Death row

[dhansen]

Here's a machine my buddy and I picked up this weekend at the auction in Des Moines, IA.

[pointdablame]

awesome.  what did you use to take the paint off?

[Wyluli]

Very cool!  Damn, I used to live in Des Moines too.  They used to have a place there called Loco Joe's.  Filled with arcade machines, classics too!  And lots of them had problems.  They went out of business.  Wish I could have bought up all there stuff 

[tommy]

I still dont understand why someone would paint over a classic cab good find , guess it was time to make more money and centipede wasnt cutting it

[dhansen]

awesome. what did you use to take the paint off?

I used Safest Stripper, let it sit for about an hour and scraped it off with a plastic putty knife.

[Wyluli]

Loco Joes is still around, half of the games are broken.

[dhansen]

No kidding?

[pointdablame]

I still dont understand why someone would paint over a classic cab good find , guess it was time to make more money and centipede wasnt cutting it  -tommy

I think most of it was done when Centipede (or whatever) was still relatively new.  At the time, Centipede was a really popular game, but when it lost interest... slap on some paint and put a money maker in that cab!

I don't think many places TODAY would paint a Centipede.  I could be wrong tho... if they think they'll make more money, lol, they'll prolly do anything.

[paigeoliver]

Centipede had a massive production run and was one of the earlier classics. By 1984 even the ops who wanted to run Centipedes had way more than they could possibly run (and the sequel had been out for a while at that point).

Back in those days a single operator might literally have 20, 50, or even 100 copies of the same game and Centipede was one of those games they might have had 100 copies of. A big op might have still had a dozen good Centipede locations back in 1984, but he probably had 100 machines, so before you can say "Mat Mania" it gets a conversion kit.

[GGKoul]

I love Mat Mania!!

[LPZ]

Boy, that side art underneath looks like it is great shape.  You wouldn't believe that someone would do that.  But I guess back in the day you had to have the machines that made the cash.  Good pickup for that kinda money. 

[Stingray]

Buried treasure!

-S

[greywolf22]

I love Mat Mania!!

I second that 

[Dave_K.]

Is it me or does that centipede look pretty pissed in that picture?    I guess I would be too if you buried me under black paint for the past 15 years.

[Wyluli]

Ok, just had to share this.  I ordered some parts from Bob and asked him to send me a (non-working) PCB so I could practice my soldering skills.  So my package arrives today (SUPER FAST!) and guess what PCB is in the box?  VolleyBall.  What are the odds

[dhansen]

Quick update, well it's been a while.  Thought I'd share the progress of this project.  After striping all the paint off I covered the entire side with clear contact paper.  I then traced out the centipede with an exacto knife and peeled off the old white decal.  I then took a sample of the white decal and had it color matched at Home Depot.  Here it is with one coat of primer and two coats of paint (and the rest of the contact paper removed):

More to come...

[TOK]

Wow that came out great! Must have been very tedious and exacting work, but I think the results were worth it.

When you get tired of playing it, paint that baby black and throw something else in there! 

[ChadTower]

Could you get a detail shot so we can get a really close look at the results?  I'm very interested, I have a couple of Atari cabs here with great sideart except the vinyl is peeling at the edges.

[AlanS17]

I wish my results were that good...

[nickbuol]

Here's a machine my buddy and I picked up this weekend at the auction in Des Moines, IA.

[Bones]

That came up fantastic. You just gotta be happy you put in the effort....

[dhansen]

Could you get a detail shot so we can get a really close look at the results?

[dhansen]

Here's a machine my buddy and I picked up this weekend at the auction in Des Moines, IA.

[ChadTower]

It doesn't really hold up to close examination (the artwork did have some dings and was under a coat of black paint for 15+ years) but I'm pretty happy with the results.  I would trim the artwork back to the pink if I had to do it again...  For some reason I thought the edge wouldn't be so obvious, live and learn....

That's how I thought it would look.  Thanks!  Considering you started with a trashed black painted cab, it looks awesome.  Great work.

[AlanS17]

I have a couple Kangaroo cabs of the same type. The paint just doens't want to come off. There hasn't been any amount of chemicals or force that I've been able to apply that seems to damage the artwork, though. That stuff will come off sooner or later. It's just gonna be alot of work.

I did beat it up when I was removing the laminate, though. (By the way, this thing had 2 thick layers of paint and the topped off with laminate.) When using the heat gun, I bubbled small portions of the sideart underneath. Oh well, live and learn, right?

[Mark70]

When you get tired of playing it, paint that baby black and throw something else in there!

[TOK]

When you get tired of playing it, paint that baby black and throw something else in there! 

Why wouldn't you want that beautiful side art on your cab, no matter what was in it?

I may even paint my mame cab white.

It was a joke! Not only that, it was 3 months ago.