I had a very hard time getting a picture of this damage, but here is one from a side angle that shows a bit:

That picture is actually not of the worst damage. The center was an absolute crap fest.

For a couple of years I’ve been looking for a replacement. I even ordered one off of eBay and unfortunately the seller didn’t describe it very well. It was cracked and had some sort of sludge all over it so it went unused. I thought I could possibly clean mine up with some Novus but was a little wary of the paint that is on the outside of the bezel. I decided to give it a shot, and it worked wonders:

You can click on those pictures above to see them larger. I spent about 45 minutes on this. I started with #3, and kept going over it several times paying special attention to the worst scratches. I kept that off the painted area. I followed that up with #2 on the entire thing including the paint (though I did it sparingly over the paint). The paint actually had some scuffs and the Novus removed them. I followed that up with #1 and unless you were looking for faults you might think it was NOS. The only real flaw you can see now is where a deep gouge was. It actually almost removed it, and softened the edges to the point where it is hardly noticeable. If you shift your position while staring at it there is a subtle distortion and that’s about it. If I doubled my time on this I think it would have looked even better.

This bezel was so bad, if I got a replacement I would probably have tossed it. Now its about an A-. Novus kicks serious ass. Go buy some.

Here’s a couple of models I made with it so far, make sure you spin them around!

Awhile back, I bought an antique payphone on eBay, which looks similar to this one:

This phone is a bit too old fashioned to look good in our arcade. I’ve been planning on putting it upstairs in our hallway. It’s been sitting in the corner up there for 2 or 3 years now so I figured I should get around to mounting it. I don’t have keys, but managed to get into the top box and have a plan for mounting it. I’m making my own enclosure for it, which I modeled in sketchup:

Here’s a 3D view:

and an exploded view:

The plan is to make a custom TELEPHONE sign for the top, and have it light up. I’ll post more pics as I put it together.

Concept

I love neon and illuminated signs, and for awhile have been thinking about making some sort of POW block sign inspired by the POW block floating above the  middle of the ground floor in Mario Bros:

I made a 3D mockup for inspiration before starting:

I discovered El Wire online, which is an electroluminescent wire that has the appearance of neon and comes in different colors and thicknesses. The wires need to be powered by a driver to work, and that driver can be powered by batteries or a power supply. Drivers come in different types, and you can also use sequencers to get some serious blinking action going. I opted to use a sound activated driver, which can pulse the wires on and off to whatever music or other noise is going on in the room.

Materials

1. Black 10″ x 10″ x 10″ acrylic ballot box, $46 ish on eBay

2. 20 feet of white 2.5mm high bright El Wire and an audio activated driver – $40 at CoolNeon.com.

3. 10 feet of blue 2.5mm high bright El Wire with attached harness – $20.50 at CoolNeon.com.

I made the mistake of buying 5mm El Wire first which looks awesome lit, but was too thick to hold a good bend:

4. (2) POW vinyl stickers – custom made by Brian Jones at GameStencils.com

I figured that the sign wouldn’t look so hot when turned off if the design was only made with the El Wire, so I wanted to have a background for the wire to sit on. I made a vector representation of the POW block using a screenshot from Mario Bros and sent it to Brian who made some awesome stickers (thanks). Here’s the file if you need it.

5. Power switch – I got this one at Ace Hardware for a few bucks:

6. Fishing Line – again, got it at Ace Hardware for a few bucks. I believe I got the 8 lb line if I remember correctly.

7. (2) rubber grommets:

8. Screw hooks to hang from ceiling:

Tools

1. Drill or something else that can be used to drill holes. I’m guessing a drill would be best.

2. Superglue (or Krazy Glue if you are feeling crazy)

3. Gorilla Tape

4. Small lengths of wire to wire switch. No pic for this one…you’ll have to imagine how wires look.

5. Masking tape

6. A file smaller than the opening for the switch

How to Build It

1. First thing I did was to stick the custom stickers to opposite sides of the ballot box. Here’s what they looked like with the mask on:

Here’s one side positioned with some masking tape:

and finally, stuck to the box:

Repeat on the opposite side.

2. Next, I drilled 1 hole for each rubber grommet. One on the left side of the box and one on the right. Each hole is about 3 inches down from the top edge. Be VERY careful drilling, as this stuff is fragile. If you drill too close to the edge it will crack just like mine did. I had to fix the piece that cracked with some superglue. After you drill the holes, work the grommets into them. The one on the left here is in:

I put these in to pass the fishing line through for hanging later, and figured they would releave some strain on the acrylic to prevent cracking and also to prevent wear on the fishing line.

3. Drill a hole slightly smaller than the switch wherever you would like to place it. I chose the bottom right corner of the box.

4. Use the file to gradually make the hole a rectangle. When you get close to the size you want, you can use some masking tape to mark off the exact edges of the desired hole so you don’t make it too big. Here it is about 80% done:

5. Once you get the hole the correct size, work the switch into it. This was a bit tricky, and I ended up hitting it (gently) with a rubber mallet:

6. You should now have plastic crud all over the place. Clean the box the best you can inside and out, but don’t go nuts as you will be doing more drilling shortly. Keep in mind acrylic should not be cleaned with Windex as it will leave marks. If you don’t have any Novus, water will probably work better.

7. Grab a drill bit that will be big enough to pass the El Wire through twice. You’ll be feeding in and then back out that same hole. I’d recommend practicing to get the size right on a scrap piece of wood.

8. Drill a hole in the upper right corner of the letter P. You can see that hole here:

9. Put the entire length of white El Wire inside the box, and feed the end that doesn’t have the connector on it through the hole. Pull out almost all of it, leaving enough of the wire inside to connect to the driver later. Secure it to the inside of the box with some Gorilla Tape.

10. This is the tricky part – work the wire around the outer perimieter of the letter P, bending it at the corners. When you get to a bend, before you continue to the next one lift the wire up and put a few drops of super glue under the wire. Use it sparingly, as when it dries it turns white and less will look better. Push the wire down on the glue, and hold for 15 seconds. When it dries, continue to the next bend, following along as you see in the pic above.

11. When you get to the hole, feed the wire back into it. Pull it all the way back inside the box.

12. Tape it inside again with Gorilla Tape to hold it tight

13. Drill a hole in the corner of the O, and repeat the whole process, in and out of the box as you go to each letter.

14. Repeat for the light blue line, using the blue El Wire. Here is one side done…click to zoom in and see how I ran the wire along the edges.

15. I haven’t done this part yet, but the plan is to repeat the process for the opposite side

16. You’ll need to take the battery pack for the driver, and cut one of the wires going to it. Splice in some short pieces of wire, and run them to the switch. You should be able to figure this part out if you are an arcade geek. The driver has it’s own switch. I just left it on, and then use the switch I wired to turn the battery pack on and off.

17. Locate a ceiling joist using a stud finder, being careful to not get a false positive should the stud finder get too close to your manly self.

18. Screw the hooks in, 10″ apart making sure you catch the joist

19. Feed some fishing line through the grommets. I started on the right side, fed it through the inside of the box, and back out the left side.

20. Tie some loops in the line, one on each side

21. Hang it!

That’s about it. View my last post prior to this one to see a video of it. I’m sure I probably left something out. If you have any questions, post a comment and I’d be glad to help.

I’ve been slowly getting better at Mario Bros. I got my highest score to date the other day – 193,220. I’ve been trying to beat it, and have been getting annoyed by the fact that my joystick keeps sticking to one side and won’t return to center like it should 100% of the time. This causes mario to keep on running right into things when I want him to stop.

I’ve been wanting to pick up 2 repro joysticks from MikesArcade.com. They are great from what I hear, but I don’t have the cash right now to buy them. I decided to try and grease the old joysticks I have, and it worked great! They now center fine, and move much more easily. Here’s how I did it. If you have better suggestions let me know.

Here’s how they look from up top:

I used white lithium grease that I picked up awhile back at Ace Hardware:

I think the key here is to know where to put the grease. I think I figured that out by playing with the joystick while watching it from underneath. This should explain it:

I didn’t have to remove them to do this. I put the grease on a q-tip, held the joystick to one side, and put the grease right under the metal washer type thingy that the spring sits on. I only put it on one side. Then, I let the joystick go to center, and turned the joystick around a few times to spread it evenly. After doing that, I just moved it back and forth a few times, and repeated the whole process 3 or 4 times. It made a huge difference for me. I’m guessing this may or may not help depending on how worn out the pieces are that are inside that area.

Maybe now I can break 200k.

It’s certainly not goint to break the 3 million record, but it’s my highest so far.

In between my weird work schedule, I’ve been taking some Mario Bros. breaks.

I never played this when I was a kid, so I wasn’t very good at it. I’m trying to see if I can get better. I’ve been playing a lot the past couple of weeks, and couldn’t even break 100k. I finally did a couple of days ago, and just got 132,210 today which is high for me, and not very high for others.

Everybody kept saying how hard the icicles were, but I never saw them until I got that score. Once they show up the game seems a lot harder.

It still has the original joysticks and buttons, and they’re pretty worn out. The player 1 button is hard to press, and the joystick doesn’t move quite right. I’m going to replace them at some point with repros from MikesArcade.com. I’m sure once I put that new joystick in, I’ll be up to 500k on my first shot.

If you have any Mario Bros. tips for me, let me know.

By the look of those batteries, I’d guess they were the ones that came with the game back in ‘83. You can see the corrosion all around the components to the right of the batteries. I believe that dark stuff on the edge of the board is also corrosion underneath the coating they covered the ground trace with.

Checkout the corrosion on the back side:

I got lucky that the corrosion didn’t seem to spread beyond what you see in those pics.

The batteries are only used to save bookeeping info for operators. Seeing as this Mario Bros. is not likely to be put in a real arcade anytime soon I figured it would be best to just remove them. I removed the batteries and holder and cleaned up the area with a small wire brush. Then I went over it with a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water to neutralize the acid and keep the corrosion from coming back. After that, I went over it with some 91% rubbing alcohol. Here it is after all that was done:

Along that bottom edge, I had to sand it to get rid of the corrosion that was underneath the coating. I also had to replace a capacitor – C1. The corrosion ate right through one of it’s legs.

I put it all back together and it still worked (phew!). Here are a few pics showing it in its new location in our game room.

A little history for those that don’t already know…Mario Bros was released after Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye. It was primarily marketed as a conversion kit to convert those 3 games into Mario Bros to “Clean up after Donkey Kong” (man, THAT would be a sucky job!). It was also released in a dedicated cabinet, seen above. The dedicated cabinet is sometimes known as a “wide body”, as it is a bit wider than the cabinet for the previously released games that I mentioned.

I saw this in an ad for a Tapper that was listed for $2100. They also said they had a Mario Bros for $250. Me being a cheapskate, I opted for the Mario. There were no pictures, and only a description of it. I couldn’t find out on the phone whether it was a widebody (which is what I would prefer) or a conversion, so I took a chance and said I’d take it. I got lucky that it was a widebody, and it’s in pretty good shape. I seem to be getting most of my games from Craigslist, and usually at a good (sometimes great!) price. With Craigslist, you have to just keep checking as often as you can, and when you see something you are interested in you have to be quick or it will get snapped up in no time.

As with most of our games, it could use some cosmetic work. The game itself plays great and the monitor looks like it recently had a cap kit. Here are some more pics:

I’ll be picking up repro side art for it at some point. Before I put it on I plan on patching the cabinet here and there and painting it so it looks mint. I will also need a repro control panel overlay, as this one has been used and abused:

And…I could also use a top marquee bracket as this one is long gone:

I’m ashamed to say that I have yet to open the back of this cabinet. I had a very busy weekend, and today was a Monday from hell. I should be peeking inside it tomorrow….if anything jumps out, or if I find all those socks in there that you lost over the years I will be sure to post more pics.