Another Joust Restoration

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This restoration of mine has been going for over the past year.  In that time, this poor Joust has gone through quite the transformation.  Also, thanks to a power surge about a year ago, I lost the majority of my photos documenting the restoration that were stored on my old computer, but I've got a few.  Cosmetically, it's almost there.  Electronically it's still unknown.

So here we go!  Joust when I bought it for $20:



The cabinet was in horrible condition.  It had sat in water for who knows how long.  The feet were so badly rusted that all but one had snapped off.  Both sides were rotten up to nearly a foot on each side.  The cabinet leaned pretty badly to the right.  And on top of all that, it at one time had been infested with termites.

Probably 80% of the bolts/screws were rusted or broken off.  I have yet to replace them all.

As you can see from the picture, the Joust had been converted to a WWF Superstars.  Amazingly, the WWF played just fine.  I pulled the perfectly working WWF game and will keep it for a distant future JAMMA project.  So, I rolled up my sleeves and started to work on the restoration.

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Control Panel:


I actually started here, wanting to see what was under the generic blue overlay.  Under the generic blue overlay was a red and yellow striped generic overlay.  Underneath that, a Rastan overlay.  Underneath that, a Rygar overlay.  Underneath that, an Express Raider overlay.  And finally underneath that were the scraps of a Joust overlay.   

After taking off the ridiculous amount of overlays, I got a better look at the control panel itself.  As you would've guessed, it had more holes than Swiss cheese.  None of the buttons or joysticks appeared to be original...and if they were, they were in such horrible shape that they needed to be replaced.  You could hear a crunch every time you move the joysticks around.  Tons of rust.  Despite using every type of bolt lubricant and ample amounts of WD40, I ended up having to cut the bolts holding the joysticks on the control panel.  I even had to break the plastic buttons to get them out.  I pitched all of that nasty crap and I now have the hacked up control panel sitting in my closet. Eventually, I'm going to plug the extra holes and put a new Joust overlay on it and sell the thing to some needy gamer.

I ended up paying about $50 on ebay for a "working" (I hope) Joust control panel with all original hardware and wiring.  It'll eventually need an overlay, too.


Bezel:


The bezel is in pretty rough shape, but I'm not going to worry about replacing it anytime soon.  At least this game still has a bezel with all it's gone through.


Marquee:


The WWF marquee is in OK condition.  Kept it for a future project.  Paid $20 on ebay for a nice glass Joust marquee.


Coin Door:


This game came with the coin door, but without any wiring.  And why is it that nearly every game I've ever seen at least one of the coin mechs is bent at a 45 degree angle?  Anyway, I stripped the coin door, repainted and replaced the mechanic parts that I knew how to do.  Bob Roberts got alot of my business at this point.

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The Inards:


Dear God....not only did I see a hacked up Joust harness, but a hacked up Jamma harness.  Tons of electrical tape!  Honestly my first response was to see if I could somehow salvage all that wiring, but I thought better and yanked anything not Joust related and pitched it.

Probably about an inch of dust, dirt, and general ick at the bottom on the inside.  I grabbed the shop-vac and started trying to clean it up.  Saw a few quarters, reached for them and nearly grabbed a Brown Recluse spider.  After screaming like a cheerleader and sucking the spider up with the vacuum, I grabbed the quarters and kept cleaning.

After getting the inside as clean as I could, I took out everything, including the working monitor, and stored all of it in one of my closets.  I bought a mostly complete Joust harness on ebay for about $30.  I still need a coin door harness/wiring and I believe a few monitor cables.  I'm not exactly sure. 

Now I had an empty cabinet.

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The cabinet:

Thankfully I had these threads to guide me on the next step:

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=49927.0

http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=43568.0

I was going to have to replace a good chunk of the bottom of both sides and the base.  I took the plans for the saw boards and made a set of three, using the 4' one to cut off the sides of the Joust.  This ended up being alot easier than I thought.  I used my circular saw and the saw board and was able to cut off the water and termite damaged side portions without damaging any of the good wood.

Luckily my dad had some scrap pieces of high quality thick plywood that I used to patch the bottom.

You can see from this picture the base of the front is stained and a bit damaged.  I ended up sanding off the damaged portions, which luckily was very small.



In this picture, at the base, I had to replace the piece with the oval vent holes.  So much of the old one was gone that I had to guess on the measurements.  It ended up turning out OK.  I used a can of flat black spray paint on that piece, just to give it a good base to put an oil based black later on.  You can also kinda see the inside where I replaced the bottom, too. Man I wish I still had those other restoration pictures.



This photo shows where I replaced a chunk on the left side at the bottom...and scratched a little at the paint. 



This photo shows the right side, with the paint removed and another chunk replaced.  I really tried to save the sideart, but there were two layers of paint, one being some tough acrylic mutant paint that didn't want to give it up.  I got a Joust stencil set from Oleszak Creative for $70, but I don't think they're still in business. 



Anyway, the seams where the old wood met the new wood was perfect on one side, but a bit off on another.  I kinda built up the seam a bit with wood putty and sanded it to blend it in.  Not perfect, but so much better than it was.

[Spyridon]

I got a Joust stencil set from Oleszak Creative for $70, but I don't think they're still in business. 

Excellent work.  It's great to see people putting in time, effort, and money into restoring a cab like this.

OC is still in business.  Just changed to gamestencils.com.

[Pop Culture Portal]

I got a Joust stencil set from Oleszak Creative for $70, but I don't think they're still in business. 

Excellent work.  It's great to see people putting in time, effort, and money into restoring a cab like this.

OC is still in business.  Just changed to gamestencils.com.

Thanks!  And thanks for the link.  Here is a picture of the Joust with new paint, control panel and marquee installed.  Still need locks, t-molding, stencil work, and a little more cosmetic work on the outside of the coin door.

[Level42]

Looking good !