Nemesis, slagcoin was mentioned as the second post in my "Tips on building a custom arcade stick" thread (i think it got moved to tech discussion under "non-SC" chat.
It's pretty much the best guide for building your own custom, all different aspects and parts and everything.
Also, no offense, but if you don't have the time/money to mess some things up the first time, you're going to be disappointed in your first stick. There's a good bit of experimenting, and you're going to have some bumps in the road always. Have you done a lot of wood working before? If not, you're going to discover how much of a bitch it is sometimes to get things exactly right. You'll waste a lot of time doing pointless work, it probably won't look the way you want it to...it's not smooth sailing.
If you're looking for a GOOD stick, not a custom (not arguing quality here), money and a LITTLE BIT of work will probably get you everything you need, and you can probably do it first try.