Arcade Collecting > Restorations & repair

Simpsons restoration

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SuperGunGuru:
Well, I've posted this at KLOV but wanted to share here as others here have restored some of these "new classics." Anyway, last month I picked up a Simpsons cab that had been converted to a Neo Geo single slot system. The owner had done a really nice job cutting a new control panel out of cherry wood. The sides were covered with marble contact paper and prior to that the cabinet was painted black. The seller said the Simpsons artworkw as still under there, but as far as its condition that was unknown. The first major blow to my hopes of uncovering the art was finding a very large chunk of it missing on the right side.  :angry: At that point I was pretty certain I'd just remove all of it and go with some replacement art, but I figured I'd try my hand at removing the black paint with Citri Strip. Unfortunately the black paint had been sanded by someone (either to prep for the marble paper or maybe an attempt to uncover the Simpsons artowrk?) and it damaged the artwork which allowed the Citri Strip to seep under the artwork and bubble it up. Not a huge deal considering the art was beat up regardless of how well the paint may have come off. At that point, with the help of my buddy and fellow collector Josh, we began a full no restoration of this Simpsons. Those first few days we got a lot of work done and here's what we've done up to this point

Stripped the remains of the side art, patched up the cab and sanded it

Stripped, patched holes, and repained the control panel box (it had been sprayed red with horrible looking runs)

Patched up and repainted the back door

Remove and clean up the original Peter Chow UPS11 style power supply. It's working fine, but I may replace it anyway

Repaint coin doors and polish all the metal pieces

Patch up and repaint back portion of cabinet

Clean monitor chassis, tube, and install a cap kit

Purchase and then disassemble control panel for cleaning. I'll be installing new buttons and sticks and I'll have to fix a few of the ground braids

General cleaning of the cabinet

Replacement of various bolts and screws with brand new

Repaint control panel hinge and marquee bracket

Begin re-wiring of the JAMMA harness

Phew that's quite a bit of progress so far. Right now I'm trying to touch up the front panel of the cabinet and struggling to get it to look right. I've rattle canned 4 coats of semi-gloss black on and sanded between coats, but I'm having trouble getting a consistent look to it. I'm probably going to try one more coat and then abandon the rattle can in favor a foam roller. Cosmetics have never been my strong suit and this is really the first time I'm going for an all out restore so i want it to look right. If anyone has any tips or advice for painting the front, I'd appreciate it. Here's a few pics.

SuperGunGuru:
A fifth coat of paint on the front and I'm pretty happy with it. There are a few light streaks near the top, but they aren't horribly obvious. If it truly takes 24 hours for this stuff to fully fry (not just dry to the touch) maybe I'll get lucky and it will even out some more. Overall though it's pretty decent for a rattle can and very smooth too.

ZORK2:
Nice work so far man!
I restored a Simpsons this past spring! It turned out great! You can probably find it on this board if you do a little looking for it. If ya got any question or I can help you with anything, PM me anytime!

SuperGunGuru:

--- Quote from: ZORK2 on August 13, 2009, 09:15:19 pm ---Nice work so far man!
I restored a Simpsons this past spring! It turned out great! You can probably find it on this board if you do a little looking for it. If ya got any question or I can help you with anything, PM me anytime!



--- End quote ---
Thanks! I've actually viewed your Simpsons resto thread many times. :) It turned out very nice and was the main reason I decided that the mamemarquees sideart would work. Being that mine was not able to be saved, it's pretty much my only choice anyway.

SuperGunGuru:
Bump for an update!

With the painting completed, I put the coin doors and coin vaults back on to the cabinet. My buddy stopped by with some new locks for me last Saturday and then the game was moved inside on Sunday. I purchased new bolts for the control panel hinge and the joysticks and since my large order with Bob arrived today, I decided to mount the joysticks and buttons in place in preparation for finishing the wiring. I still need to replace the cp plexi, but I couldn't resist seeing how things would look.

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