Hi Guys,
Apologies for the lack of updates, work got really busy and I’ve just been tinkering away with the odd half hour grabbed wherever I can, but no real progress worthy of any update. However I am off for the whole of this week, performing Daddy Day Care Duties, so hopeful of getting this project moved along if not finished by the weekend…….
So where am I at. The painting resto of the side art, is getting mixed results, down to the inevitably differing shades of paint on each panel. The difference is minute, but it messes with my OCD infected brain, he he, and it annoys me, so I’m still experimenting with this and will post some pics when I’m happy.
In the mean time I have started to tackle the coin door and surrounding frame. Here’s how it was;
The frame was very dirty and had various chips on the paint work, so after removing and cleaning the gunk left behind on the cab, with a quick clean and repaint it now looks like new. The photos here don't really show the difference that much - crap camera!
The coin door itself came up nice with a quick polish, and I disassembled the coin mech, both to allow for cleaning and also to remove the metal surrounds from the front of the coin door and in turn remove the red coin return plastics and the coin return flaps.
Both of these I am not happy with; the coin slot pieces have different inlays, one is the proper 10p, push to reject, the other is a crap one!! Having tried to source a scan of the new one and failed, I decided to scan this in myself and make a couple of repros. However because my original was also a bit naff, the scans came out naff.
Decided not to spend hours on Photoshop at 500% zoom trying to airbrush out the crap and simply made some new ones. Spent a little bit of time fiddling around trying to match the font but fairly pleased with the results;
The metal coin return flaps were very badly pitted and rusted, so off they came, on went the Dremel and they came out really nice. They were obviously painted black at some stage and I was going to repaint, but I really like them in the shiny polished metal, so I think I will leave them (for now). The only other thing I need for this assembly is a replacement bulb, so if anyone can help me out with getting the right fitting, voltage and wattage I would be grateful.
Next up was some more paintwork problems. The inside edge of the right panel at the front of the cab was very bad, chunks of paint/formica had fell off and loads more were waiting to fall at the slightest touch. Sanded it all back to bare wood, then added some fine filler, waited, waited, waited (seems to take ages to dry when you are waiting!!), then sanded back finishing off with 1200 grit to leave a glass like surface ready for paint.
To keep the paint colour even I will take this right up to the top of the cab as I have already painted the top and bottom wooden horizontal bars of the monitor bezel support, so gave a quick sanding also of the rest to help the new paint key to the surface.
Whilst I had the filler and sand paper at hand I tackled the base, which was very badly chipped and gouged and missing big chunks of plywood. I had thought about just replacing it but with the cab tipped back it wasn’t as bad as I thought, as the ply used was very thick and even the worst bits hadn’t gone anywhere close to even halfway. So lots more filler, lots more sanding and another surface ready for the paint.
Looking at the rest of the front panel the only other thing I wasn’t happy with were the four bolt heads that hold the control panel fasteners in place. These like most other parts, were covered in rust and needed attention. I decided not remove them, mainly as getting access to the fasteners is hard, so masked all around them and carefully polished with the trusted Dremel.
Lastly, for this update, the coin box. I’m guessing this is the original, however, rust has once again made this it’s home. Spent a bit of time sanding this back to remove the surface dust and get a nice surface for the primer, then I shall paint it up too. Aerosol primer/paint used for this.
That’s it for now, going to get cracked on with lots of painting too keep me busy. I have also ripped off the old T-molding as it was gnarled and chipped and bashed and bumped in various places and ordered some shiny replacement from T-Molding.com. Can’t believe how cheap this works out. Got dispatched the other day so hoping this arrives this week too.
All that done and I think we will just about be there. I’ll tick off the check list and see where I’m at.
Neil.
