anoon's HS-5

There's still life in that control panel.

Cut out the inner section marked in the pic i posted below. Be sure to leave the area with the outer perimeter carriage bolts intact.
Use a mallet to straighten out the outer perimeter of the panel left and right sides.
Get a new sheet of 16 gauge steel 26x8 inches and use a bitmetal hole bit to drill out your new MK pattern.
Lay your new panel on top of your old panel and mark the holes for the carriage bolts
Drill your carriage bolt holes and either tack weld or use carriage bolts to secure your new top panel to the old control panel.
You can soften the front seam with either Bondo or JB Weld.

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I hope you're right. I might give it a try some time down the road, but its in really bad shape. The image above is from before I took it to the metal shop and they ruined it.
I didn't take any pics of it with their fill job before I started using it as hole punching practice.
For now, I ordered a new panel from the ebay guy. I have to say, it's really nice.
 
I hope you're right. I might give it a try some time down the road, but its in really bad shape. The image above is from before I took it to the metal shop and they ruined it.
I didn't take any pics of it with their fill job before I started using it as hole punching practice.
For now, I ordered a new panel from the ebay guy. I have to say, it's really nice.

I'm 99.9% sure you can do it. You just need to straighten out the first 2-3 inches on each side. I can't imagine the top bend is warped as that's almost always folded over (only some rare instances did Dynamo use two separate pieces of metal there) and that's pretty tough to warp.
 
i'm enjoying your thread; funny when you said 24" monitor I thought you had to be mistaken. But A63 tube / 2.5 = 25" A60 tube /2.5 = 24". I'll be darned. Never heard of that.

You're doing a great job, keep it up.
 
As my schedule did not allow for a large block of time to apply laminate to the cabinet and I was still waiting on my new control panel to arrive, I busied myself with a few smaller tasks.
Cleaning up the control panel drawer seemed like a nice easy job.
Right. What was supposed to be an hour of work at best ballooned into a multi week, ongoing chore.

This is the drawer that slides down into the front of cabinet. The circuit boards for the game are screwed into place on the surface of the board, and the wiring is stapled down, as evidenced by the 6000 old staples left behind after I gutted the machine.
The control panel attaches by bolts that run through those 4 oval holes at the top of the board.
The three larger holes are for latching and unlatching the control panel when it is on the machine. The drawer slides down into the cabinet, the control panel, which on a piano hinge, is swung up into place. The operator opens the coin door and reaches up through the three larger holes to secure the latches, fastening down the control panel.
The coin door is closed and locked, and the machine is then secure from arcade hooligans looting the cash box. Supposedly. As seen in earlier posts, some operators go the extra mile and put a massive iron bar across the coin door for extra security.
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Even after yanking all of the old staples out, the drawer looked pretty grubby, so I gave it a quick sanding.
Came out much better, as seen here!
This is where I should have left it, but no. I had the bright idea to do a full pass and make it look nice.
This quickly spiraled out of control into a much bigger project.
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Though the drawer was now clean and fairly smooth, there were still all of those staple holes in it, which were getting on my nerves.
I filled and sanded those holes, but the bondo stained the particle board.
Looks like I would have to paint.
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I had some primer left over from painting the rest of the cabinet, so I rolled that on.
This was the second point at which I should have stopped.
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The primer, coupled with the porous nature of the particle board left quite a bit of texture, so I sanded the drawer down again.
I would need some proper paint to finish this off.
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I had a tin of gloss black on hand, so I thought I'd use that to complete the drawer.
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I know the gloss black paint was going to be shiny, but whoa, this was really shiny. Too shiny.
Now I could have just left it at this state, knowing nobody but I would even see this part of the machine, but after looking at that gleam for a few days, decided I couldn't abide by it as it was really showcasing the texture of the particle board.
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Sanded down, again.
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Primered, again. This time with a rattle can of grey.
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After sanding, yet again.
This is the current state of the drawer, for the past two months.
I should probably just paint it satin black and be done with it, but there are still tens of thousands of tiny pockmarks of the particle board showing. I am now considering doing a skim coat of automotive body filler to get it perfectly smooth, but this will of course require more sanding and priming before painting.
At this point, I have gone way beyond overboard on this part as it is never ever seen by the player. However, having gone this far I might as well see it all the way through.
I have some time to decide while I wait for the weather to provide decent working conditions.
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Applying laminate.
For the sides of my machines, I am pretty much going to be applying vertical grade laminate rather than painting when doing a custom job. It's a lot cleaner, faster, and end sup looking really nice.

The theme I am going with on this machine required a nice rich red color. I found a supplier online that had a decent price on some 4'x10' sheets.
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These sheets were quite a bit larger than those I had used on the previous Centipede restoration. I set down a long sheet of paper, laid the cabinet on top, and then traced around with a pencil so I had a rough idea how to best lay out the shape and reduce waste.
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These shears do a nice job of leaving a pretty clean cut when trimming the laminate down to size.
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Prior to sticking the laminate on, I gave the t-molding slot a freshening up with a slot cutter, as some areas had inadvertently been filled in with bondo while prepping the woodwork.
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Nice clean cut, all the way around.
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After applying a bit of carpenters tape around the edges to catch any errant adhesive, it was time to get gluing.
I am using up the rest of the water based adhesive I had left over from the previous Centipede restoration.
Seems to work well enough, but I might try a traditional chemical based glue next time.
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First application of glue to the cabinet and the backside of the laminate.
I left this to set for 10-15 minutes and then applied another coat.
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Once the adhesive is tacky, pvc pipes are spaced across the surface.
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The laminate goes on top, and then starting with the center, the pvc pipes are removed one by one as the laminate is pressed down with a rubber J-roller.
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After leaving the sides to set for a day, a quick run around the edge with a router and a trimming but makes short work of the excess material.
Some of the adhesive found its way onto the sides of the machine, but not to worry; the protective plastic sheet that ships on the laminate is still in place.
Once I get closer to finishing the whole machine, I'll peel that protective layer off, revealing a nice clean surface.
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A red Dynamo? Dawg, that wasn't in the catalog.

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Rationale:
This Dynamo apparently started life as a Moonwalker. (Thank you for your help with that @DonPanetta)
I don't care for Moonwalker or Michael Jackson
There was nothing left of the Moonwalker besides a paper serial number tab.

In essence, this is a generic kit cabinet.
 
New control panel arrives.
After the dunderheads at the local metalshop warped and ruined my original control panel during the hole patching job I ordered, I had to go and pay a premium for a new reproduction panel from a guy off of ebay.
It was pricey, but his ebay page had a "make-me-an-offer" button, and so I did. He didn't come down a whole lot. Just enough to make me feel like I had tried to haggle. I do appreciate the small break he gave me. Every penny counts.
I have to say, the repro panel was pretty darn nice.
A good amount of planning would be in order if I didn't want to botch this one up myself.

Well, look at that beauty. A freshly stamped, folded, and tacked sheet metal control panel. Powder coated in black too.
Looks far nicer than the zinc plated original.
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Backside.
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Fits perfectly!
Punching holes for the for the joysticks and buttons was a concern. If I screwed it up, It would be back to ebay for another expen$ive repro panel.
Much planning would be required.
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Step 1.
I downloaded a scan or the original owners manual from '92 of the game I intend on putting in this cabinet and found the button layout diagram, which was then printed at 1:1 scale.
Using the ole shop light under the panel trick, I aligned the print out on the panel, using the joystick holes as the locator.
With this in place, thanks to the original diagram having been dimensioned, I now knew where to locate the buttons.
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Step 2:
I was actually trying to solve two problems at once:
1.) Where to punch holes in the new panel for the buttons and sticks.
2.) Where to locate these holes for the custom control panel overlay I intended to create.
I spent the better part of a whole weekend measuring and remeasuring, and then measuring a few more times to ensure that I had the buttons laid out on the panel correctly.
The cut corner bits were particularly tricky!
This is my fancy diagram, done on a scrap of paper I had laying about.
Shout out to my high school mechanical drawing instructor! Thank you Mr. S!
(He's probably long dead by now.)
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Step 3:
By this time I was fairly confident my measurements were good, but then I had the idea that I could wrap the panel in painter's paper and mark the major landmarks with a pencil.
This is the unfolded result of that, which I then measured a couple more times to verify my original dimensioning.
Looked pretty tight!!!
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Step 4:
I then spent an afternoon learning how to use Inkscape, a free vector graphics application.
Using my measurements, I created a full size schematic of the panel, complete with guides for button and joystick positions, as well as the major folds in the panel.
I ran this over to Office Max and had it printed out 1:1.
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Dang. All that measuring paid off after all.
Step 5:
I folded my printed diagram over the new panel and everything lined up with the physical part perfectly.
Look at that crease guide, running exactly along the top fold of the panel!
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Even the corner cutouts were right on.
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Step 6:
And here we are, all taped down and ready to serve as a guide for drilling and punching the holes.
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Punching the panel.
Once I was convinced I had located the joystick and positions properly, after measuring nine times and printing out a template, it was time to take the plunge and start making holes.


First off, hit each center with a punch.
Actually finding a punch was super annoying. In the shop classes I took back in the day, and in my Dad's workshop, punches were aplenty. I had to search extensively to find this one, and it was ridiculous price.
But it did its job well enough.
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All five buttons, locationed.
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Guide paper removed.
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Drilled at 1/16"
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Drilled at 1/8"
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The 1/8" hole is big enough to put the stepped drill bit to work, in order to make the hole big enough for the hydraulic punch bolt to fit.
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Hydraulic punch did its thing.
Buttons, punched.
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Much cleaner than attempting to drill these holes out..
A bit of filing around the edges, a touch with the paint pen, and this is good to go.
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Result.
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Wow. It's been about a year since I have been able to work on this or any other arcade projects unfortunately.
Let me check back to see where I left off and I'll update.
 
After punching the panel, I set to designing the control panel overlay. I went with something custom, rather than trying to shoe horn the original MK1 or MK2 kit graphics onto the HS-5 panel.
I came up with something I liked, but could not find a local shop to print what I wanted on the material I wanted. Perhaps I was asking for the wrong thing, but I thought it would have been pretty straight forward. All the loal sign and print places had no idea what I was talking about. Any advice here would be appreciated.

I gave up on the CPO for a bit. For fun, I experimented with some 3D printed parts. Not sure if I'll use these or not, but was a neat experiment.
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A lot of sanding, bondo, primer, textured spray, followed by gold spray:
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And so this project has sat for almost a year. I'd really like to get it finished and back together, but life has thrown a few curveballs, and time is at a premium.
 
I am finally getting around to working on my Kustom MK Kit project again.

I had previously stalled out when I got to the control panel overlay. I was intent on designing my own overlay, as I wasn't a fan of the way that the original graphics would have been cropped on the cut corner HS-5 panel.

I had two options: make a HS-5 compatible graphic using visual elements of the original design, or a completely custom design.
There's actually a lot going on in the both the original dedicated overlay and the kit overlay: gradients, outlines, logos, dragons, text, etc. I wasn't convinced I would be able to cram it all on the HS-5 panel. Seemed like overkill for a kit cabinet job.

So I went with fully custom overlay.

I don't favor a lot of the custom graphics jobs I see out there on the emu cabs featuring hi res scans of super detailed characters or scenes. I wanted something a bit cleaner; more minimalist. I originally went for a stark black and white design that I thought would work with the solid red laminate of the sides. It looked like this:
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I would have gone with this, except for the aforementioned stall in finding a local place to print it on the right material. The 5 or 6 print shops I visited had no idea what I was talking about, so I shelved it for a bit. Then life got in the way...

Flash forward to today. Done with work for for the holidays, I cracked open the above file and started organizing the assets a bit. In doing so, I thought I'd try a new design and came up with this, (with matching marquee):
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So while this is fine, I am not in love with it, and I am coming back around to the idea of doing an HS-5 specific overlay in the style of the OG MK.
But perhaps I'll get this printed so I can move forward and then think about a new design later.

I'm happy to hear your feedback on the matter.
Also, I am looking for recommendations as to where I can go to get this and the marquee printed relatively quickly.
 
After posting the above, I figured I'd have a crack at an OG style panel after all.
This is where I am currently:
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(I left the cut and fold lines here to show how the CPO with lay on the HS-5)

I couldn't fit the dragons in, so what I have here is something between the dedicated CPO, the kit CPO, and several liberties I took given I only put a couple hours into it.
The control label font isn't exact, but close enough.
The MK logo font is the MK 11 font, and not the OG font, since the kerning on the publicly available OG MK font is horrendous.
I do not believe that Midway had yet adopted the "Lightning M" back when MK and MK2 shipped, but the "Lighting M" is totally awesome, so I am going with it.

One thing that really bothers me, and now reminds me why I originally went down the more minimalistic designs is that the offset of the Player 2 control set causes the surrounding graphics to encroach on the cut corner of the HS-5.
It's too late to do anything about it now as I:

A.) Very carefully measured and followed the common and accepted joystick spacing of the 90's.
B.) Already punched my panel.

Seeing as I prioritized player comfort, the goofy looking offset will stay as is until I can no longer stand to look at it. After which I suppose I'll go buy a new panel and punch it for symmetry. $$$
 
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