I recently got this cab from david_orton_2000 (thanks David!) and a couple of people asked if I would post up when I did the restoration on this cab, so this will be a log of what I do to the machine.
The cab is pretty much what I expected and is solid, actually heavier than I thought it would be, and its a bit tatty here and there, it's obviously well traveled. Seeing a bit of the side art was too much of a temptation for me and after playing RGP's one at Play Expo I very much want to at least get this up and running.
Here's the cab at my place, nicely wrapped up by Martin's Brother in Law as it had to be left outside my house because I was still driving back from Play at the time. Thanks very much again for this as it saved my bacon
Still inside is a power brick, the speaker and marquee light fixture
plus a spare light fixture and another part of the cab from where the
marquee & speaker live,
this looks like it was ripped off a
completely dismantled cab and has been sawn but could certainly be used
if fabricating another cabinet.
The test panel is there which also
has a cone switch (nice!) although the coin door is bare & there's
no bucket, but the original back door is present with the dip switch
sheet still stapled to it
There's also a weird Alca / Zaccaria joystick, I'm still toying with the idea of using it in my Zaccaria Frogger.
I've managed to source another fully populated control panel, although it has a Willis overlay that's designed for the US version so doesn't fit properly, I also have good reproductions of the overlay and marquee but again these are for the US cab too so either I need to get busy trying to replicate these or find someone else who might be up for it.
I have a loom and board but need to get that looked at first, there's a bunch of brackets & screws for mounting stuff too so when I eventually get a monitor and AR2 I should have enough bits to see if I can get it working.
The good thing is I have at least a few extra parts, maybe even enough to encourage me to build a second cabinet if some day a long time down the road I decide to attempt a Popeye
I couldn't resist scraping some of the black paint off and found it was very brittle towards the front edge, it was flaking off nicely until it started to thicken up so I stopped in case the finish underneath would get damaged. This is what I've revealed so far:
Super Bowls!!!!!!!
Underneath the very thin black paint is a layer of sparkly Super Bowls blue, so I actually have 2 layers to get rid of. I'm going to try some 3M safest stripper and see how that goes, I will try a couple of little areas first and test out some different curing times to make sure none of the original paint is disturbed if possible. The lettering was stickers of some sort and thankfully lifted off.
It's always going to be a bit of a gamble as the art underneath might be rubbish anyway, certainly there is a lot of yellowing in patches on the white colour and it's going to be untidy around the edges, but it's definitely worth having a go and trying to save this art.
I don't yet know how far I will go with restoring it - for now I
want to get the missing parts and see if I can get a working game, I might not do too much to the woodwork apart from a spruce-up, and eventually get the other artwork reproduced. I have far too many projects on the go at the moment so as usual this won't be a quick turn-around job but I'll post up once I tackle the sides, just waiting for the stripper to arrive (insert amusing comment/image/gif here) then I can get on with it.
ianski2014-10-24 19:48:52
The cab is pretty much what I expected and is solid, actually heavier than I thought it would be, and its a bit tatty here and there, it's obviously well traveled. Seeing a bit of the side art was too much of a temptation for me and after playing RGP's one at Play Expo I very much want to at least get this up and running.
Here's the cab at my place, nicely wrapped up by Martin's Brother in Law as it had to be left outside my house because I was still driving back from Play at the time. Thanks very much again for this as it saved my bacon
Still inside is a power brick, the speaker and marquee light fixture
plus a spare light fixture and another part of the cab from where the
marquee & speaker live,
this looks like it was ripped off a
completely dismantled cab and has been sawn but could certainly be used
if fabricating another cabinet.
The test panel is there which also
has a cone switch (nice!) although the coin door is bare & there's
no bucket, but the original back door is present with the dip switch
sheet still stapled to it
There's also a weird Alca / Zaccaria joystick, I'm still toying with the idea of using it in my Zaccaria Frogger.
I've managed to source another fully populated control panel, although it has a Willis overlay that's designed for the US version so doesn't fit properly, I also have good reproductions of the overlay and marquee but again these are for the US cab too so either I need to get busy trying to replicate these or find someone else who might be up for it.
I have a loom and board but need to get that looked at first, there's a bunch of brackets & screws for mounting stuff too so when I eventually get a monitor and AR2 I should have enough bits to see if I can get it working.
The good thing is I have at least a few extra parts, maybe even enough to encourage me to build a second cabinet if some day a long time down the road I decide to attempt a Popeye
I couldn't resist scraping some of the black paint off and found it was very brittle towards the front edge, it was flaking off nicely until it started to thicken up so I stopped in case the finish underneath would get damaged. This is what I've revealed so far:
Super Bowls!!!!!!!
Underneath the very thin black paint is a layer of sparkly Super Bowls blue, so I actually have 2 layers to get rid of. I'm going to try some 3M safest stripper and see how that goes, I will try a couple of little areas first and test out some different curing times to make sure none of the original paint is disturbed if possible. The lettering was stickers of some sort and thankfully lifted off.
It's always going to be a bit of a gamble as the art underneath might be rubbish anyway, certainly there is a lot of yellowing in patches on the white colour and it's going to be untidy around the edges, but it's definitely worth having a go and trying to save this art.
I don't yet know how far I will go with restoring it - for now I
want to get the missing parts and see if I can get a working game, I might not do too much to the woodwork apart from a spruce-up, and eventually get the other artwork reproduced. I have far too many projects on the go at the moment so as usual this won't be a quick turn-around job but I'll post up once I tackle the sides, just waiting for the stripper to arrive (insert amusing comment/image/gif here) then I can get on with it.
ianski2014-10-24 19:48:52
