My Donkey Kong restoration

[More Cowbell]

Restoration might be a strong word considering I plan on running MAME in it. Back before Christmas I saw an ad on craigslist for a Mario Brothers that was originally a Donkey Kong for $40. Knowing how these things get snapped up pretty quickly, I emailed right away and said I would take it sight unseen. My boys and I drove the 20 or so miles and picked it up. It was in horrible condition so I set it aside while I worked on some of my other projects. There were several times where I almost dragged it out to the curb because I thought it was beyond me to fix. Fortunately, I sold the control panel and marquee on eBay and made back my investment so I didn't feel like I had to do something with it. See the pics... scratches, spray paint, busted front panel, gouges, back edge destroyed, side art half torn off, coin door dented in. Once I got through my other projects I decided to give it a try and see if it comes together.

[More Cowbell]

I started by removing all of the guts and then trying to strip down anything I could. I removed the front panel since it was broken and did my best to clean up the back edges. I ended up having to cut off the back edge since it was just crushed beyond repair. I removed the rest of the sideart (what a pain) and just spackled and bondoed the hell out of the side to fill all of the gashes and holes. I sanded it all down and it actually started to come out ok, even the front and top edges looked pretty nice with a good sanding. I put on a new front panel and built a bottom stand. The bottom stand isn't held on just by those little brackets, I also screwed in through the bottom of the cab too.

[More Cowbell]

I primed the whole thing and built a new control panel. I gave it the light blue treatment after finding it hard to find the right shade of red. The coin door was in pretty rough shape as well so I ordered some new coin slots and the difference is huge (one side is the new one and one is the old for comparison). I also bent the door back into shape as much as possible although it is still not perfect.

[More Cowbell]

With the coin door in and the cab painted, it really started to come together. I ordered a plexi cpo for an extra $10 bucks or so and it was worth every penny over the sticky kind. It looks awesome. I had purchased a bezel several months ago on eBay. The marquee was ordered and received although I need to get a picture of the final product complete with system. I'm still trying to decide if the 19" computer monitor is enough (it's only 18" viewable). As it is, it barely fits so I doubt I would be able to get a full 20"  or 21" in there. I have MALA set up to play all of the Donkey Kongs and Crazy Kongs as well as DK Jr. and DK3. It feels good to take this thing from landfill fodder to one of my nicer looking cabs.

[javeryh]

 

Amazing.  I can't believe how great this cabinet looks considering what it started out as.  Some questions:  How did you apply the paint?  Where did you order the sideart, bezel art and CPO from?  How difficult was the stripping/bondo process?  Do you just glop the stuff on, wait for it to dry and sand it smooth or is there some other magic involved?

It really came out great!  I love it!

[ChadTower]

That's really good.  The pics make it almost look laminated, actually.

[Donkey_Kong]

Looking very good Cowbell. Damn I'm so jealous of that cab right now. 

[More Cowbell]

Thanks for the kind words.
1) The paint went on with those small foam rollers. I primed, sanded, primed again. Then I painted, sanded, painted again. I am really happy with how the paint came out.
2) I ordered most of my stuff from twistedquarter.com. They have an eBay store so I made all of my purchases through the auctions where they were a bit cheaper and they combined shipping on all of it. They shipped super quick and like I said, the plexi cpo is teh awesome. I got the marquee from mamemarquees.com.
3) The stripping/bondo part was the worst. I picked every last bit of sideart off the sides (my fingernails were worn to a nub) and then sanded heavily with a rotating sanding pad attached to my drill. That took forever and made quite a mess. I put the spackle and bondo on heavily planning on sanding heavily again. Again, more mess when I sanded by hand. The results were good and were definitely a long way from where I started with the sides.

Having brought this back from the brink gives me a lot of confidence in being able to restore other cabs in bad condition. I tried to do as little modification to the inside as possible in case I (or someone else) decide to one day go the whole way and put original parts back in it.

[MameMaster!]

Wow...FANTASTIC job.......so jealous.....AND you got to meet Mr. Steele.......your life is good!   

[More Cowbell]

Wow...FANTASTIC job.......so jealous.....AND you got to meet Mr. Steele.......your life is good!   

Sometimes all of the planets just line up for you.

[leapinlew]

Awesome work... what kind of controls are you putting in it?

[More Cowbell]

Awesome work... what kind of controls are you putting in it?

Thanks. Regular Happ buttons and a 4-way stick. I bought a Nintendo stick from Shardian recently so I'll probably replace the generic 4-way when my motivation picks up (so never). Because there are only 3 buttons on the panel (1p, 2p, and jump) I had to add the Keywiz SHAZAAM button and an escape button under the cp shelf (right above the coin door). They are small buttons so no one would ever really notice them. The SHAZAAM allows me to press coin, tab, and enter from the cp so I can configure MAME when needed without hooking up a keyboard. The escape button allows me to get back to MALA so I can jump into the other DK games.

[Chris G]

Holy Cow(bell)!  That's really amazing.  This is more impressive than that show where they take the 200 lb chicks with buck teeth and turn them into Jessica Simpson.   

[ChadTower]

So a beat to crap cab looks better after 12 beers?  I'll have to try that.

[More Cowbell]

Pardon the messy garage, by the way. Stuff just piles up over the winter and then I do a big cleaning come springtime.

[More Cowbell]

Just a quick summary of the expenses that went into this cab project. They're round numbers but they include things like shipping and tax. The cab cost also includes the fact that I sold the control panel for $11. Of the 4 or 5 restorations I have done, this was the most expensive. Obviously, it needed a lot of work though.

Cab                  30
Gas                  11
Monitor                  40
Encoder                  23
Joystick                  17
Buttons                  4
Light/P Strip            12
Sideart                  45
Speakers                  8
Coin Door                  34
Paint                  16
Bezel/Glass             35
T-Mold                  13
Marquee                  22
CPO                  30
Total                 340

Edit - Cut and paste from Excel which is why the numbers came out all wavy.

[Jeff AMN]

Just a quick summary of the expenses that went into this cab project. They're round numbers but they include things like shipping and tax. The cab cost also includes the fact that I sold the control panel for $11. Of the 4 or 5 restorations I have done, this was the most expensive. Obviously, it needed a lot of work though.

Cab                  30
Gas                  11
Monitor                  40
Encoder                  23
Joystick                  17
Buttons                  4
Light/P Strip            12
Sideart                  45
Speakers                  8
Coin Door                  34
Paint                  16
Bezel/Glass             35
T-Mold                  13
Marquee                  22
CPO                  30
Total                 340

Edit - Cut and paste from Excel which is why the numbers came out all wavy.

Man, $340 is a price I'd easily pay for a Donkey Kong in that condition. Just today I had my eye on a DK cab and it's at $800. I think I'm going to find a beat up one and go the restoration route. Nice work.

If you ever choose to sell it (shame on you if you do), please let us know what you get for it.

[Chris G]

Wow, I didn't know you could get even an older monitor that cheap.

[More Cowbell]

Remember, I'm running MAME in this cab so it saves on the costs since I got a ton of older computers for free on freecycle and a 19 to 21" monitor goes for $40 bucks or so on craigslist. I'm just running the DK games on it though. I still have the monitor that came in the cab but I'm not sure if it works as I have no way to test it.

[ChadTower]

If you wait for the opportunity, rather than grabbing one when you actually need it, monitors can be had from Freecycle pretty often.  I have a 27" RGB monitor I got from Freecycle that had barely been used at all and came with a secure heavy duty shipping crate that was probably worth $200+ alone.

[More Cowbell]

I'm always on the lookout for stuff that I can use for cabs too. Craigslist is perfect for browsing. I have my usual searches that I just plug in a few times a day to see what pops up in my area. Why spend extra money if you don't have to?

[horseboy]

Nice job as usual Cowbell. 

[spacies]

Oi!

You stole my cab!!!!!

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=58739.0

LOL

I love Kong cabs.
They beautiful.

I congratulate you for saving this cab from the wood heap.

Excellent work Cowbell.

 

[More Cowbell]

Thanks. Nice work, spacies. If I didn't find a DK cab I would have tried to build one too. I love the cab design and the fact that it's pretty small and compact. That helps when your wife has limited you to half the basement. Yours looks fantastic.

[johnm160]

Great work,

The more I go back and look at the before pictures the more amazed I am.

This turned out really, really nice.

[More Cowbell]

Here is the final pic with the marquee in place and everything working. The monitor seems plenty big enough now that I have it in there and working.

[leapinlew]

 

[javeryh]

  

I LOVE this thing... the more I stare at it the more I realize I have to build one of them eventually.  Ack!  I'll put it on the list...

Next up I'm going to build TWO full sized MAME cabs inspired by Project Arcade/Knievel (one for me and one for my brother-in-law) and then I'm building that Donkey Kong cab... probably for one-button vertical games.

 

[More Cowbell]

It's just a happy looking little cabinet, isn't it? All of my others are imposing and black so it's nice to have something that everyone recognizes and brightens up the room.

[spacies]

It's just a happy looking little cabinet, isn't it? All of my others are imposing and black so it's nice to have something that everyone recognizes and brightens up the room.

Thats exactly what they are. Well said.

Wives/GFs/partners just love these cabs. So if you want a cab in your house, there is none with a better WAF than a KONG!


WAF= Wife Acceptance Factor

[More Cowbell]

It's just a happy looking little cabinet, isn't it? All of my others are imposing and black so it's nice to have something that everyone recognizes and brightens up the room.

Thats exactly what they are. Well said.

Wives/GFs/partners just love these cabs. So if you want a cab in your house, there is none with a better WAF than a KONG!
WAF= Wife Acceptance Factor

Absolutely. Well, you can see my daughter was drawn to it immediately. 

[MameMaster!]

where did you get the coin door parts?

[More Cowbell]

where did you get the coin door parts?

Long link warning...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ROLL-DOWN-ACCEPTOR-STAINLESS-STEEL_W0QQitemZ120079313606QQihZ002QQcategoryZ13718QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

Twistedquarter.com has some great stuff and they're really quick.

[shardian]

Twistedquarter.com has some great stuff and they're really quick.

I checked out their store. I will probably be placing an order with them in the future.

[MameMaster!]

good tip...thanks!

[More Cowbell]

Finally got my Nintendo joystick installed. I'm really glad I did. Having the real Nintendo joystick in there makes the whole project worth wh...
Wait. Turns out the Nintendo stick is broken and I'm putting the Wico back in. Nevermind.

[horseboy]

 

[markrvp]

Finally got my Nintendo joystick installed. I'm really glad I did. Having the real Nintendo joystick in there makes the whole project worth wh...
Wait. Turns out the Nintendo stick is broken and I'm putting the Wico back in. Nevermind.

You owe it to yourself to buy a Double Donkey Kong board and put it in there with a real CGA monitor.  Never pass up an opportunity to spend more money.

[More Cowbell]

Finally got my Nintendo joystick installed. I'm really glad I did. Having the real Nintendo joystick in there makes the whole project worth wh...
Wait. Turns out the Nintendo stick is broken and I'm putting the Wico back in. Nevermind.

You owe it to yourself to buy a Double Donkey Kong board and put it in there with a real CGA monitor.  Never pass up an opportunity to spend more money.

I've considered this several times. Then I turn it on and play all of the Donkey Kongs for half an hour or so and ask myself, "More Cowbell? Why bother?" The answer is always, "Well, More Cowbell, save the money and headache." If I ever look to sell it, I think I will put in the time and effort and expense to make it complete. I may even install the Nintendo joystick if it hasn't spontaneously combusted as they are known to do.

[MaximRecoil]

Finally got my Nintendo joystick installed. I'm really glad I did. Having the real Nintendo joystick in there makes the whole project worth wh...
Wait. Turns out the Nintendo stick is broken and I'm putting the Wico back in. Nevermind.

There is no such thing as a broken Nintendo joystick. But, given that it is running MAME and using a PC monitor, there is no need for authenticity with regard to the joystick.