Applying a CPO: A beginner's retrospective

larrylemming

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I've been (very slowly) working on restoring a Nintendo Vs. Dualsystem upright. When I got it, it had been converted to a Cyberball 2084 -- although that part wasn't that bad; the kit was actually designed for the cabinet, so a lot of the original parts were still there.

The control panels were original to the machine, but they had the Cyberball art applied right over the top of the original Nintendo art. They also bolted a piece of plexiglass to the top of the whole thing (I'm thinking so people didn't punch through the now unused button holes). I tried my hardest to save the Nintendo art, but after a half hour of frustrated careful scraping, the Nintendo art had too much collateral damage to be salvageable. I stripped the panels down to bare metal and filled in the holes with bondo. (CPO glue is annoying as hell to remove; I ended up using a wire brush in the chuck of my drill.)

Luckily, there was a guy on eBay selling damaged NOS Dualsystem CPO's, which I purchased, scanned, and vectorized. I had Arcadeoverlays produce me a brand new pair of inkjet-printed CPO's (although they look so nice and crisp, I don't think you could tell the difference), color-matched to the NOS ones.

When I got them, the CPO's did not have button holes pre-cut, and they were oversized so that they would fit either panel. I tried to carefully cut the button holes before I applied them, hoping I could use a button to keep it aligned properly, but I found a better way.

My process is as follows:
1. Carefully score the backing on the CPO, roughly in the center (the long way).
2. Using a pair of small spring clamps, clamp the CPO to the panel.
3. Hold the panel up to a light source and line up the CPO to the proper button positions.
4. Remove 1/2 of the backing and stick the CPO down. Some people say to use a heat gun at the bend; I didn't bother and it came out fine. I did notice, however, that you need to apply pressure for a minute or so before the adhesive really sticks well.
5. Remove the other 1/2 of the backing and repeat.
6. Trim any excess and cut the button holes with an Exacto blade.

And they turned out great! Alignment isn't perfect, but is pretty good, within a mm I'd say. The NOS pair I got had die-cut button holes that were off by about the same amount -- from the factory! So I'm going to say that mine is fine.

I also had some issues getting the first one to stick around the bend, but I think a little superglue should fix that. Packing tape if all else fails. (Even if I do nothing, you'll never see it.) Second one stuck perfectly.

No, I'm not using Nintendo pushbuttons. Yes, I widened the button holes so that the Happ buttons would fit. Half of the holes were already widened (assumably by whoever did the conversion before). All the other controls are original.
 

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