January 28 2009
Do It Yourself Backlit Skeeball Marquee. Part 1
Tagged Under : Game room, Sign, Skeeball
After admiring Jamie from Noise Land Arcade’s (zork40) custom Skeeball sign for way too long I decided I needed one.
Here is a photo of Jamie’s sign.
Information on Jamie’s sign can be found here
www.noiselandarcade.com
Jamie was kind enough to share some tips along with his source for where he bought his backlit frame but after I received my 0+ quote I about fell off my chair. It’s a very impressive product however it wasn’t in the budget so I decided to take matters into my own hand and construct my own light box.
First step was for me to find a nice skeeball marquee. I was lucky enough to come across a NOS marquee from Mark Little over a KLOV.
Then I had a piece of 1/8″ thick white Plexiglas cut to the size of the marquee to help “Defuse” the light. I plan on using 2-4 low voltage 12″ Dual Cold Cathode Lights and need the light to be nice and even. Or at least that is the plan.
Now, I had a nice flat piece of 1 x 3 (About 5/8″ x 2-3/4″ in dimensions) so I decided to use that. I need a slot to hold the marquee and white plexiglas in place and a second slot for the 1/4″ paneling I am going to use for the back of the light box. Wasn’t super hard, just measured the thickness of the marquee w/ the 1/8″ plex and double check the the thickness of the paneling for the back and marked the 1 x 3 and made 3 or 4 passes the length of the 1×3 on the table saw. Wasn’t super hard seeing I had help from someone that knew what he was doing (or at least how not to cut off your fingers.
So, at this point I need four (4) pieces w/ mitered corners to actually construct the frame. So, with a some carefully measuring (double and triple checking) I went for it and ended up with two pieces for the top/bottom and two pieces for the sides. Everything at this point looked great!!!
From here I attached two blocks of wood on both the left and right piece to help structure it and for something the back could screw into and assembled the sides to the bottom with a finish nailer. The top will be screwed or finish nailed during final assembly.
So, this is where it sits right now. Ready for paint and assembly (oh, and I need to get my numbers trimmed out on vinyl). But, so far so good.
I just bought the same sign (from ebay) and am looking to do the same thing! (or make a table out of it, not sure yet 😉 )
I’m super-psyched for my new acquisition, and am eager to start sourcing materials to finish my project. Do you have the dimensions of the Skee Ball sign itself? And what is it made of?
If I put it as a surface to a table-top, would it hold weight?
@Matt – I pretty much just cut a groove in a 1 x 3 then just marked and cut the miters and assembled. I put a piece of milk plex behind the marquee so the groove was about wider than just the marquee. Read through the other blog posts and it pretty much shows how I assembled and built. I can give you the overall dimensions of the box but I kind of “winged” it.
One thing I would of did different would of bought some sort of trim to put in the slot to prevent any light leaks… As far as a table top…. Hmmmm, I’d probably consider getting a piece of glass to put over it to prevent the weight warping the marquee. However, maybe you could use 1/2″ milk plex behind the marquee.
Be sure to come back and let us know your progress.