Anteater Custom Restoration

Mases

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Mar 18, 2015
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Location
West Dundee, Illinois
(Not sure if this belongs in Restoration Showcase section - as it is a custom cabinet)

One of my favorite arcade games and I'm excited to create a custom Anteater cabinet. While the game was developed by Tago Electronics, it was distributed by Stern. It's often lumped in with listings of Stern games and the few cabinets that I've ever seen of the game are all in the classic Stern cabinets. Thus... I purchased a Stern cabinet.

I found a seller in Rockford that had an Arkanoid in a Stern cab and felt it was a perfect candidate for my project. The coin door had tags for a Scramble. I was intrigued to see if the cabinet would have the 'STERN' side art or the 'Scramble' side art. If it had the Scramble art, I would have preserved it, restoring it to a Scramble. Unfortunately, it did not. Just the usual, 'Stern' side art.


The board was harder to come by, but thanks to Scott Bardelli here on KLOV, I was able to get a working Anteater board from Eldorado Games for a good price.

For the cabinet, I currently have removed the T-Molding, used Citristrip to completely peal off the layers of paint on the side, and I have cleaned up the cabinet with some wood bondo. I also rebuilt some of the damaged bottom of the cabinet to give it a solid foundation. Also added a few wood pieces on the inside to hold the monitor, as I wanted to get rid of the bolts that are on the sides of the cabinet. The cabinet has been sanded down and is ready for primer.



Next Steps -

-Need to Prime and then Paint the sides of the cabinet. (Still not sure on colors). Thinking of matching the Blue from the Marquee. - http://nsyba.net/mases/Anteater-Marquee.jpg - (Keeping the front of the cabinet Black, with Black T-Molding) Thoughts/Opinions?

-There is some side artwork pictures and I'm having an artist recreate it for this project - https://www.arcade-museum.com/images/118/118124163066.jpg

-Lastly, and perhaps the most exciting part of this restore, is that I have hired a freelance artist who is making some custom Bezel and Control Panel Artwork for me. I currently have some awesome sketches and I've included some sample pictures. It's a work in progress and I don't want to share it all quite yet. (Once it is done, I will share it here and it it will be readily available for free for anybody that wants to use it).

-I have a control panel that was on a different cabinet I bought. Need to strip and clean it up in preparation for the custom art.


More updates coming soon!

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Subscribed. Love the game myself and can't wait to see how this turns out. I have wanted to do this exact same thing for quite sometime. I have not been able to scrounge up a Stern cabinet though.....

On a side note, Bagman and Tazzmania.....to others you don't see to often. I have Bagman but just a few parts for a Tazzmania.
 
Subscribed as well - I'm stoked to see how this turns out. Anteater is truly an underrated gem; it'll be cool as heck to see dedicated artwork for it.
 
Watching with interest.
My daughter pointed out a pretty big anatomical mistake on the original artwork. The anteater has a distinctive mouth, but the tongue is coming out the nose! Never noticed it until she pointed it out.
 
On a side note, Bagman and Tazzmania.....to others you don't see to often. I have Bagman but just a few parts for a Tazzmania.

The one in the back corner is my Minefield project that is next in line after the Bagman and Anteater are done. It's an even lesser known title I think. Have a few other Sterns in the collection that are fully playable.


Watching with interest.
My daughter pointed out a pretty big anatomical mistake on the original artwork. The anteater has a distinctive mouth, but the tongue is coming out the nose! Never noticed it until she pointed it out.

I love it!


--Cabinet is now fully prepared to be primed and that will happen today.

--Paint is next after that... I'm thinking of color matching the Blue from the marquee - http://nsyba.net/mases/Anteater-Marquee.jpg


So the Bezel consists of the Anteater's head in one of the top corners and his tongue creates a maze down the sides of the bezel, swerving across the monitor. It then goes down and continues onto the control panel. The sides of the bezel are littered with some cartoony Critters.

These Stern Cabinets are perfect for connecting Bezel and Control Panel art as it is a smooth transition. (See Amidar picture below)

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Excellent! Interesting how the side art is placed down there - my guess is it's deliberate so it's peeking out from a row of cabs.

Cool project, best of luck with it!
 
UPDATE -

1. Cabinet has been patched up, sanded down, and multiple coats of primer on the sides and front where done. Decided I am going to paint the entire cabinet a solid color. It will be a Red/Orange color that I pulled from part of the Anteater in the marquee. Inspired after looking at the original scramble, how the entire cabinet was yellow. (See the awesome Scramble below... and then my current primed cabinet)

Scramble.jpg

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2. I didn't want to put wheels on the cabinet... and I'm not a fan of the leg levelers... so I just put some wood blocks underneath the cabinet and solidified them to the bottom and sides of the cabinet. The cabinet stands about 1/4 off the floor now.

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3. Control Panel and Bezel artwork is ALMOST complete. I don't want to post the whole thing until the cabinet is done... but here is a glimpse of the updated Bezel artwork.

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4. Pulled out an old Stern control Panel I had. No idea what this generic looking metal Stern panel is... but it will be the new Anteater eventually.

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5. I DID get the side-art re-created... but thanks to awesome user @parkway here on KLOV who just uncovered a NOS Anteater... he will be scanning the original side art and I will reuse that. Here is the thread he recreated.

https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=418323


Christmas break now... but more updates at the end of the month.
 
Took a long break but I'm back at it. I decided to go with an Red/Orange color for the cabinet. The color is the exact same color paint from my Stern Minefield cabinet that I'm working on and it closely resembles that of a dedicated Frenzy. This picture is after the second and final coat of Behr Marquee paint. I'm really happy with the finish.

The Bezel and Control Panel artwork are done. The same picture is a thumbnail image of the printed Bezel. I like how it turned out.

Things I will be doing next...
--Spray painting the coin door, speaker, and marquee misc pieces.
--Put the Control Panel overlay on the metal panel.
--Add some Black T-Molding
--Wire up the game
--Eventually get the original side artwork printed and put on.

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My thoughts exactly. Looking great!
 
More Progress. Almost done

-Coin Door has been cleaned up and installed. (I added a red coin up button on the coin door, visible in the a last picture.)

-I completely re-wired the entire cabinet. Everything inside is brand new. Tried to keep everything really clean on the inside.

-Installed the T-Molding and the Marquee.

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Looks incredible! Well done, man!
 
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