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Weekend Workshop: Light up your love for arcade games with a DIY marquee lightbox

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Need something to keep you busy this weekend? We’ve got you covered. The Weekend Workshop is our weekly column in which we showcase a badass DIY project that you can complete with minimal skills and expertise. We’ve dug through all the online tutorials and gone the extra mile to pinpoint projects that are equal parts easy, affordable, and fun. So put on your work pants, grab your tool belt, and head to the garage. It’s time to start building!

While Sony and Microsoft continue to dazzle their fans with emotional storytelling, life-like graphics, and engrossing gameplay, there remains a place in everyone’s heart for the old-fashioned nostalgia of systems past. Whether it’s an early arcade or console classic, everyone has a game or two which helped create fond of memories of childhood.

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Considering how ingrained these games are, there’s no better way to celebrate your affection for them than by constructing a unique marquee lightbox. Thanks to some skillful handiwork by an Instructables user known as MakeItYoutube, building one of these praise-worthy lightboxes requires little else outside of a few power adapters, lengths of wood, an arcade marquee of your choice, and some basic tool skills.

Weekend Workshop DIY Arcade Marquee Lightbox
MakeItYoutube/Instructables
MakeItYoutube/Instructables

To help you get started on this weekend DIY project, we’ve gone ahead and sifted through the walkthrough to find the exact build list required for construction. As is the case with any Weekend Workshop project, we highly recommend you know how to correctly operate a band saw, soldering iron, and power drill before starting — or employ the services of someone who does. With that said, here’s everything you’ll need to get started:

Tools:

  • Soldering tools
  • Drill
  • Panel saw
  • Band saw
  • Routing table
  • 3/16″ router bit

Materials:

  • Arcade marquee
  • 12V power supply
  • Slide switch
  • DC power plug jack
  • Wire
  • LED light strip (white)
  • 5/8″ wire nails
  • 1 1/2″ wood screws
  • Pine board (6′ x 3.5″ x 3/4″)
  • 1/8″ MDF (medium-density fiberboard)
  • Gorilla Glue

With the necessary tools and materials at the ready, it’s time to start piecing together this creative take on a marquee lightbox. Simply follow MakeItYoutube’s comprehensive walkthrough and in a mere matter of hours, you’ll be showing off your vintage gaming pride in style. Happy building!

The entire walkthrough for building this DIY arcade marquee lightbox can be found over at Instructables.

Rick Stella
Rick Stella
Former Associate Editor, Outdoor
Rick became enamored with technology the moment his parents got him an original NES for Christmas in 1991. And as they say…
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