I just got some crazy quantities of Novus in the mail. Crappy cell phone pic:

I think I should be set for awhile now. I had a small bottle of #1 and #2, and no #3. I’ve been using it more lately and wanted to get some #3 to try to get some scratches out of my Mario Bros. bezel. This stuff isn’t cheap, but I got a good deal on eBay at $60 for all 3.

For those new to Novus, it is designed for cleaning and polishing acrylic. #1 is pretty much a cleaner. You should never use Windex or anything similar on plexiglass, it will damage it over time. I use #1 to clean bezels and marquees, buttons, joystick knobs, etc…

#2 has a tiny bit of grit. You can use it to remove very light scratches. #3 is heavier and will remove slightly deeper scratches. If you have to use #3, you should then follow it with #2 and then #1. If you use #2, you should follow it with #1. If you just use #1, you should follow it with a Sam Adams.

Hey! CoinOpSpace.com is running a restoration contest this summer. The grand prize is $200 in gift certificates to arcade part/art sites. You can read about it here.

If you are starting a restoration, you should post it on CoinOpSpace.com and take a crack at it.

I’ve decided to enter, and will be restoring my Mappy. Part of the contest rules requires that the restoration information only be posted on CoinOpSpace.com, so I won’t be discussing the actual restoration here. If you are interested in reading along, here’s my entry.

I finally finished my Baby Pac-Man!

It took a long time, but it was worth it. Here are a few more pics:

I guess I’m off to work on the next game now. I’ll have to decide between Mappy, Donkey Kong, or Pac-Man. I think I may go with Mappy but I’m not sure yet.

I’m done painting the cabinet, and put new t-molding on:

As you can see from the pic above, I also put the control panel back in. Next comes the sideart…

I can’t wait to get this working again. It’s been a long time in the making.

I’ve been working on my Baby Pac-Man cabinet for about a week or so. It’s been a struggle, and I learned some things the (very) hard way. Here’s what went down…

I got the cabinet sanded, patched up, and sprayed some Kilz 2 primer on it. I did 2 or 3 coats, sanding after each. It looked pretty good:

Read the rest of this entry…

My Baby Pac-Man has been in the garage since I got it, and it needs to come inside. I left off last year with all the boards working, and the playfield restored and looking like new. All that remains is to prep the cabinet, paint it, slap on some new side art, and put it all back together. Oh, and find a spot in the house for it somehow.

I was more focused on getting some work done on the cabinet, and didn’t take many pictures as I went along. I used a heat gun to get the old side art off. I tried some Goof Off to get the old adhesive off, which worked wonders. I followed that up by sanding the entire cabinet.

Here’s a pic of one side right after I hit it with Bondo:

I have since sanded the Bondo down. I’ll flip it over soon and do the same to the other side. I hope to have some paint on it this weekend!

I’ve been feeling like working on my games much more now, especially with the weather getting warmer. I managed to sneak some time in to give my new Dig Dug a once over (and a “who’s your father” as well!).

I did one thing right, and one thing wrong. First, the bad…

The white at the bottom of the bezel was flaking off big time:

You can see it pretty well inside the box surrounding Dig Dug above. Check it out from the backside:

The rest of the art looked perfect accept for the white, just in that bottom area. I gently scraped at the loose white, and brushed it with a nylon brush and all that flakey white came off right down to the glass:

I sprayed that area with some white, and it looked great from the front. You’ll have to trust me, as I didn’t get a pic and it’s now in a dumpster somewhere. Here’s what it looked like from the back after I sprayed that bottom area:

Now, I was psyched at that point and should have left it. Instead, I decided that I had to do something to keep the remaining flake free white areas from flaking. I had read about using Krylon Triple Thick to prevent flaking art on glass from peeling further, and decided it would be a good idea to hit it with some of that. I masked off the clear area with painters tape, as you can see above. I sprayed on the Krylon Triple Thick and let it dry. When I peeled off the masking tape, it took a lot of the paint immediately adjacent to it with it. I think the Krylon formed a bond with the tape that normal paint wouldn’t. It looked like total crap, and was beyond repair. I ended up getting a replacement from QuarterArcade.com that looks almost like new.

Now, on to the one thing that *did* go right. I put a new (repro) control panel overlay on. Before:

After:

I’m done messing with Dig Dug for awhile, and am going to work on finishing my Baby Pac-Man.

I got my Nintendo coin stickers today from Rich at ThisOldGame.com.

I ordered one white set for my Popeye, and one yellow for my future Donkey Kong should I ever get one. Here are the coin mech stickers, complete with dirty coin door:

I haven’t stuck the larger sticker below the control panel yet, because I plan on restoring the cabinet someday.

If you have a Popeye or a Donkey Kong, you need to go buy these now!

For those who haven’t read everything on this site (AKA “losers” ), everything was working great on my Defender except for the joystick, which was slow and sloppy. I ordered a repro replacement from MantisAmusements.com.

These parts are an exact replica of NOS Defender joystick parts. Here is the old one before I took it apart:

If you look closely at the round hole between the 2 screws in the bottom of the picture, you’ll see the pin that sits in it. See how much room it has to move in there? That is all wear from years of people Defendering like there’s no tomorrow. That hole should be tight around that pin, so it has just enough room to move and no more. I changed these parts, and the joystick is like brand new!

I played a few rounds, and the game is awesome now that you can actually control the ship better. However….Defender totally kicks my ass! I never played it in the arcade, but I was pretty good at the Atari 2600 version. I am dying to get this in the game room now, but there isn’t room until we move everything around.

and the only cure is more cowbell arcade games!.

In 1981, when leg warmers were just starting to get popular, long before Richard Dean Anderson was running around shooting laser beams all over the place, Defender’s baby brother was born. Ladies and gentleman, children of all ages….I give you….

STARGATE

This game was released one year after Defender as its sequel. As if Defender wasn’t hard enough, they supposedly made this one even harder. Those dirty rat bastards.

I got this game from the same location I picked up the skill crane that started all this madness back in October of ‘06. The building was supposed to be demolished to make way for a hotel. I was driving by to get some starbucks, and noticed the building was still there with a “indoor flea market sign” up. I went in to see what was left, and spotted this way way in the back. I almost missed it. The back room was pitch black. I wasn’t going to go back there but I ended up just barely spotting the back of it. This was 2 days ago, and I had no cash. The nice guy that owns the building wanted $50 for it. The game wasn’t working, but $50 is a great deal. I just couldn’t swing it. I told him I would probably come back in a few days after I pay my bills and he said if it was still there I could get it for $35.

So…I swung by this morning after getting more caffeine and picked it up.

It took me forever to drill the lock out of the bottom coin door. I heard change rattling around in there! When I finally wrecked a few drill bits, this is what I found:

$1.50 and an old bottle of white out. Now, $1.50 might actually buy a coffee, as long as I don’t get it from starbucks.

I looked the boards over. No corrosion from the batteries. The original style AA battery holder is in place, with batteries and all, so I got lucky the boards weren’t ruined. I’ll swap them for a lithium battery per Bob Roberts article. I fired it up, and it’s making game sounds. I can’t coin it up, but I don’t know if its just sitting in setup mode or not. The monitor has high voltage, but the screen is all screwy. That’s were I left it. I’ll do a cap kit on it and see what happens.