Aussie Frogger

[philby85]

Well, here in Australia (small population) we didn't see many dedicated cabs except for those which really couldn't be done any other way ie gauntlet.
Most cabs were a generic woodgrain cab, sometimes with a marquee, if not it had "latest game". Side art only appeared on the dedicated cabs. Too hard and expensive for the operators to change.

So I purchased a variant of the aussie lowboy most likely a 90's cab. The unit had a blood brothers generic marquee when I got it. I hated the shape not a nice aussie lowboy curve. So I traced the curve of my current aussie lowboy and went a cutting! Here is my tale on the road to creating a generic woodgrain frogger. This will have a a frogger marquee (US) a cpo and bezel from scott at mamemarquees.com I will also have some side art as well.

This is her generic ugliness to start.

[philby85]

As well as ugly, she had some damage. At some stage in her tortured life some idiot broke part of the top side. This left her looking very much the ugly sister. The t molding was just screwed into her broken appendage. Get back out there and make some money old girl!!!!

My options were to add a piece to make it match the otherside, or cut the otherside to a similar shape, I chose the later.

[philby85]

Now to fix the damage and restore some beauty with some nice new curves. Trusty jigsaw to the rescue. Lay her on her side gently cut and sand!
I think she looks much better

[philby85]

Ok, now lets start the change. Lets apply some woodgrain vinyl. I got this from partsexpress.com . This stuff is great goes on very easy and great to trim up and looks like late 70's early eighties woodgrain.

[Level42]

Yeah, that woodgrain is THE way to make an ugly cab even uglier....

[Dmod]

Yeah, that woodgrain is THE way to make an ugly cab even uglier....

Ouch.  That stings.

[philby85]

Come on guy's woodgrains back in! hasn't anyone told you? If I'm going to do a replica it needs it, no way around it
But thanks for the comments.

phil

[danny_galaga]

as philby said, many aussie cabs were a generic shape and often wood grained. either that or just black. going woodgrain makes a lot of sense here as it invokes more memories. interestingly, i saw an article about the south african arcade scene. they had a lot of generic cabs. i think they were all white!

[ARTIFACT]

where does the hate for wood grain / stained look come from?

I grew up in France (maybe that's part of it?) and have NO issue with what I am seeing here... I think it looks 'retro', and that's NOT a bad thing.
Go with it! Post lots of pics!

[RXII]

Well done!    A pretty basic modification for alot of improvement. I know where you are coming from with the woodgrain and the aussie cabinets........I think it looks great. With the older cabs you see where the woodgrain laminate is really knocked around they can look terrible but a fresh coat looks nice and clean.

Simon.

[philby85]

Thanks Guy's appreciate the comments. The new woodgrain finish looks quite ok. I'm not a big fan of it but I was trying to replicate a bit of history, I thought you'd appreciate that level 42 ? i need to find a cp that I can make into a 1 player frogger compatible, so searching for that now. The cab is fully woodgrained now. So just waiting on artwork and the frogger board I purchased from ebay.

cheers

Philby

[Anubis_au]

I consider it funny that you had a generic coloured lowboy that you made into a woodgrain appearance. I would do the exact opposite. Lowboys hold nostalgia for me but I prefer the plain coloured finished ones to the woodgrain... anyway, its still a great cab and looking forward to seeing the project progress.

[Trebeck]

I think that looks awesome.  Good work.

Beck