Rescuing an empty Defender cab..to complete and working again.

[ifkz]

Ever hear those stories about making one good cab out of two?  In this case, I got the cab that did not make it, an empty Defender.  Everything had been stripped out and it was leaning due to a bad base.

This has been a several years long project.

To start, I used all of my amateur woodworking skills to get the base in better shape and I also sanded and painted the bottom front, which had some water damage.  It looks much better from a few feet away, is solid, and is standing properly.

I originally started with the idea to build this cab as a place for the odd JAMMA board.  Bob Roberts had not yet moved  by this point (how long ago) and he supplied the transformer and documentation I used for the power section.  I had plenty of wire hanging around, so I looked at the pinout for JAMMA and hand-created a harness.  I made a 2 player, three button control panel using some of my spares and I kept it like this for a year or two.  I rebuilt a G07 for it, with pretty bad Rally-X burn in, but burn-in has never bothered me with any of my games.  I found a coin door for it that worked well (I wanted a silver one like it had originally, but I could not find one that was affordable or complete).  I cut a backdoor for it (which could use a lip and finishing beyond the black paint).

I guess the side art was what pushed me into making this into a Defender again.  I had soon found a Defender control panel, a bezel, a marquee from online vendors.  Since this cab was stripped, I had to create some brackets to get the marquee mounted, the most creative one is holding the bottom of the marquee in the proper place.  The original control panel lock down latches were gone, I found two very different replacements that required some drilling and positioning to fulfill their purpose in a new home.

Yesterday I got the harness re-done for the control panel, doing some trickery to get all of the buttons to register properly.  I also finished mounting the coin door.  This is running a 19-in-1 JAMMA board since that is the best I could do with what I could source.  I figure this fits into the spirit of the forum, it is real arcade controls, and this is saving a classic.  I have attached a picture.

[nexusmtz]

Good job saving the cabinet. You could always go back to it if you find exact parts, but it's sweet as is.

[bobbyb13]

All that work... and only ONE picture?!
I feel slighted

Just kidding of course.

Forever one of my favorites.  Stoked you saved it.