1st up, you better make a coffee or grab a beer.
A few of you will know that I acquired a Gauntlet cab a while back.
I also have another here for restoration which is featured in this thread.
Here is a pic of them side by side:
As you can see they are very different.
Mine is on the left and it is a licensed Atari version made by Coin Cascade here in NZ in the 80's. The other, I suspect, is an operator made cabinet.
So this is what I started with:
It was originally black but along its journey the black was removed and it was repainted blue. The current owner painted the left hand side black and applied a few coats of gloss black acrylic house paint. The finish looks good in the pics but it is pretty poor and very textured. None of the holes and scratches had been filled before painting.
First mission was to get it back up and running. It was running sweet and the current owner had purchased an original Atari Bezel from the USA and wanted to install it. He used a bunch of washers to 'jack' out the screen to fit the bezel but didn't realize he had nicked the deguassing coil in the process. When he was happy he fired it up and it arced and blew the chassis. That was repaired and when he powered it up again his Game PCB was dead. He had a spare but didn't want to try anymore 'handywork' because of the last effort. He sent me an email and asked if I would give it a full restoration as well as get it back up and running.
The PCB swap was pretty straight forward except the someone had soldered all the wires to the little pins instead of using the correct plugs. I called him and told him it was working again and we talked for while about the cosmetic stuff on the cabinet. Basically he told me the budget and I put together a plan of attack.
So this is where the fun begins.
I was looking at a ton of reference photos the owner had collected and sent to me . So I emailed him and asked him if he wanted me to cut the sides the same shape as the USA ones since his didn't have it. He replied in seconds saying it would be TOTALLY AWESOME if I could do that. This his only arcade machine and it sits in his office. He said he has wished it had that kink in the back since he got it and constantly stared at visualizing the kink.
So first up was to remove the bottom panel:
I noticed all the slight indentations where the screws where located and dug out the filler and removed the screws.
Repeated both sides and in a short time:
So the next thing was to cut a template of the kink. The measurement where sent to me by a kind owner from the USA.
I traced the template onto the cab on both sides and made the cuts:
Next step was to draw out the internal layout of the new bits which were also sent to me:
Using the leftovers I remade the bottom rear and top:
Happy with the way it turned out I started on the paint preparation on the sides.
The blue was fairly straight forward. The paint was enamel and was nice and hard and feathered nicley. A quick scratch with the sander and it came up pretty good
Next step, the black side.
I had to remove the artwork that the owner had applied. It had all sorts of crap underneath it which was visible as lumps. I suspect the dry method :p
As I peeled back the old art I could see it was pulling off the old layer of blue paint and some of the MDF. Man I was gutted because I knew the amount of prep had just gone from 1 quick 10 minute sand, to a full day of building the paint up and blocking it smooth :cry
So I start sanding and thought ---fudgesicle--- this, it needs a rougher paper:
I remove the 120 grit and pulled out the 80. A few minutes later, goodbye paint, hello bare wood:
Now you can see what I have to work with:
Once I had sanded both sides I knocked off the front panels and put in a single piece of MDF. This is getting brand new USA coin doors in the front like the originals.
My little dog loves helping:
So the cabinet now has a nice curvy butt and a new face. She sure is going to be pretty!
While it was lying down I also painted the base:
So next step is to blow some filler on her to seal her up and to highlight the imperfections I need to fix.
The right hand side came up pretty good but the side where the art had ripped off the MDF was very bad. I used about half a liter of filler trying to build it up. Each time I blocked it back it was still pretty rough. Then a funny thing happened.
I picked up the can of filler and went to shake it and the lid flew off and primer went everywhere :cry
Then I remembered something (insert light bulb here). Back in the early car production days, the guys in the paint department would actually roll on the primer over the really rough bit and block it back nice and flat. So out came the little roller and I used it to pick up the spilt primer and applied it to the cab. It also picked up all the crap off the workshop floor aa well
I applied about a half litre onto that one side and let it harden.
Then I sanded it with the dual action sander to get it smooth and finished it off with some wet and dry. The finish is now dead flat but it was about 10 hours work. That doesn't sound like much but if you hate sanding, then it is a LONG TIME!!!! I don't recommend rolling the primer on if you don't have the correct tools and/or the willingness to block it back. Seriously!
Right now the cab is outside. I have just applied some spray putty on a couple of tiny spots I missed.
That needs to dry for another hour and the I will re-prime and sand smooth with some 1200 grit ready for the final satin black.
Couple more pics. The green stuff is spray putty. This is for super fussy ---daisies--- like myself:
More wet and dry sanding with the 1200 grit:
Dirty bird ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- on the dam cab:
Thats it! I am calling the prep done. See me in the reflection of the primer. Nice:
Black paint, here we come!
Enjoy the pics and sorry for the long write up, but some of you will find it helpful.