The NEW Build Your Own Arcade Controls
Arcade Collecting => Restorations & repair => Topic started by: davieboynj on August 11, 2006, 12:18:36 am
-
This should be an easy one... I've already built my own cocktail machine, then given it away, then built another (better) one (learn as we go, right?)... piece of cake, right???
Wrong!
Restoring is so much more difficult than building from scratch...
Anyways, I found myself knee deep in this one before i had even snapped a shot, so here's the one from the auction for starters. I'll try to document the rest of the process from here on out:
-
---meadow muffin---, just lost a super long post. this is about to get a bunch more abrupt...
problems:
1. marquee only useful when backlit by bioluminescant bugs and plants
2. bulb dead
3. monitor randomly switches from RG to RGB (though more the former than the latter)
4. bottom has some significant damage from being dropped, plywood bent up in front, missing pieces of wood above the kick panel.
5. did i mention the gigantic gaping crack in the front left near the coin door?
6. top of the cab has skin like edward james almos
7. cpo needs replacement
8. control panel and coin door rustied up all nice
9. joystick (monroe) completely frozen by rust.
10. monitor bezel marped and sunken
11. piece of wood missing that separtes coin area from monitor.
12. side art scratched up quite a bit.
13. front art scratched up more.
-
lost another post due to an oversized pic that wasn't oversized. now in notepad. :angry:
Problem #9 - rusty monroe joystick.
before i had even gotten to the forums to learn what it even was, i had the joystick disassembled and was giving it a good clean. If you see any pink curtains marred by grease, that was their sacrifice. At this point I was still a selfish bastard in not documenting or taking pictures. but i do have an after pic... At any rate, monroe joysticks are a fairly exhausted topic on these boards, and disecting and relubing with white lithium grease was fairly trivial.
Very nice joystick though, once clean they have a very smooth circular motion and great snap back...
-
Problem #4 - damaged bottom.
taking apart the bottom of the not cabinet was fairly simple due to the fact that the glue holding the cabinet together had long since expired. in addition, most of the front was (poorly) held together by 3/4 x 3/4 particleboard and nails. there is one metal bracket, but that attached to... a small piece of kick that is held to the sides by: you guessed it... 3/4 x 3/4 particleboard. Centuri really wasn't building these things to last.
once all was apart i could see how the ply in the bottom had been bent up from the weight on the feet and nothing substantial holding the kick to the cabinet. in a genius move, the op decided to fix this problem by bracketing the back of the kick to the sides. this introduced a bunch of shear, and really didn't address the problem of the bottom bending. i promptly moved the brackets to the bottom, where they should have been from the start. To do this i sent some big screws through the leg leveller holes into a 2x4 to pull the ply even with the middle and back. after that was done i could get the brackets in perfectly.
-
To finish the bottom i will have to get more brackets and cut some 3/4" pieces of mdf, and paint them black... so this one is hardly crossed off... :(
-
Problem #5 - cracked front panel.
I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish i could just replace this piece, or peel off the art or... well anything rather than fixing the wood. but i can't... ugh.
anyways, in lieu of any description:
-
and...
-
You can't tell this from the pictures, but there's about 7 inches of damage between the crack in the front and the back (about 20 sq. in). I dug in there with a chisel removing peaks and edges until the wood would mate with itself flat. I then packed it with gorilla glue and left it in a vice for 4 hours. Here is the result, after some (admittedly shabby) wood puttying...
-
looks 100x worse with the flash... ugh.
side note: don't use wood putty near art! it contains enough thinner to remove art VERY easily. I smeared it on near the insiders of the coin door (where it will be covered later and took off a bunch of paint.
-
So now my homework is:
1. Bring front panel to Home Depot so i can get some paints matched to the art colors (what kind of paint should i get?).
2. Buy a bunch of metal brackets.
3. Get the 25 piece sharpie set hoping that they have close enough matches to do minor art touch up.
4. Get white paint marker (same as above).
5. Cut pieces of mdf for kick panel - paint black.
6. Find a replacement CPO.
What am i forgetting???
oh, yeah... sleep...
-
I so love reading the resto threads (not that I don't love you builders!) -- restoration/fixing comes with its own set of challenges.
3. Get the 25 piece sharpie set hoping that they have close enough matches to do minor art touch up.
This is actually on my list of things to do today, for the same reason.
Thanks for the pics and the thread.
Cheers.
-
Problem #5 - cracked front panel.
I REALLY REALLY REALLY wish i could just replace this piece, or peel off the art or... well anything rather than fixing the wood. but i can't... ugh.
Why not? It is just particle board and some woodgrain self-adhesive vinyl isn't it? I would imagine that, whether by hook or by crook, you could get that artwork reproduced, and even if not, it may be better to have a new replacement piece that is missing the artwork for the time being than to have a damaged piece in there.
-
I so love reading the resto threads (not that I don't love you builders!) -- restoration/fixing comes with its own set of challenges.
3. Get the 25 piece sharpie set hoping that they have close enough matches to do minor art touch up.
This is actually on my list of things to do today, for the same reason.
Thanks for the pics and the thread.
Cheers.
I also enjoy reading about others restoration efforts. At the very least, it gives me ideas to try.
Sharpie touchups
Thank goodness! I am glad I am not the only person that has done this.
-
Why not? It is just particle board and some woodgrain self-adhesive vinyl isn't it? I would imagine that, whether by hook or by crook, you could get that artwork reproduced, and even if not, it may be better to have a new replacement piece that is missing the artwork for the time being than to have a damaged piece in there.
I guess i'm kinda nuts that way. If its possible to restore, I'd rather restore. In terms of damaged or whatever, I'd argue that a properly clamped and gorilla glued piece of mdf is every bit as strong as normal mdf. Also, finding the right woodgrain vinyl and vectorizing and printing all that stuff would probably be cost/time prohibitive.
...
with that said, I will admit I made it awfully easy to just pull off the front panel later in the event that I decide to do things differently. :)
-
13. Front art damaged.
Well, I got the Sharpie set, and while by no means miraculous, the results were solid. I would definitely recommend keeping the Sharpie 24 set in your arsenal. the white paint marker was great for any situation where you needed a base for the sharpie, or just needed something to be white. The different shades of brown worked great in getting the woodgrain looking decent again, and covering over the holes for the security bar.
I wasn't happywith the consistency of the pink, and will most likely mask that off, and paint later. It's a good candidate for painting as it's all basically in two places, except for the gradient on the "time pilot" which i'm not even going to touch... I'd also like to redo the blue as well, but that would be far too much masking. Once that's done I'll have to do some sort of clear coat to give them all the same sheen.
-
1+2. marquee and light
Well, the replacement marquee i got for $15 or so isn't perfect, but at least i don't feel shame in turning on the light (which now works after replacing both the bulb and starter). I put a piece of paper in behind the newer one to protect it from flaking (centuri are notorious), and to help hide the scratches that are in it.
pix of the new/old marquee:
-
I fixed some other trivial stuff, no point going into that. as of right now, I'm happy to have the cab back together - and much more solid. one thing that I will recommend are the slider feet that have the posts attached. You can pick them up at any hardware store. I used a ball bearing as a spacer to get them at the right clearance. I was already missing the two back feet, so i needed something that had a post. cab now slides nicely on carpet. Pics attached.
-
Next up is all the metal work. I'll be doing the coin door, control panel, and marquee angle brackets. I'll start on that when i find a replacement cpo that i like.
Thanks for the people who have responded to the thread. I usually do my work in a vacuum, as posting about a project takes a bunch of time; but i felt bad about not giving anything back, or putting myself up for criticism. Pretty soon, I'll be posting a retroactive project announcement on "dave's not so classic cocktail". I'm getting a new processor for it, so i figured I'd do some documentation while i was opening it.
-
Looking great! I enjoy to see restoration pics as there aren't many to see. Keep up the good work.