YAPMR (Yet Another Pac Man Restore) sort-of...

[Mametrix-Reloaded]

So I buy this cabint from a closing pizza parlor for 50.00 bucks and figure with a little work I can restore it to it's full glory. It has sound and you can play blind but no picture. It was your typical pacman cabinet that had been grafittied up and was worn here and there, but had a Super Pacman marquee in it.

I get it home and find out there was a blown fuse and lo and behold I now have a picture. But to my surprise as the picture fades in (gotta love those old monitors) it's Ms. Pacman.. Now my wife is not so upset about the purchase. Now it just needs some black paint here and there, new t-molding, and decide what to do with the sides. Then.....

Life takes a turn and everything I own ends up in storage for the past year. I finally now have a place for the cabinet and somewhere to restore it. I get it out of storage only to find when I move it all these little tan "balls" drop out of it.. I grab the top to pull it back onto the hand truck and my fingers go through the top wood!! I figure either I left it on and MS. Pac got hungry and started eating the cabinet itself, or termites decided to make a meal of it. The tops on both sides are hollow, one side sounds a bit weak overall, the rear door is gone, and the top itself is history.

So now my dilemma.. Do I even try and save this thing, just build a new Pacman cabinet for it, or use internet plans and build a Ms. Pacman cabinet for it? Any ideas or suggestions?

-mike

[WunderCade]

The crumbling, termite eaten top has the serial number embossed in it on the back edge. So without the serial number, why bother?

Shut down this thread and strip cab of all the usable parts, and part it out. You'll make your 50 easily. Without a sturdy cab shell, you've nothing to restore really.

Use the proceeds to buy another Pac project cab.

[Mauzy]

I agree with WunderCade here. Strip it of anything that can be removed and leave it as a sacrifice to the dumpster gods...

[SirPeale]

Ouch.  Normally I'd say fix it, but with what you describe strip all the metal parts out and cut out a new cab from plywood.

And just remember..."Nuke it from orbit...it's the only way to be sure" to not bring termites home.

[Mametrix-Reloaded]

Well, I think what I'll do is build myself a MS Pacman cabinet and use the hardware from this one for it since it's already got the Ms. Pacman chips in it. Yea it won't be a 100% original cabinet, but only the collector will know the difference.

Now if I could only find the same deal on a pole position and centipede cabinets. 

-mike

[Spyridon]

I'll assume that you know that you can't use the pac-man cab as a template for the new Ms. Pac cab.  Different shapes.