Woooooow... it's been a while since I updated this and the cab's moved on a "little" since my first post...
Ok.. back into it..
I have sanded down the cabinet.. nothing too hard core, just a quick rub back with 400
dry on a random orbital air sander, then I have shot the whole lot with grey under-coat primer and have let this "bake" for a couple of days inside the warmth of my workshop..
From there, I shot 3-4 coats of semi-gloss black over the whole thing and let that dry for a couple of days, after which I rubbed it back again, but this time with a
little water with a couple of drops of dish washing liquid and 800 wet/dry paper.. This gives the final top coat a really good flat surface to bond to and will really look great.. well.. fingers crossed
Between the 800 and the final coat, I will give it about a week for all the solvents to evaporate..
Here's a quick piccy of where we are at with the cab side of things - it's a bit dusty, but you get the idea..
While I wait for that to take place, I decided to get stuck into the coin door restoration..
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Coin Door Restoration[/SIZE]
First job was to remove all both the mechs, wiring loom, locks etc leaving just a bare door and frame. Then it's just a simple matter of taking it to the sand blasters to get rid of the old paint and rust..
I have a shocking memory, so I always take lots of detailed photos BEFORE I remove anything so that when it comes time to re-assemble it, I can actually do it right the first time - you don't want to be mucking around with your freshly painted door and end up scratching it..
Stripped down coin door..
And the coin door frame..
I decided to take the door and frame to the sand blaster at the last minute yesterday thinking with a little luck, I could pick it up Friday afternoon and get stuck into it over the weekend. The Sand-blaster dude said he could do it while I waited which was pretty cool and that it would be about $10 - while he was in the booth I was thinking: "why would anyone bother wasting 2 or 3 hours sanding down a door for $10..!!".
The result:
I think you'll agree, it's pretty sexy looking at metal that hasn't seen the light of day for some 25 years.. or maybe that's just me?? :rolleyes The best part is the guy said not to worry about the money..
The really nice thing about sand blasting is that it give a nice surface for the paint to key in to which means a really nice, tough surface that should last for another 25 years.
The next step was to try and replicate the "splatter" patterning that the original door had. I put the door and frame out in the sun for an hour or so, so that it was really warm - and then brought it inside the workshop for a couple of quick, thin coats of satin black.. Once this flashed off, I put it back out in the sun again to bake for about 30 minutes.
I then grabbed a spray can of High Build spray putty and proceeded to splatter this over the nicely coated door and frame. I achieved this by just ever so lightly pressing on the nozzle which causes the paint to splutter out..
Again, this was left to dry for about 30 minutes and then I shot 4 coats of satin black over the whole thing.. back and front. That was about enough for last night and so I shut up shop and went inside to see the wife
First thing this morning, I pulled the door and frame out into the morning sun and let it sit there for most of the day.. The beauty of the black is that it attracts the sun and bakes it really hard, really quickly..
While is was out baking, I proceed to carefully clean all the coin mechs, looms and various metal pieces.. Luckily the wife was at work so she didnt see the the wiring loom in the dish washer - or the fact that the photos above where taken on her nice new granite bench tops..
The (nearly) final result is thus:
Unfortunately it doesn't photograph that well, but in the flesh, the splattering is a little more pronounced and a LOT more even. For my first, full coin door restoration I am pretty happy.
Before and after of the coin door mechs... I am looking at repro-ing the small "Manufactuered By Vendall Machines" decal that you can see inside the door, just for that little bit of extra detail.
And here is the finished article with a new lock for that final touch.. There are still a couple of things I want to do before it is labeled complete: First up is the coin chutes need to be re-chromed - they're just sitting on there for the photo. I plan on taking them down to the chromers tomorrow morning. I gave the 25 cent inserts a quick polish with some Meguiars Plastic Polish and they absolutely shine, but they don't photograph up here all that well - in relaity they are very bright and vibrant. That said, I want to make up some 20 cent decals to replace the 25 cent US pieces and modify the mechs to accept 20 cent coins..
Thought I should update this a little as I've managed to get a little more done in the last day or so..
First up I thought I would tackle the restoration of the control panel - as you can see, it was a bit of a basket case when I received it. The original overlay was badly cracked and there was a bit of surface rust from years of drinks being spilled over it. The buttons were the incorrect color, burnt from cigarettes and all gummed up with dried "something"..
The front of the control panel was not any better with some of the artwork being cut away (probably due to it pealing away).. For some reason the operator had drilled four holes into it.. :unsure
Judging by the amount of surface rust on the joystick mechanism I am betting that this machine spent most of it's days by the sea side. I set about pulling all of this down and dropping it into an ice cream container full of de-oxidene - this is a rust converter and about a day later, I was left with virgin metal after which everything was primed and treated to a couple of coats of satin black. New leaf switches and rubber stoppers were installed and the whole lot lubricated with a tiny amount of moly-grease on the sintered bearings..
Back with the control panel itself, the next job was to strip everything off making sure I marked down which leaf switch went to which button..
The holes on the front of the control panel were welded up with the MIG. A little trick is to place a lump of brass behind the hole as you weld it up which stops the weld from just falling through and gives a nice flush finish to the side that is kinda difficult to get to with the grinder.. :cool:
Next step was to use the angle grinder to smooth off the welds and then use the air sander with 240 grit paper to get rid of all that surface rust...
Next up is a layer of body filler to fill the slight imperfections left by the welding and grinding process. Using a sanding block, the filler is rubbed back leaving you with a very thin skim of the filler and a perfectly flat panel..
Once all the filling and rubbing down was completed, I hit the entire control panel with a couple of coats of hi-fill spray putty. This helps blend the filler into the rest of the panel and also fills any small surface inperfection - it's probably overkill when you consider the thickness of most overlays, but I think the little details show up in the end result. When the spray putty is dried, it's rubbed it back with 800 grit wet and then dried off with the air gun..
The next step is to prime the spray putty and bare metal areas and then give is a couple of coats with satin black to give a nice smooth surface for the control panel overlay to adhere to and a more professional looking underside..
As you can see, the joystick shaft and handle were in pretty poor shape but came with free "crud". I'm not sure what it was, but it was bloody hard to remove. Once I'd clean this up as best as I could, I put it in my drill press and used wet and dry to remove any imperfections... I gradually moved up to 1200 grit on the ball lubricated with some Meguiars final glaze polish
And here the finished product with the Licensed control panel overlay, new bolts (from Mikes Arcade in the US) and believe it or not, some NOS buttons that I won off of Ebay a while back.. :cool: The re-worked joystick looks pretty good considering what I started out with..
And here is an underside shot showing the new buttons, leaf switches, cleaned up and original wiring loom, and the restored joystick mech..
Today I also resprayed the cabinet for the third time..!! :rolleyes
The first attempt I used semi-gloss and when it was compared to the blacks in the side art, it was not glossy enough. On the second attempt, I used gloss black, but the result was waaaaay too much gloss.. So I played around with some test pieces using a "custom" mix of the gloss and semi-gloss paint to get the gloss level as close as possible to the side art. My experiments showed that a 37:63 ratio of semi-gloss:gloss was nearly perfect.. Maybe I'm getting a little to anal for this?
Today was the first day that we've had in Adelaide for a long while that it hasn't been either too hot or too humid to paint.. My patience and experimenting paid off and the resulting paint job looks amazing.. I'll show off more of that tomorrow because it was getting too late in the day to photograph it by the time I'd packed everything up..
Well today I managed to get around to fitting the T-molding and the decals..
Not a great deal to say about them as the pictures basically speak for themselves - needless to say I am very pleased with the way it has all turned out and keen to get it inside the house.. hell, even the wife likes it..!!
Here's an overview as to where we are at with the cabinet..
The marquee is an early Two-Bits licensed reproduction and does not have the "By Midway" printed under Galaga..!! I will be swapping this out later on but this will do for a little while. The marquee retainers are PVC angle that is available from Bunnings and is quite cheap (about $5 a length) I just cut them to size, give them a light sanding with 600 grit and then wipe them over with prepsol to remove any releasing agents.. then give them a couple of coats of satin black - they come out looking really good and the finish is quite durable. The bottom is attached with liquid nails and the top with three screws so you can replace the starter or tube down the track or even the marquee if you're anal like me
The kicker decal was applied using the old "hinge method" where you line up where you want the decal, tape it with masking tape along the top, flip it up and remove the backing and CAREFULLY lay it down..
I determined the location of the kicker decal by using a reproduction plastic kicker plate at the bottom which you can kinda see in this shot at the very bottom of the cabinet.. this was again from Mike's Arcade in the US (a great guy). Normally this was just stapled onto the front of the cabinet from the factory but I decided to use some liquid nails for a neater look. The artwork itself sits ever so slightly under the kicker plastic and I always use a light spray of windex under the decal which temporarily reduces the adhesive properties of the decal - this means that you can get all the air bubbles out by using a laminex roller..
The sideart came next - let me tell you that this was real heart in the mouth stuff. The material that the artwork is screen printed onto is pretty thin and would easily be damaged. There is a protective paper layer on the top of the artwork as delivered which does help a little, but a lot of care needed to be taken..!! I actually was baby sitting my 8 year old nephew who helped me out being the extra set of hands - trying to convert him young..
Again I used the hinged method with Windex and I carefully squeezed out the excess Windex while my nephew went around and mopped up all the liquid. We got a couple of air bubbles under the artwork but the WIndex really aided in getting these out. Those that were left disappeared quite quickly as the Windex seemed to dry out and re-rolling with the laminex roller got 98% of all the bubbles out. Tomorrow I will go around and re-roller the entire artwork and anything left can easily be fix by using a safety pin and lightly pricking the bubble AT THE SIDE of the bubble and re-rolling the artwork. As it stands, it looks pretty good and you can see that the effort I went to with the gloss matching worked out nicely..
This is a rear shot of the cabinet with the original Galaga handles installed. Note that the screw holes are in the original location and it's not my dodgy drilling that has offset them like that - from all my stock photo files, this is how all the Galaga screws were installed. In between the two handles you see what is personally my favorite part of the entire build - the original and DAMN hard to get "Engineered by Namco Ltd. Manufactuered by Midway MFG Co." metal plaque.. To me it really completes this replica cab and it's just a pity that it has to be hidden at the back of the cab. :unsure
Here is a close up of the Namco metal plaque - as you can see it's in near mint condition and the little nails holding it onto the cabinet are the original nails from an original cabinet - unfortunately I did not get these with this metal plaque but managed to get them from a guy in the US that stripped out a Galaga cabinet - I think he thought I was crazy paying $5US for 4 nails
They were a little rusty but a quick rub with some prepsol and steel wool brought them up and then coated with a thin application of clear nail polish (it's my wife.. I swear)
And finally for tonight the power switch for the cabinet - big deal I know but hey..:015:
The switch you see here is actually a momentary, center off toggle switch - the way I intend to wire this is to have the UP position wired to the computers power button and then DOWN position wired to the reset button in case the computer hangs for any reason. The location and diameter of the cabinet hole is exactly the same position as a "real" Galaga with measurement supplied by the "Namco Nail guy" - I tell you, he thinks I am an idiot
The plate is made from aluminum and has four screws holding it in place (not original unfortunately) - the plate is also grounded just to be safe..
Next up I have to finish off the rear door and then wire up the cabinet and install the monitor. In this case it'll be a 21" unit and will run one of Jomac's chassis..
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Topic: Galaga - Another Scratch Built Replica.. (Read 25099 times)
