Am I In Way Over My Head? Ms Pac Man Cabaret

[404]

Just when you think you are done, a guy out of nowhere offers you a cheap cab.

Because of the fact that i never find anything small and affordable, i jumped at the cab without really putting too much thought into the restoration. Now I think I'm a bit over my head with this.

The good news is, the lighting, all control panel stuff and coin doors are intact and look great. It also has a newer samsung monitor and not the older well gardner monitor that original comes with the unit.

The bad news is, there's quite a bit of swelling on the sides of one of the side panels.

below are some pics. any tips you guys can give me on how to tackle this repair would be greatly appreciated.

[Malenko]

sands the sides as smooth as you can get , then apply walnut laminate. for the tops, sands as smooth as you can, wood hardener and some putty, sand again, paint black ?
And lastly, unlike the last guy, keep it inside and not in a puddle of water?

nice score!

[IG-88]

Ya. Wood hardener, Rock Hard water putty and a lot of elbow grease. Blkdg7 over on KLOV & John's Arcade is doing a Pac Man cabaret similar to this. He's got at least 3 videos out so far on his restore that are very informative. Especially on the electronics.

Not sure if you can salvage that swelling or not. Might be worth a try. Do you have a belt sander? Try wood hardener and a very course grit belt. Can't really make it any worse...

From what I can see the artwork looks pretty good.

[404]

thanks for the input everyone

sands the sides as smooth as you can get , then apply walnut laminate. for the tops, sands as smooth as you can, wood hardener and some putty, sand again, paint black ?
And lastly, unlike the last guy, keep it inside and not in a puddle of water?

nice score!

Thanks, i may pull the monitor out tonight and give it a shot. finished up a quick socket 775 rig with a calamity compatible ati card. going to have to make a vga to rgb input harness next.

I'm going to have a closer look at the top later today. Thinking maybe i should just replace it and focus on restoring the sides. I definitely have to replace the back panel. I'm going to leave that for last and fix the plastic cowl before i have anything cut.

I'm completely out of the loop when it comes to wood hardener. Any particular brand i should use?

Ya. Wood hardener, Rock Hard water putty and a lot of elbow grease. Blkdg7 over on KLOV & John's Arcade is doing a Pac Man cabaret similar to this. He's got at least 3 videos out so far on his restore that are very informative. Especially on the electronics.

Not sure if you can salvage that swelling or not. Might be worth a try. Do you have a belt sander? Try wood hardener and a very course grit belt. Can't really make it any worse...

From what I can see the artwork looks pretty good.

Ironically i saw Blkdg7's videos on youtube before i realized he was on KLOV. Unfortunately our models are two different cabaret styles and mine also does not come with the original ms pacman board nor the original monitor. I am interested in how he finishes up his sides though.

While searching around the net i came across this oddity that i was thinking of trying in order to compress as much particle board down as i could on the sides before sanding. Someone suggested to him to try using thin set super glue. Seems like it actually worked.

http://www.forums.woodnet.net/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=6155060&page=&view=&sb=5&o=&vc=1

[ebarlow99]

very nice score!!

[paigeoliver]

If you can cut smoothly and have a router with a t-molding bit then I would just suggest cutting new sides altogether.

Let me know if you need a working board. I have Ms. Pac boards ready to go.

[404]

If you can cut smoothly and have a router with a t-molding bit then I would just suggest cutting new sides altogether.

Let me know if you need a working board. I have Ms. Pac boards ready to go.

thanks but right now im not really sure what im going to do with the unit. I'm really focused on fixing the wood. I literally haven't even bothered turning on the unit or firing up the monitor. 

[404]

Haven't been able to find any of the more popular wood hardener solvents at my local home improvement stores around here.

I did come across a post on a wood working forum where someone swore by CA (the active ingredient in super glue). I did remember that i had quite a bit of 3M industrial thin set CA here. Gave it a shot on a corner of the more swollen side. put quite a bit on and then used clamps to apply pressure. Sure enough, it works. Only did a small bit as using this across the entire side panel is not economically feasible.

I'll cut out a new slot for the molding later on. I would have likely had to cut a new t-molding slot out anyway. At least it stopped me from having to sand so much material off of that end. The way i see things, I'd rather leave as much material on than start shaving material off.

Also the cab had tons of green mold on one of the back panels. took some anti-microbial to that asap.

Work is at a stand-still until i can find some wood hardener and some other materials. I also need to find a torx bit with the security hole.

[Malenko]

a bic pen with the middle removed and a cig lighter and you can make a security torx screw driver

[404]

^^ thanks, i actually got them out with a small screwdriver using the security bit area as a pivot point. two of them broke so ill just replace the whole lot later. no big deal imo.

Thinking about actually converting this to a horizontal cab. I know there were a few variations of these cabs in horizontal.  IMO this cab is too far gone to make a tasteful restore.

I've done some research and found that bosconian and lazarian came in in a similar configuration. Unfortunately their manuals don't really explain how the monitors are mounted horizontally.

[IG-88]

Glad you went with the CA. I was wondering how that would work after reading that post linked above.. Looks pretty good. Did it take alot? I know that stuff cant get expensive...

Also like the idea of doing a a bosconian or a lazarian. Those aren't cabs you see every day!

[404]

Glad you went with the CA. I was wondering how that would work after reading that post linked above.. Looks pretty good. Did it take alot? I know that stuff cant get expensive...

Also like the idea of doing a a bosconian or a lazarian. Those aren't cabs you see every day!

The CA actually works really really well. The sides tested are as hard as a rock and are now basically non-porous (at least the ones that are completely sealed). the problem is, this cab soaks up the CA like a sponge.  I'd have to buy a serious stock of thin set CA to get this to work out. I have some ideas on how to fix the top rear end which is easily the wost part of the cab.

Basically my idea is to make a small routed piece of wood that will fit the back door slot. Then I can use that to fit clamps from the top half of the top to where the rear door panel begins. Then wood hardener (or CA if i cant find the hardener) and then clamp it down so it can at least retain some resemblance of its original shape.

I found the lazarian bezel but so far i haven't been able to find the lazarian control panel and marquee. 

[404]

Been a while since i posted any progress but quite a bit has been done already.

I went through two full bottles of 3M CA on the corners of the cab.

Come to find out Elmer's wood stabilizer is nothing more than white Elmers glue that's been thinned out. Good for sealing particle board but not so great for making we rotted wood hard. She got her first coat of bondo yesterday evening.

I hardened up the top and its like a rock right now. That's the next area to get bondo today. Still have to sand the top most half of the panels to 3/4". Luckily a fellow BYOACer gave me a box filled with misc arcade stuff a while back. There was a nice strip of red t molding in there. I've been using it to gauge the width of the t molding areas. I simply leave the molding in and sand the panels to size.  Still have to sand the bondo down smooth.

I repaired the bottom-back panel. Some of the veneer on the ply was coming loose and some of it was ripped off. Because the back door is completely shot and needs to be replaced, i carved some veneer from that to size and used that to patch some areas up. Then i sanded them flush with 40 grit to get a flat base.

Unfortunately one panel had a nice chunk completely gone and i needed to cut a new piece of wood out for it. The other side only had a small bit missing so I simply filled the other side with home made wood filler. I filled it liberally, let it dry and then shaved it down with a die-grinder.


some pre-bondo pics

[Malenko]

Thats some good progress!

[404]

^^ thanks

How the turd looks as of yesterday evening. That's about two roughly ground down coats of bondo so far

[404]

where things have stood for the past two weeks or so.

Unfortunately i ran into some issues with the monitor and so I'm just going to call this conversion as over. I'm simply going to convert it to jamma, throw a 60-in-1 board into it and sell it for whatever i can get for it. Painful decision as there aren't that many cabs available in my area.

Just got the vinyl for the sides in today. I decided to seal up the sides using paint in case i decided to just use the unit with the sides painted black. Hopefully this vinyl will stick to the paint well.

[404]

posted this on klov. might as well post it here

so the weather has finally been stable enough for me to put up the vinyl i bought about two weeks ago.

There have been lots of guys talking about a certain ebayer out in Hong Kong that sells vinyl so i took a chance and contacted him about selling me a custom length. We were only able to do the order outside of ebay because of the length required.

Upon starting to apply the vinyl i noticed something. It's not the correct size!. I realized this as i get to the control panel area. The vinyl is 24 inches wide....when the paper backing is still on! It's about 1/8" too short after the backing is peeled off! I contacted the guy and demanded a refund. If push comes to shove, I'll file a paypal complaint.

I'm officially calling it quits on this project. I've had enough. This wasn't my ideal cabinet to restore to begin with and I've run out of time until 2014 to even bother with it. I'm just going to cut my losses here and put it up on craigslist or something.

[Malenko]

Ive actually been following this, was looking forward to the restore.  I can understand wanting to cut losses though, especially when it feels like everything is going wrong.

[404]

There are just way too many things against me here.

The next closest wood grain is the 3m brand. That stuff nearly 200 dollars for a roll to cover both sides and the front where the coin door sits.

This wasn't a cab i really wanted.

I couldn't find any info on how midway rotated the monitors for games like wizard of wor and lazarian

control panel has no place for buttons without doing some major relocating

still haven't cut a back out

Still missing good control panel art

Still missing a monitor cowl in decent condition

I gave away the joystick (I know I know..)

no game board.

[SavannahLion]

About the wood hardener.

I use CPES made by http://www.smithandcompany.org/CPES/ after I learned that Winchester Mansion uses it. I prefer the cold weather formula as it gives me a longer working time and well... I'm always patching rotted wood in winter. Shop around though, ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- is expensive.

I have heard that boat builders use something similar consisting of fiberglass resin and copious amounts of the appropriate thinner. Makes sense, the resin doesn't care if the fibers are glass or wood, principle is the same. I've read it in numerous books but I don't know much beyond that.

Never tried CA but try hitting up a place like Tap Plastics or a similar specialty store. I imagine they sell that stuff by the pint and gallon. Might be pricey though, never priced it beyond the 5 oz bottle.

[ebarlow99]

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=294344&highlight=pac+cabaret

check this thread they reproduce the control panels and art work....I picked up a cabaret and am going to get a CP

Eric