yet still thinks he got a good on it.  Ha! 
My plan is to do a full-on restoration of this cabinet, and I'll be asking for some opinions on what I should do with it in terms of color, artwork, etc.
Super excited to finally have an authentic cabinet.  Something I never would have dreamed possible as a kid playing these games at Aladdin's Castle at the mall thirty years ago!

Thanks John for building such a helpful and fun resource for noobs like me!