Neil's Donkey Kong Restoration **FINISHED!! 12-28-07**

[Deadly]

Thanks for the link Neil. I'm gonna order that stuff and give it a try. I think the guy is trying to make everything right. It just bums me out cause I was SO EXCITED to be playing DK this week! Arrgh!

Here are some photos of the disaster that was inside the cabinet as I opened it for the first time:

http://zerocommit.com/dk/murder/

Neil is your paint a little textured? Or is it real smooth?

@Neil
Like many others I have been lurking about watching this as it progressed. Congrats Neil - it turned out very nice - in fact it inspired me to resto my Radarscope DK.

@blkdog7  - First off my condolences. You have my sympathy. I would have immediately picked up the phone and put a stop payment on the check or credit card. (If paid by credit card get on the phone now!!!) And my second call would be to shipping company. Dear god I'm pissed and it's not even my machine. You paid for a machine that was parted and pieced together with hand made brackets, the paint job is ridiculous (one photo actually shows striping) and looking at the rest of it makes me sick. Here's some tough love brother - you got hosed, no, you got raped. This is a flat out rape job. Even if he offered to send you a new monitor (which it'll probably be used and have burn in) it doesn't pay for the time and aggravation and the other poor quality work on that cabinet. The side art comming off? Pfffhhhh STOP PAYMENT - it's too much hassle for that seller to have it shipped back - he'll more than likely cut it as a loss. Money back and a free cabinet. I have restored EVERY little thing on my DK cab and I tell you this is god aweful. You as the buyer did your job - you found the item you wanted - you ordered it and it arrived not only destroyed but what a gross misrepresentation of the product from pic to real life.  You work hard for your money and if this is the quality of work this person does - they need to be put of out of business.

[blkdog7]

Thanks for the link Neil. I'm gonna order that stuff and give it a try. I think the guy is trying to make everything right. It just bums me out cause I was SO EXCITED to be playing DK this week! Arrgh!

Here are some photos of the disaster that was inside the cabinet as I opened it for the first time:

http://zerocommit.com/dk/murder/

Neil is your paint a little textured? Or is it real smooth?

@Neil
Like many others I have been lurking about watching this as it progressed. Congrats Neil - it turned out very nice - in fact it inspired me to resto my Radarscope DK.

@blkdog7  - First off my condolences. You have my sympathy. I would have immediately picked up the phone and put a stop payment on the check or credit card. (If paid by credit card get on the phone now!!!) And my second call would be to shipping company. Dear god I'm pissed and it's not even my machine. You paid for a machine that was parted and pieced together with hand made brackets, the paint job is ridiculous (one photo actually shows striping) and looking at the rest of it makes me sick. Here's some tough love brother - you got hosed, no, you got raped. This is a flat out rape job. Even if he offered to send you a new monitor (which it'll probably be used and have burn in) it doesn't pay for the time and aggravation and the other poor quality work on that cabinet. The side art comming off? Pfffhhhh STOP PAYMENT - it's too much hassle for that seller to have it shipped back - he'll more than likely cut it as a loss. Money back and a free cabinet. I have restored EVERY little thing on my DK cab and I tell you this is god aweful. You as the buyer did your job - you found the item you wanted - you ordered it and it arrived not only destroyed but what a gross misrepresentation of the product from pic to real life.  You work hard for your money and if this is the quality of work this person does - they need to be put of out of business.

I had two paths to take. I could be a dick and stop payment on my AMEX or I could be cool and try to get this all to work out. I chose to be cool and patient and I don't regret it that much. At the end of the day I got a nice looking machine and I KNOW AN AMAZING AMOUNT ABOUT HOW IT WORKS!! You have no idea the amount of time I have spent researching, tweaking, etc.

Anyways, I got the new monitor and it looks like it was made yesterday. It is so clean and immaculate and there is ZERO, NONE, NO burn it at all! Woot! There are some scratches on the glass near the bottom but they aren't really noticeable when it is behind the smoked DK bezel. You really gotta be looking for them to see them. So... I plugged it in and nothing happened. After some trouble shooting I found a disconnected power wire on the bottom by that transformer block. I plugged it and it fired up!! Woot!

The game is working but I have some issues now with sound and a missing green color. I have no green. Rats! I have (I think) figured out that it is not the monitor. I can get green to show up on the monitor if I disconnect the video cable and fiddle with the flyback and Green Bias pot. I can see green on the monitor when the cable is disconnected. So, the green gun is firing. The seller has agreed to send me a PCB from Mike's Arcade (I requested this.) So, I am now waiting for a new PCB to fix the missing sound issues and hopefully the missing green issue. For the time being I have a working machine that is totally playable but it has some issues. So, once the PCB shows up I hope I am good to go and all of this is behind me.

The seller also agreed to send me the missing PCB brackets, back support brace that is missing, and a new cardboard monitor bezel.

In the meantime I have been replacing some parts that bugged me. You can view my machine in its current state here:

http://zerocommit.com/dk/

I have managed to get most of the bubbles out of the artwork but they keep coming back!! I can get them out completely and then the next day they are back. Arrgh!! What's the trick to removing them permanently?

[eccs19]

One trick to get rid of air bubbles is to get a pin, and put a small hole where the bubble is, bleed the air out, and it shouldn't come back after that.

[Neilyboy]

I totally just scored an awesome box of cards to display on top of the cab!! Unopened box of 1982 Topps DK wax packs!! (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140213793199&ssPageName=ADME:B:WNA:US:1123)

I cant wait to get these bad boys and display them in the game room!

[blkdog7]

I totally just scored an awesome box of cards to display on top of the cab!! Unopened box of 1982 Topps DK wax packs!! (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140213793199&ssPageName=ADME:B:WNA:US:1123)

I cant wait to get these bad boys and display them in the game room!

Dude, I was about 1 inch away from buying those on Ebay!! Hahaaha. Glad you won them.

But, do you have this:



It's an original animation cell from the Donkey Kong Cereal commercial. I used to eat this cereal when I was a kid and I remember the commercial! Hilarious!

Here is the commercial:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Ja70QXfkr0

[Neilyboy]

oh hell yes sweet cell man!! very cool! I'm jealous haha I kind of want to buy another box of cards to open them and put together a set hahaha..
If only I was not broke.

Neil

[blkdog7]

oh hell yes sweet cell man!! very cool! I'm jealous haha I kind of want to buy another box of cards to open them and put together a set hahaha..
If only I was not broke.

Neil

Some guy was selling about 5 of them in separate auctions a few weeks ago. It was only $20.00. How much did the box of cards set you back?

[Neilyboy]

21 shipped so it wasnt bad. the box is in great shape. I may buy another box just to open and check them out. I dont remember what they looked like and im wondering how many cards were in a complete set and if its worth opening a case to put together a set.

Neil

[hatrick]

I finally got around to painting my DK cabinet and in certain light, the roller marks are pretty obvious. Did you do something to get rid of the roller marks? I didn't know if sanding with uber high grit paper would help or make the paint worse. Any suggestons welcome.

Thanks,

Hatrick

[Level42]

Neil, were the sides of the cab covered with a plastic layer, or is it the wood itself that was painted ? I'm asking because I started the restoration of my "MB.in Radar Scope" and the red sides are a plastic like laminate. It's been damaged on the lower sides so I'm thinking of how to fix it.

Thanks.

[javeryh]

Neil - do you know the dimensions of the CP by any chance?  I guess really just the front-to-back length since I'll use the cab I'm restoring to measure side-to-side.

Thanks!  Great job by the way - this thread will be my bible as I go.

[TheBrokentoken]

Neil, were the sides of the cab covered with a plastic layer, or is it the wood itself that was painted ? I'm asking because I started the restoration of my "MB.in Radar Scope" and the red sides are a plastic like laminate. It's been damaged on the lower sides so I'm thinking of how to fix it.

Thanks.

I'd like to know the same thing - I just picked up a DKjr. over the weekend that has - literally - half the 'smooth laminate' gone on one side.  It's like it was cut off from mid-way up the cabinet.... the top half is orange laminate and the bottom half of that side is orange-painted plywood - I am a bit lost right now on how to proceed.

Also, where did you get find the 'settings' sheet that is stapled to the inside back cover?  I need one of those as well and would appreciate the lead....

Thanks!!

[blownsvtlightning]

This is a great article.   I just signed up here ( a few nights ago)   I was given a 90% mint orig. Donkey Kong upright that I want to work on.   If I can get around to it I will post up some pics this weekend..  This thread provided some good info!!

[javeryh]

Neil, were the sides of the cab covered with a plastic layer, or is it the wood itself that was painted ? I'm asking because I started the restoration of my "MB.in Radar Scope" and the red sides are a plastic like laminate. It's been damaged on the lower sides so I'm thinking of how to fix it.

Thanks.

I'd like to know the same thing - I just picked up a DKjr. over the weekend that has - literally - half the 'smooth laminate' gone on one side.  It's like it was cut off from mid-way up the cabinet.... the top half is orange laminate and the bottom half of that side is orange-painted plywood - I am a bit lost right now on how to proceed.

Also, where did you get find the 'settings' sheet that is stapled to the inside back cover?  I need one of those as well and would appreciate the lead....

Thanks!!

Mine had the laminate as well.  It was all banged up so I sanded it with 100 grit sandpaper until it was really rough and then covered it with the BINZ primer (a lot of coats - at least 4 if I remember correctly).  It sealed up real nice and the paint went on smooth.

The back door operation sheet can be found at Mike's Arcade:  http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/opsheets.html

[TheBrokentoken]

Mine had the laminate as well.  It was all banged up so I sanded it with 100 grit sandpaper until it was really rough and then covered it with the BINZ primer (a lot of coats - at least 4 if I remember correctly).  It sealed up real nice and the paint went on smooth.

The back door operation sheet can be found at Mike's Arcade:  http://www.mikesarcade.com/arcade/opsheets.html

OK - I'm definitely going to need bondo and the BINZ primer then..... lots of work ahead it appears.

Thanks for the link on the operation sheets - nice to see so many of them scanned and reproduced and offered up!

[SirPeale]

Thanks for the link on the operation sheets - nice to see so many of them scanned and reproduced and offered up!

Agreed.  Though who reproduces them?  I could use a Centipede one.

[Spyridon]

Agreed.  Though who reproduces them?  I could use a Centipede one.

Here you go:

Backdoor scans

[SirPeale]

I mean who actually prints them?  Centipede is an oddball size and I can't print it on my laser.

[Spyridon]

I mean who actually prints them?  Centipede is an oddball size and I can't print it on my laser.

I think Rich @ This Old Game printed out one for someone in one of these restore threads.

[EVAWINGZERO]

Absolutely Beautiful. Can't wait to start working on mine.

[WunderCade]

It's been almost a year since Neilyboy has posted.  Here's to hoping everything is good with him and his family. 

[Neilyboy]

Hey guys.. sorry it has been soo long.. DK is still running and living in my computer room. Things have been good here at home. Actually got divorced last year but have a new gal now and loving life. She has a 5 yr old daughter. So it may be time to finally get around to completing that mame cab so 'she' has something to play with!! glad to see everyone is still around here enjoying this hobby! I will hopefully get back in the game with a mame build soon.

take care
Neil

[Frigo]

Hey guys.. sorry it has been soo long.. DK is still running and living in my computer room. Things have been good here at home. Actually got divorced last year but have a new gal now and loving life. She has a 5 yr old daughter. So it may be time to finally get around to completing that mame cab so 'she' has something to play with!! glad to see everyone is still around here enjoying this hobby! I will hopefully get back in the game with a mame build soon.

take care
Neil

It was that spat about working on the cab all day, wasn't it? 

[Neilyboy]

Could have had something to do with it haha. Im starting my mame projects soon. Upright and bartop!

[emphatic]

This is the first time I've seen this thread.  Great work!

[alteredgrafix]

Neil, thank you so much for the inspiration as I did my build! I read your build several times as I did my build.