After months of planning and 2 weeks of building, I have finally completed my first stick!



I simply cannot contain my excitement for Street Fighter 4. I've been playing Street Fighter since I was able to hold a controller. With SF4 arriving at the states very soon, I knew that I needed to play the game the way it was meant to be played. It all started when Madcatz first showed off the Official SF4 arcade sticks. I immediately drooled for the Tournament Edition stick especially since it's made with the same parts as the real SF4 arcade cabinets (Sanwa). The only thing that made my groin hurt was the $150 price tag! What motivated me to build a custom stick of my own was by further lurking around in the SRK forums.

Anyways, time for the specifications. Here's a look at the schematics I drafted up to make it all fit together.


For the case, I used 3/4" thick poplar hardwood and two 8x10" pexiglass. As you can see, the plexiglass made it possible to see the artwork and the guts of the stick. Even though the official SF4 arcade cabinents use all Sanwa parts, I decided to use Seimitsu for the clear buttons and the more accessible mounting plate on the joystick. All the parts are wired up to Toodle's Cthulhu PCB which allows me to use the stick on my PS3 and PC.



Building this bad boy was a pretty fun challenge for me. Personally, I have never done any wood-working since shop in middle school. I've never even soldered anything in my life! In the end, I'm pretty satisfied with the final product. Big thanks to the helpful and friendly guys at the SRK Tech forum and Mr. Slagcoin's extremely helpful website. This is probably the first and last stick I will ever make.

By the way, if you want to buy an arcade stick, check out Madcatz's SF4 ones. They're really better quality than any other retail stick out there. Just bringing this up since so many people still resent Madcatz.