Neil's Donkey Kong Restoration **FINISHED!! 12-28-07**

[Neilyboy]

I stumbled upon this cabinet a couple of months ago on craigslist. After the 3 hour+ drive and $60 dollars later (I think thats what I gave the guy for it). It arrived home in my garage. It was originally a Donkey Kong cabinet that looks like it was converted to a Vs. cabinet then later converted to jamma Rastan cabinet. Here are a few pics of it after I unloaded it.

Here is a link to my original thread with some pics of the insides as well. http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=68157.0

It was a mess inside and outside the cabinet. He had switched it from vertical to horizontal by drilling some huge holes in the cab and using a couple of scrap blocks of wood to fill in the space between the cab and the monitor brackets. It was a total mess. So we had to do alot of filling and sanding.



Notice the extra holes from the monitor being just hacked in their (believe me no time or care was spent in converting this thing properly).





Original DK serial plate.



Neil

[Neilyboy]

Here is my old man giving me a hand. I have to give him a huge thanks without him I dont know if I would have even attempted this. He finally just said look its sitting in your garage ill help ya on the evenings and stuff in getting it all fixed up. So we gave it heck and got alot of progress this last week.




Notice how ugly they painted up the front.. What a mess that was getting that off there.



Neil

[Neilyboy]

Filling the holes




Me just checkin' it out seeing what all we missed..







Neil

[Neilyboy]

After I sanded away at the back for about 20 minutes



Fairly smooth now.



back top holes filled




Neil

[Neilyboy]

Still pretty bad shape.



Have it taped off now to paint some of the inside black.




Using paint remover to get rid of the horrid black in the front.




Neil

[Neilyboy]

First coat of primer going on.



Amazing stuff here Zinsser BIN primer. This stuff is a miracle.



First coat applied.



Cleaning up the front after removing all the black.





Neil

[Nostalgia]

Keep going man! I may be getting a DK. I cant wait to see how it turns out. I wish I has someone helping me.  

[Neilyboy]

More Primer. Yeah having a hand when working with prime/paint is a huge help.




Everything with at least one coat of primer.




Neil

[Neilyboy]

I think we ended up using about 4 coats of primer or better. We would sand in between coats with finer and finer sand paper until the last coat we used #000 Steel Wool (I wish I could show just how slick this thing was after the 4th coat of primer). It was seriously like rubbing plastic it was soo smooth.






Neil

[Neilyboy]

Me applying the first coat of blue (which is all the farther we are today).
I had taken a piece of paint from under the coin-door metal (something that has not seen the light of day for 20+ years) for my sample that I took to lowes to match. I think it turned out pretty damn good.








Neil

[Neilyboy]

This is the cabinet after the first coat. Plan on using some #0000 steel wool and buffing it out a bit then applying a second coat sometime this week.



I dont know what the wife and I were doing in the background here (she was probably giving me crap for working on the cab all day)








Well thats it for now ill keep this post updated. Now all I need is a working DK pcb, wire harness, and bezel. I have the original working sanyo ez monitor and the power block as well as the marquee, cp overlay, and t-molding. I am going to be building a control panel from scratch and using a sanwa j-stick instead of the original 'clunky' nintendo joy.

Neil

[Nostalgia]

Can you tell me what type of blue you used?

[Neilyboy]

I have the color codes at home. I am at work right now working a 10 hour shift so ill be home around 7pm cst. I can get the color code off the top of the can. It really was a mess getting the paint to match. I took in a flake of the paint from below the coin-door frame (most true blue I could find, not being exposed to smoke/sunlight) took it to lowes had him match it up. First try wasnt quite on then he did some manual color adding to it till what we smeared on my paint flake dried and looked spot on to what the chip did. So I will have to get the colors when I get home but I think its a dang close match.

Neil

[Nostalgia]

It would be much appreciated. Looks good so far.

[theCoder]

I'd love to have a clean garage like your dad's.  Nice find on the cab.  Good luck on the build.

[Neilyboy]

Its my garage actually he just came over to help. I bought the house and moved out of the parents house about 7 months ago. Then got married a month ago today actually. The garage was a big sell point for me. But then again thats why im broke house payments and taxes are killing me.

Neil

[mcfreak]

Cabinet is looking great.  I see the attraction to Donkey Kong.  Speaking of wives and attraction... Is that her?

If so, congrats on the catch for both the Mrs. and the Cabinet...

If it's a sister or Mother  then I apologize ahead of time. 

[solid187]

yeah...more pics please...!!! And post some more of the DK cab as well 

[Neilyboy]

hahahaha yeah thats the wife. I think she was giving me heck for spending the entire day in the garage working on an arcade cabinet. I got up before she was even awake and worked on it until she went to bed again.

more updates hopefully tonight and ill post the color codes I used. I was too tired when I got home last night and had to work from 6:30am today till 6:30pm tonight again so once I get home this thing may get a second coat.

Neil

[clanggedin]

Nice project. I have a CK project I am working on right now. It's ready to paint, but now I am considering of painting it the D2K blue and making it a D2K cab. I am waiting for a sign from the Arcadeshop.com gods  on how much it will cost for a kit. If it's too much then I will be restoring a DK only and not converting to a D2K.

[Neilyboy]

Update. Just came in from giving it a second coat not 5 minutes ago.. Here is the color code for those wanting it.

Custom Color Olympic/CCA
Interior/Alkyd/Semi-Gloss
Fasthide Ult 340 VOC
#3 78611 Gallon Received: 08/12/07 04:32:54 PM
102-4Y23   103-2Y19.5   116-9


Manual Dispense 08/12/07
113-40





remember these are taken in a dark garage with a flash so the color is a bit mis-leading but it looks really good when I hold my original test paint chip up to it..





Take care,

Neil

[Neilyboy]

if you look closely on the first of the three pics i posted above you can see the original blue color inside the control panel area of the cab. That is the original blue color so you can see how close it is.

/edit... also if you look at the paint can and how junked up it is.. that isnt my fault. the poor kid at lowes that was mixing it for me didnt get the lid on all the way one of the times he stuck it in the mixing machine and it blew up all over him and sprayed everywhere and with this stuff a little goes a long way.. I felt soo bad for the guy and felt obligated to buy it from him after he got it all over himself just mixing it for me. I got enough to paint about 10 more cabinets hahaha but oh well its good to have enough than too little.

Neil

[Nostalgia]

Awesome. Ill problably only get a quart because my cab is in decent condition. Do you think they can look at the codes and make a quart out of it?  Keep going..looking good so far. 

[Neilyboy]

I assume so. That machine they use is pretty slick I would think they can modify the code just like a recipe. If it takes 2tsp's of flour to make it for 4people well then a half of a tsp for 1 person...etc.. I would guess they can.. my take on the code is its a color code for the primary number and then - some base x number of shots or how much is in it.. Im just guessing but im sure it can be converted to a quart.

with this paint a little went a LONG way.. you could get easily two coats out of a quart of paint. Assuming it was primed like mine and went on just as nice as it did with this application

Neil

[Nostalgia]

I assume so. That machine they use is pretty slick I would think they can modify the code just like a recipe. If it takes 2tsp's of flour to make it for 4people well then a half of a tsp for 1 person...etc.. I would guess they can.. my take on the code is its a color code for the primary number and then - some base x number of shots or how much is in it.. Im just guessing but im sure it can be converted to a quart.

with this paint a little went a LONG way.. you could get easily two coats out of a quart of paint. Assuming it was primed like mine and went on just as nice as it did with this application

Neil

Im going in about 2 hours to Lowes. I hope they can do it. Im geeked to start painting. Thanks for all the info.

[Neilyboy]

sure thing buddy let us know how it goes.

well im leaving this morning for alpine valley for a dave matthews band weekend.. so no progress this weekend. updates as they happen will be posted.

Neil

[Neilyboy]

Finally, won a working game board off ebay. Waiting for this to get here along with the sanwa joystick I ordered from ponyboy. And I wish rikitiki would get back with me about the logo-plate (for my ms. pac-man project) so I can order the nintendo decals. Also if anyone has a nintendo coin door that is in good shape (not bent up) let me know I would be interested if the price is right.



More updates hopefully soon...

-Neil

[Neilyboy]

Alright, finally got some time to get the t-molding in place. Installed the right side then figured I would get the camera for some more pics. Nothing much but it was a good to see the t-molding in place. It cleaned up the edges really nice.




Yes, I need a hair-cut..




I just used a paper towel in between a rubber mallet to keep the black mallet from smudging the molding.




I couldnt resist trying out the nova matrix marquee light I installed in this thing. So I quick grabbed a hacked power supply from the house and threw 12v's at it. How pretty it was to see all lit up..



The wires you see through the marquee will not be visible of course it was just my father holding it in place while we rigged up some power to it.



Both sides of molding in place.


Nice clean edge. Lookin good..


I got my PCB in the mail last night and im working with Al to get a complete wire harness (Thanks again Al you are the man!!).
So I will have this bad boy up and running by next week for sure. *knock on wood*

Neil

[Nostalgia]

I ordered the Nintendo stickers from Rikitiki. Should be here tomarrow. You got a control panel and stuff? I got my CP overlay, card and cab instructions from Twisted quarter. The cp card looks like it was just printed on a bubble jet printer. Not too happy about that one, but the sticker on the cab and the CP overlay itself looks awesome, and he had the best prices around. I might go to Kinkos to reprint the CP card.

[Neilyboy]

Nostalgia, yeah I ordered my cp used off ebay (At first wanting to keep everything as original as possible) I was able to get a 'Nice' used cp and marquee for half the price of buying just a repro marquee off ebay. The instruction card is a bit different on a repro than the original. I was just going to scan my original at like 600dpi and touch it up in pshop then reprint on some heavy stock on a color laser-jet here at work. When it comes to me ordering side-art for my cab I have heard to buy from quarter arcade so I will probably spend the extra 3 bucks a side and get it from them.. My instruction sticker which I ordered from Mikes arcade came (the sticker that goes above the control panel centered to the joystick  below the bezel) and it has a huge bubble in the laminate overlay between the top layer and the printed layer. So im not sure what im going to do about that. I hate to think that I paid 12 bucks for the put your quarters in below sticker since its the only sticker out of the set that I will be using.. Quality control must have been asleep when they packaged my order up haha.. Oh well.. Well I may get some free time this weekend to mount the pcb into the cab and work on re-mounting the power supply. I like to take my time and get of the the house. Just being in the garage is relaxing so usually something as simple as re-mounting the original power supply can take me some time since I will take it apart piece by piece and clean it lol.. More updates as they come.

Neil

[Neilyboy]

Well was able to get the control panel re-created this weekend. Luckily my best friends dad has a nice wood shop. So I asked him if he would re-create the control panel for me if I had an original board to go off of. So he said sure bring it by..

Old board that I was wanting to re-create.


My best friend is in the camo in back and his father is there routing out the back of the cp as you can see


Well we didnt have a t-molding bit so we had to rig it up to get this t-molding cut in there. he found a saw with a 1/16" blade on it and ended up cutting the t-molding like this haha..





ended up working perfectly. Just do not have the joystick mounted yet and need to find some black contact paper or laminate for the cp... anyone know where to get ahold of some of that stuff??




-Neil

[Level42]

 

Great project !!!! I love to see all the pictures of the work in progress 

Should be sticky ! Keep up the good work. Wish my father would help me out, or at least show a little bit of interest.....

[Neilyboy]

Thanks Level42! Its been a lot of fun so far and I have learned alot of things from this restore. I would say im 80% done with this restoration as of now. Next on my list will probably be restoring the Alpha Mission cabinet that I have. Then I may finally get to work on my mame© machine to finally be able to play some of the classics which I have been itching to play for quite some time.

Thanks again for the kind words. Im really lucky to have a wife that lets me 'have my own time' and a father who is really interested in the restore process and is all about helping out. It really keeps me motivated in getting stuff done. Ill throw up some more pics when I get the control panel completed and mounted.

Neil

[clanggedin]

My DK CP is painted black. There was no contact paper or laminate under the cpo. I would just paint it black.

[Dmod]

Loving this restore.  Makes me want a DK cabinet.

Keep it up.   

[Neilyboy]

Well I would just paint it black but there was some sort of very thin laminate on them if you peel it off. It was the same type of stuff that they used on the rest of the cabinet as well. it was really odd stuff very very thin formica or laminate. I would just paint it but my cp is only 1/2" thick and needs to be 9/16ths of an inch thick so I was hoping to put on two layers of a thin black laminate to give me the extra 1/16 of an inch. any other ideas on where to get this stuff?

Neil

[Nostalgia]

Yeh, mine is just wood painted black also. You can get laminate from a craft store, OR go to Home Depot or Lowes and see if you can buy an all black peel and stick floor tile. Just a thought.

[clanggedin]

You are right. It's that paper thin laminate. I just painted mine black.

Parts Express has black laminate adhesive vinyl. It's pretty good.

[leapinlew]

I painted mine black too. Awesome job dude... 

[Neilyboy]

Nice CP Lew! Im just waiting on Sithmaster to send me the coin door and bezel (sent him the money yesterday but says he cant mail it till this saturday. i am really excited to receive that package). I then sent Awesome Al his money over the weekend and he is mailing me the harness (i think its in the mail). So I should be good to go once these packages arrive. I will keep you posted.. Take care.

Neil