Gutted Venture Cabinet back to a Mr. Do! MAME

[GAJoe]

EDIT:  Pictures of my progress towards the bottom of the thread.  Original post preserved for future reference, but it's kind of irrelevant now, since the cabinet is already being MAMEd.



Having spent five years getting ready to turn my gutted Venture cabinet into a MAME machine, and being on the brink of doing it, I'm now getting pangs of conscience from reading all these threads about converting Journey, Galaxian, and Smash TV into MAME cabinets.  Clearly, it's not a very popular idea to convert an old cabinet into something else. I would like to describe the cabinet and my plan for it and see what the likelihood is of me being ostracized by the community if I carried it out.

The cabinet in question is the Exidy style used for Hard Hat, Pepper II, and Venture.  In this case, it was specifically a Venture.  By the time I got it, it had been converted to a Mr. Do Run Run, then gutted of its PCB and monitor.  Its side-art had been removed and it was repainted black and had Mr. Do stickers applied that were then apparently ripped off at a later date, leaving an obvious circle behind.  The control panel was in bad shape from rust and peeling paint, which someone tried to cover up with a piece of metal molding screwed directly over the damage.  The Venture bezel art is in decent shape, but the middle of the plexi has "Keep Me" scratched into it. The original marquee had a ripped Mr. Do sticker pasted over it, but I got that off and cleaned it up. The coin door was filled with plugs from various locking bars, and it had been spraypainted completely black, including the chrome.

I still have the control panel, buttons, joystick, bezel, marquee, etc.  All I have done to the cabinet since 2003 is strip off the chewed up t-molding, sand off the black paint job, fill in the various holes and chipped edges, ground all the spraypaint off the coindoor, and installed a regular AC fluorescent .  It has always been my intention to make a cabinet that would conform to the contours of the original design not to make a monstrosity out of it.  I was going to do modular panels, perhaps four, that would use the original locking latches to hold them in place.  I had no plans to do anything that didn't involve the original carriage bolt and screw holes already in the cabinet. I wanted to do something completely reversible in case anyone wanted to turn this into a Venture cabinet again some day, the same reason I held onto the other parts I had from it.  If I could find vectorized Venture sideart, I'd go the step of adding that and try to get a resized bezel image to keep it looking like a Venture and make any future conversion that much easier.  Anyway, since Hellcade and Andy's page of horrors both show Venture conversions as examples of great evil, I can't in good conscience go through with making this a MAME cabinet until I've at least asked if anyone wants to trade a different generic cabinet for it because they want to restore this to its original state.  I have no truck or means of moving it, so if anyone did want to trade they'd have to come to my apartment in Panama City, FL.  I have the joystick, fire buttons, marquee, and bezel with me, but the control panel and start buttons are back in Georgia, so I'd have to have those shipped down or make a trip up to get them.

I don't really want to give it up, I like this cabinet because it's tall, so I don't have to slouch as much to play, and it's well shaded with the Asteroids Deluxe like side walls.  I love the marquee, which is why I wish I could tie it together with reproduction of the original side art, but I am a history buff at heart and I now feel an ache in my stomach at the thought that I'd be bastardizing something someone really cares about out there, so I'm going to wait a bit to see if anyone is interested in having this cabinet for something else.  I'd be interested in trading for a cabinet that has more elbow room to the sides because the six buttons a piece Street Fighter layout is going to be cramped in the Venture cab.

Pictures:

[TOK]

My take is that if you don't cut the wood and damage the art, there isn't much to complain about, because everything is reversible.
Exidy hardware is kind of rare and flakey so trying to restore and keep it running might be tough.

[jbensch]

I think all the hype with the Smash TV thred was that it was a working unit.  It just needed some TLC, cleanup and minor fixing to make it a great player.  It's hard to see a functional cabinet being trashed when there are so many empty shells to work with.

Your idea is great - I say go for it.  Nothing wrong with a Mame machine inside a Venture wrapper. 

[Ginsu Victim]

If you were talking about gutting a working machine, I'd protest.
The pictures you posted show a cabinet that can be MAMEd.
Have fun with it.
At the end of the day, it's still your cabinet.

[paigeoliver]

Don't cut the wood, but I also wouldn't worry about it being "reversible" either, as lots of people worry about that, but there isn't really anybody out there interested in reverse converting Mame cabinets.

Also, really don't try to stick a big panel on there, the cabinet will tip over and kill you and you wouldn't be able to see the monitor.

[GAJoe]

Also, really don't try to stick a big panel on there, the cabinet will tip over and kill you and you wouldn't be able to see the monitor.

You're quite right, it's a top heavy cabinet.  My plan was to build small, swappable panels, though, so no worry.

The consensus so far seems to be that I am not going to draw the ire of the arcade gods by going through with this.  One reason I feel bad about it is that everyone keeps saying these are rare cabinets, but perhaps what they're really saying is that Venture hardware and artwork is scarce, not Exidy's boxes for housing them.

I'm waiting on a few other parts to come in, so there's still time if there is someone out there that really wanted a Venture/Pepper II/Hard Hat cabinet to restore and has another gutted cabinet to trade.  Otherwise, it starts becoming my MAME machine in a couple of days.

[GAJoe]

Here is my progress so far.


My refinished coin door and new vinyl front.  The coin door isn't as great as some I've seen, but I'm satisfied with the look of it.


Monitor laying flat and vertical.


Monitor up and horizontal.


Side view of my so-so paint job.


Up close of horizontal display.


Up close of vertical display.


Back of the manual rotation harness (AKA the board with the LCD stuck in it).

[leapinlew]

Lookin good. I loves me some Mr. Do

[ark_ader]

Looks great!

[GAJoe]

I have quite a few progress pictures, but they're giving me trouble trying to upload them all, so I'll leave it to these two more recent ones.