Sunday progress

Today I am starting to see some of my sanding and bondo work paying off.

Pic#1: This doesn't look pretty at all but trust me it was nice and smooth. This was the first coat all done and ready for the next coat.

Pic#2: The cab had one of those dual light bulb setups. Now I may be wrong but I thought a fluorescent fixture would have been used originally and should be used now. So I tore it out, went to Home Depot and picked up a 10 dollar under cab light, wired it in and now it's ready to go. I just think it will look nicer for a back light to the marquee than a 60 watt light bulb.

Pic#3: The cab with the second coat of paint. Many imperfections still but now it's looking like something. Going with a latex semigloss. It's thin stuff so I will give it several coats.

Pic#4: Here is the control panel all taped off. Once I get the front area smoothed out I will spray it with a rustoleum satin black. It's the best paint for the job. After I get the bottom part sprayed I'll remove the tape and start painting the palm trees with a brush using the same paint, I'll spray it into a baby food jar. I'm cautiously happy with how it's turning out so far.

More progress today

Starting to get somewhere now.

Pic#1: The coin doors are finished. After what seemed like a hundred coats of hammered finish paint and about 50 coats of high gloss black I think these doors came out good.

Pic#2&3: The cabinet is slowly coming along now. I layed on a coat of semi gloss black to make it easier for me to see my poor bondo skills. It will be much simpler now to identify problem spots and fix them. There are many problem areas. A good sanding, final bondo patches applied, sanded, another coat of black then a final wet sand and a coat of black. Taking my time with this but it will be worth it.


Pic#4 The control panel. I've cut some of the loose vinyl away and filled in the open spots with bondo. After many sandings I am going to mask the SNK letters and repaint the entire bottom half of the control panel by hand, palm trees and all. I'm currently testing different black paints to get the right look for this. This part is going to be time intensive.

PiC#1: Not too much progress today, I'm kind of at a slow part of this restoration now. Doing alot of sanding, adding more bondo,sanding again, etc..Trying to get the cab surface as smooth as glass is the goal.

Pic#2: Fixing damage that I did to the cab when I off loaded the machine from the van. Looks far worse than it is. Will take some work but I should have it smoothed down so you can't see it in no time.

Pic#3: The coin door after several coates of hammered finish black paint. Unfortunately it comes out a really dark gray which is not correct for this machine but with a nice coat of gloss black it now looks wonderful.

Currently I am working on restoring the bezel. I removed a sticker from the Illinois Gaming commision, or something like that but it had a tear under it. It was there I didn't do it.

Pic#4: I have scanned it into my computer, rebuilt the graphic in photoshop which came out really good, Photoshop print on the left bezel on the right. Now I have to get my printer to print it out in the correct colors. Once I get the correct colors I can print it on photo paper and splice the repaired part into the bezel. It will take a little work to get this right.

This is what I got done on sunday.

Pic#1&2: More sanding, priming and bondo.

Pic#3: This is the coin door with a healthy dollop of Zip Strip on it. The stuff is nasty but it works. Funny how a little splatter can make so many painful little burns on your arm...

Pic#4 The control panel all cleaned. Karen and I tried everything we could think of to take off that layer of grime short of gasoline. It is what it is now. I will still be fixing the ripped black portions, that will be a project in and of it itself.

Pics# 5&6: The coin doors in various stages of stripping. I have since hand hammered out the dented parts ( you can't really see the dented parts, they are on the sides of the doors next to the lock holes. They were both forced open at some point.) primed them and painted with a black hammered finish spray paint. A few more coats and it will look like it did when it was new, texture and all.

Till next time...

This was Saturday, it was a gorgeous day.

Pic#1&2&3 I got all the old side art stripped off the cab, the glue was a nightmare but thanks to a suggestion from my lovely fiance an S.O.S pad worked great on it. So here it is all sanded and bondo applied.

Pic#4 The coinbox. It's in sweet shape, a sand down and repaint of the black with new locks will make it look perfect. I plan on setting it up so at the touch of a button it will take quarters or free play.

Next...

Pic# 1 Ok here is a pic of the inside BEFORE I shop vac'd it. Compared to some of the horror shows I've seen on the internet I think I would almost eat off of it...almost.

Pic#2 This was kinda funny and reminded me to always examine every little thing when working on something like this. I am going to remove all of the external parts, bezel, control panel, etc... so I was racking my noodle, how do I get the plexiglass off to get to the bezel?? I was all set to start removing the monitor from inside the cabinet (both dangerous and more work than I needed to do, monitors like these still carry lethal charges of electricity even after turned off for a long time and I don't know how to discharge them.. yet.) when I decided to get a better look up inside. Low and behold there are clasps way in there! Idiot!

Pic#3 Two clicks and the cp drops down, full access to everything.

Pic#4 behind the scenes of the cpo. A mix of leaf switches and micros. I think I am going to replace them all with clean micros. I like the feel of the leafs but I think they tend to need some maintentance over their lives.

I have cleaned it out pretty well so I think another good going over and I am going to mask all electronics where they sit so I can paint the cab. I really don't want to remove the stuff and have something die on me. I really don't.

New purchase

A couple weeks ago my fiance and I ran across a yardsale.In the back of the garage was a working Guerrilla War game. Dirty but it plays just fine. Price sticker on the marquee was 150 bucks. I thought nah, loved the game, remembered playing it and would love to restore it but too many other projects. So we left. We discussed it and decided to go back. We return, offer the guy 120 bucks and next thing I know I'm jamming into the back of our Dodge Caravan, with help of course.


It's in the stage of stripping off the side art, which I can buy on the net with no problem. My problem is the CPO. I cannot, repeat, cannot find a cpo for this game anywhere. So I am planning on restoring the one I have. The color part of cpo is dirty but passable. The black vinyl ( it's not vinyl but some kind of plastic I think ) is worn and ripped. My plan is to bondo in the worn parts of the overlay, sand it all gently until it blends then repaint the lower portion of the CPO by hand, which is a black horizon. Keeping the top part, the sky etc.. all original. I know it sounds nuts but I might be able to pull it off.

Bottom pic :it's dirty but really not bad considering. Brings back some memories

3rd pic from top: shows the poor shape of the control panel but it's mostly the bottom portion, the black vinyl bit. The top, colored part of the cpo is dirty but not too bad. I'm still trying to come up with something that will bring out the color.

2nd pic from top: close up of the wear damage. My thought was to clean it up, sand it lightly, smooth on a thin layer of bondo, dry and wet sand it gently. I would need to repaint all the black on that horizon, including the palm trees. However I need to find a paint that can adhere to the vinyl and even if I did a perfect job I don't think it would look good enough. I need to carefully consider this as I only have one chance to get it right.

Top pic: The sideart seems ok but a closer look shows many deep scratches and chunks missing. The other side is worse. I can actually get reproduction side art on the net so I will be stripping this down and replacing it.

Until the next entry..