A Hard Lesson Learned

[FrizzleFried]

I will start this lesson off by saying that I had decided that instead of using the custom Double Donkey Kong CPO that I had Photoshopped because of, primarily, expense,  I had decided to make due with the stock Donkey Kong Jr CPO...however I needed to drill a 2nd hole for button 2 because 6 of the 35 games on a 48-in-1 that use 4-Way sticks require a 2nd button.   These games include a couple of my favorites of the board like Qix, Phoenix, and Shao-Lin's Road.   Now looking at the underside of a Donkey Kong Jr control panel shows that there is already a 2nd hole drilled,  but it is right dab center of where Donkey Kong is running with DK JR  on the CPO so that wasn't going to do,  plus I needed/wanted the 2nd button to be adjacent to the first.  What is a guy to do?  Drill a 2nd hole of course!

Now for the first part of this lesson...Donkey Kong Jr's CPO's are actually silk screened to the plex top...I was unaware of this,  and frankly,  it didn't make much of a difference as you will soon see.

The second part of this lesson... remove the plexi before drilling the hole in the wood control panel.  I had a real bone-head idea of drilling the wood out while the plexi was attached...I figured I would "feel" when the hole saw made it through the wood.  I could then pull the wooded plug out,  reverse my drill and carefully drill through the plexi.

Which brings me to the third part of this lesson... I was dreaming in la-la land when I came up with this idea.  The first problem was that,  well,  I didn't quite "feel" when I made it through the wood until I was,  well,  through the wood.  The second problem is that 25 year old plexiglass is pretty brittle ---steaming pile of meadow muffin---.  The third problem is that as soon as my bit took hold of the plexi...well...you will see the result below.  Now mind you that the bottom portion actually stayed with the panel...the rest fell to the floor.  I pulled the bottom portion off after the fact to prevent getting cut while I play with the game until I get my custom CPO done.

So I guess I WILL be ordering that custom CPO that I wasn't wanting to spend the money on after all.  >argh<

I officially announce today as "Jon is a dipshit" day....(A) Why in the hell did I drill the hole in the CP with the plexi on?  (B) Why in the hell wasn't I drilling with a piece of wood under the plexi?  (C) Why in the hell am I posting this for all to see what kind of a dumbass I am?

Well...the answer to all of the above is "TO LEARN"...so learn from my dumbass boneheaded move....

Here is what is left of my CP and CPO...

(On the bright side,  I have the 2nd button installed...it works...I can play Qix and the rest now...and frankly,  I really wanted to do the custom CPO anyway and I guess I just needed an excuse to do it (yah right...I keep trying to sell that to myself but it aint workin').

[Zakk]

dude, that overlay isn't broken!

[FrizzleFried]

dude, that overlay isn't broken!

 

I wonder if I could get another overlay in the same material the joystick is made of...

 

[horseboy]

Nintendo quit producing strongtanium. They just didn't need anymore because what they made will last forever. And forget about crafting your own from existing restrictors, strongtanium can only be forged in the magma chambers deep in the belly of Mount Kilimanjaro.

[ChadTower]

Definitely start clamping a scrap piece of wood to the backside of stuff like that.  It prevents a LOT of problems on the exit portion of drilling.

[NoOne=NBA=]

You can glue all the pieces back together, so it's not really broken.

You could shatter the other half, and tell people that you meant to have a jigsaw puzzle looking overlay for your machine.

[FrizzleFried]

Damn...after reconsidering I think I am going to get a regular DK repro CPO (silk screened plexi) and just wire P2 start for P2 start & button 2.   Scott over at mamemarquees can't guarantee the color of my custom cpo will come out the same color as the bezel and frankly,  I have already coughed up $15.00 on an overlay that wont work (color way too far off) and wouldn't at all be interested in spending over $20+ more for a CPO that may not match again.   Arcaderenovation.com has a deal for $75.00 that includes both sideart and the CPO....

I am thinking of going one DK side art,  one DK Jr side art,  going with the DK cpo as the bezel is a DK Jr.

[ChadTower]

It's not a bad idea.  Not everything has to be custom.

[FrizzleFried]

Yah...and I will have a spanky new CPO... argh... i'd have rather not screwed up the DK Jr one in the first place and used that $25 toward a new DK Bezel instead (this one is in decent shape but you can see scratches through it...)

[ChadTower]

Would putting a translucent white panel right behind the bezel make the scratches less visible?  It may diffuse the light such that it's not shining as badly through the openings in paint.

[FrizzleFried]

The bezel itself is fine,  it's the smoked plexi that has scratches...the part you look through.  I can ignore them pretty easliy and frankly,  I am not sure short of going with smoked glass if I will ever get a completely "clean" view.

[Zeppo]

Wow.
That's a bummer, but sounds like you have it under control.

Good luck!

[Havok]

Time for some superglue!

[leapinlew]

Lesson learned - thanks for sharing.

I do it too. It could've been worse. I've been careless a few times and nearly injured myself. Imagine the irony of cutting off your hand while building an arcade. Thats totally a twilight zone episode.

[horseboy]

Lesson learned - thanks for sharing.

I do it too. It could've been worse. I've been careless a few times and nearly injured myself. Imagine the irony of cutting off your hand while building an arcade. Thats totally a twilight zone episode.

It's not the end of the world if you are building a driving cab. 

[ChadTower]

Imagine the irony of cutting off your hand while building an arcade. Thats totally a twilight zone episode.

Time for some superglue!

[SavannahLion]

Scott over at mamemarquees can't guarantee the color of my custom cpo will come out the same color as the bezel and frankly,  I have already coughed up $15.00 on an overlay that wont work (color way too far off) and wouldn't at all be interested in spending over $20+ more for a CPO that may not match again.

Would monitor calibration account for the difference?