A buddy on neogeo is a big fan of this game. I've never played it in the arcades and I always wanted to try it the way it was meant to be played: with dual sticks ! unlike my last projects, I didn't want carriage bolts through the overlay. Not being able to find CD Stud welding services, or someone that could form joystick brackets, it seemed I was like stuck with carriage bolts. That was until Franco showed me the way
Self-Clinch Studs ! Thanks again Franco !bad **** !
So I got with my usual sheet metal supplier. The trick with those self clinch studs is getting a metal that is softer than the stud. They have special ones for stainless steel, but you need a crazy powerful hydraulic press. Galvannealed ended up working out, it has good rust protection and is a mild steel. I got some TR-FH-M4-25 studs ( way too long , should have gotten some TR-FH-M4-6 ones
). Once the panels showed up ( with just the holes for the joysticks , start buttons, and carriage bolts ) it was time to install those studs...
I was able to get by with a 1-Ton Chinese made arbor press, cheap stuff... 50 $US. 
here is my improvised anvil
, since it's only 16GA steel, the inside of the anvil has to be countersunk, I found a steel spacer that worked fine, but with a nut added for extra height. ( again, should have gotten some TR-FH-M4-6 studs ) 
ok now put that in the press and put all your weight on the handle for 5 seconds...
now repeat 15 times
A pile of LS-32s showed up a few days later
Why the LS-32 ? , it's a stud mount design and well humm, I had other things to do than research all seimitsu variants. There are cheap zippy clones too, but without a 5pin connectors... Since I didn't want to spend days making looms I went with the real deal.
First time LS-32 buyer here. man those things are beasts... and also they do come a balltop so I now have 8 spare balltops.
then onto the CPO.... The original is pretty cool so I opted to go that way. Couldn't find any vector art worth a crap so I decided to trace a raster file. Found this high res pic online https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2797/408 ... a96f_o.jpg" . After some skewing and stretching I started tracing. Man, this was painful, because I'm not an graphic guy by trade and fairly new to vector drawing tools. dubdubdub on neogeo completed and refined the design and we ended up with this:
pretty awesome
that man is very skilled !putting it all together
Then the looms
the normal square gates didn't work too well for the shooting sticks, so I opted for some round gates. much better
The marquee is from Spectre , and looks amazing. excellent quality !
Oh, and it also plays this
I'd definitely buy that for a dollar
