Converting a Nintendo Unisystem to a Hyperspin; input appreciated!

[jedimickey]

Once upon a time, my father and I bought a multicade for his den. It was the 60 in 1 built into a Pac-Mania arcade. The guy selling it also offered us an empty cabinet he had laying around for a significant discount and we took at as well

The empty cab has been sitting in our garage for years, and now that we're cleaning it out we've decided to inject some life into it and finally fix it up, What we have is an old Nintendo Unisystem (Not my actual unit, but a picture to show what I'm working with as I'm not within reach of mine at the time of this post)

 

Our particular one has a VERY faded Mario Bros. marquee and a Donkey Kong screen overlay, as well as that annoying metal crowbar over the coin slots. I'd like to give it a DK blue paint job to match the screen; but what I would love to do is completely overhaul the control panel; six buttons on each side for fighting games. I'm thinking of making a completely new one out of wood but I"m not sure if I should keep it the same size as the old one, or bring it out a bit to add more (possibly add a trackball if I'm feeling ambitious)

What do you guys reccomend? This is our first time taking on a project like this and we want to do it right

On an additional note, it requires cleaning but I'd be happy to sell the old control panel to anyone interested, the buttons are worn to hell though

[richie_jones]

Are you planning on keeping the CRT or go Led??

[jedimickey]

10 hours ago, richie_jones said:

Are you planning on keeping the CRT or go Led??

I'm thinking of going LED, the cabinet didn't come with a monitor. What do you think?

This is the kind of control panel I was thinking of making: (Found this image elsewhere, but it's what I'd like to do)

And here's an image of my actual unit