I only have EYES for KICKMAN... (COMPLETE 7-25-2020)

Arcade Collecting > Restorations & repair

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alfonzotan:
Another day of renovations, and there's good news and bad news.

The good news: Dave fixed both monitors and they're ready to be installed. Also, Citristrip cleared all the old coating off the Kickman control panel.

The bad news (part 1): holy crap that's a lot of rust:

More work to do there before it's ready to be re-coated.

Bad news part 2, I was innocently trying to clean off the sides of the Eyes cab with a Simple Green knock off, and yikes, look what happened. The cleaner went right through the paint and leached into the particle board, which promptly broke out like it caught some awful and dreaded pox:

That surface was nice and flat before. :banghead:

So I guess I'm doing some more sanding and refinishing than I'd planned on...

UPDATE: First Rustoleum treatment, not half bad:

alfonzotan:
Lot of scut work this week. Other than getting the monitors re-fixed, I went to work on the Eyes cabinet and the Kickman control panel.

The Rockola cabinets are infamous for their crappy particle board sides. This one was, as is usual, shredding at the lower corners. I did some damage control with Gorilla Glue, paint stirrers and clamps. The result is not a factory-perfect restoration, but it's a big improvement on the prior state.

After:

I was about this || close to ordering Wilsonart laminate to cover the sides, but at the last minute I decided to give paint a try. First step was to sand down the rough spots that sprouted up when I tried to clean on side. After going over it with the pad sander, painting with Kilz and then sanding again (not shown), the result was better than I'd first thought. Still on the rough side, but I'm going to sand again and go after it with some grain filler to close the gaps, and then we'll see.

Still needs a lot of work.

The Kickman panel (and Eyes control panel hold-downs) are about ready for powder coating. I'll take them in as soon as the CP stencil from This Old Game arrives.

alfonzotan:
Phew, that was a PITA. Note to self (and anybody with an early 80's Rockola cab): be very very cautious about spraying cleaner on the sides.

Took quite a while to sand down all the puckered spots, followed by priming, sanding down the stubble, filling with wood glue, sanding again, priming again, sanding again... (ugh). A very small in-work sample:

I elected to try and preserve the original decals on the side I refinished. I did... okay.

Here's the un-refinished other side. I haven't made up my mind yet whether or not to paint it to match (but I have made up my mind that I'm tired of painting this cab for a while).

That's an Okaloosa County (FL) tax sticker. The other side had a "US Government approved" sticker, indicating this guy probably lived in an Eglin Air Force Base bowling alley, rec center or enlisted club back in the 80's.

I also replaced the t-molding on both Eyes and Kickman. Eyes needed the "hot glue treatment" in the seam, that crappy particle board strikes again. Came out well though.

I'm just about done with these two. Eyes needed a new starter and bulb for the marquee light, and that was last repair job, I think. All that's left is to get the Kickman CP and Eyes angle iron pieces re-coated, and I'm still waiting for the Kickman stencil from TOG to arrive for that.

alfonzotan:
Getting close to completion on these guys. Still waiting to take the steel parts over for powder coating (TOG promises the stencil for Kickman ships tomorrow), but I went ahead and put Eyes back together except for the CP hold-downs and bezel. Here's last look at the interior and original board before the monitor went back in. After this I swapped out the original main board for a spare I picked up several years back that I outfitted with a Mike Doyel 96-in-1 daughtercard.

Speaking of that daughtercard, if you ever wondered what it would look like if you installed it but neglected to pull the original game ROMs first, wonder no more!

(Oops. Fixed now, works fine.)

I also replaced the old buttons with new ones. Gave cleaning the originals a try, but was never happy with the results. Original leaf switches are still in place and the joystick is 100% original.

Rather than leave the coin door hanging open or set it to free play (Eyes has a nasty free-play screen that's apparently designed to cause burn-in), I added a magnetic coin-drop button that I picked up from a seller at KLOV. Had a hard time getting it to work properly until I decided to just tap the big red credit button on the coin door board. These are probably the best solder joints I've ever done in my life (I'm really bad at it):

I also hooked one of these switches up to Kickman, which doesn't have a free play mode:

pbj:
Bro, I say this as a friend - clean up that coin door.

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