Bubbles is (almost) in the House

YellowDog

In Memoriam

Donor 2011, 2013
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Thanks to Komodo, a few months ago I took delivery of a Bubbles cabinet. That is about all you can say for it. It was in pretty rough shape.

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On the plus side, as part of the deal he kicked in a NOS Bubbles CPO and a mint Bubbles bezel. And the artwork, which doesn't show in this pic, was not too badly beaten up.

While not being able to do anything over the summer was killing me, the return of cooler weather the last two weekend finally allowed me to return to working on it.

This is the result:

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Maybe not perfect, but certainly presentable. Tomorrow when the wife's car is out of the way, Bubbles will be moved into the living room until the Houston Arcade Expo, where it will make its public debut.

Next project....

ken
 
WOW.

Do you have the entire restoration posted somewhere on a site to see?
 
WOW.

Do you have the entire restoration posted somewhere on a site to see?

No. I started taking pictures and then forgot, then took some more, then got too busy. So it is a very spotty record of the restore.

Basically it entailed:
(1) gutting what was left in the cabinet.
(2) stripping the control panel
(3) bondo & redrilling the holes in the control panel
(4) getting a new power brick (well OK, not new, just complete)
(5) installing a new speaker
(6) building a complete new game wiring harness (except for the wire from the speaker)
(7) rebuilding a power supply board
(8) mounting the board set and attaching the new wiring harness
(9) completely rebuilding the coin door (which now works 100%. Coin mechs, lights and coin lockout solenoids all work correctly)
(10) wiring the control panel (new leaf switches, NOS Chinese knockoff 8 way Wico, plus I added lighted blue switches (not factory, but cool))
(11) new ballast, starter and fluorescent light (15" same as factory)
(12) new black paint on front
(13) new locks on coin door and coin box door
(14) install bezel and marquee
(15) NOS CPO on control panel
(16) install blue ball 4" Wico stick
(17) install rebuilt G07 monitor (thanks Mod!)

Still to do:
(1) new top back door (cut, just need to drill lock hole, paint black and istall lock)
(2) rebuild sound card to try and get rid of the hum (it's not bad, it just annoys me)
(3) eventually I'll put new t-molding on it. The original only has a few nicks in it, so it will do for now.
(4) Hot glue the coin tubes down to make sure they stay down.
(5) mount the coin box advance switch and the memory protect switches.
(6) get a cover plate for the speaker (the mesh has been punched out)

The only thing I didn't have to do to this one was fix water damage on the bottom.

The end result definitely justified the time and energy. The next project will be the Defender, I think. Then I'll have a Wicked Wall o' Williams cabs:
Moon Patrol,
Defender (coming soon),
Stargate,
Robotron,
Joust (mechanical joysticks),
Joust (optical joysticks),
Joust cocktail (in the garage waiting for some loving),
Bubbles,
Mystic Marathon, and
JROK Multi-Williams.

I'll just be missing a Sinistar (got the boards, just need a cabinet), Make Trax, Joust 2 (got the boards), Turkey Shoot (fat chance :(), Smash TV (got the boards) and Blaster. I could live without Turkey Shoot and Blaster, but I would love to get a Varkon and a Joust pin (yeah right, once I win the lottery :D).

ken
 
Ken,
that is bad ass! Great job! I'm jealous. I gotta get me a bubbles one of these days, not too common.

Finding a Bubbles cabinet is hard to do. I got this one from Komodo (purely by chance). He is in the Dallas/Fort Worth area about a 3-1/2 to 4 hour drive each way from Houston. Fortunately, we have a friend that makes some side money hauling games around Texas and he had a load headed down at the right time, so the charge was less than gas money for borrowing my buddies pickup truck would have cost me.

The two previous ones were so outlandishly priced I asked the one guy if he slipped a decimal place (he wanted $700 for a gutted cabinet). His reply was that I was too late anyway, he just sold it for full price...!?! :eek:

You just got to be patient and jump when the opportunity arises.

ken
 
great work, the game looks good and its a classic you don't see too often. its nice to see it brought back to life again.
 
Looks great, Ken. I want to see a good "Williams Wall" picture when you are done :)

I'll try and get some decent pictures at the Houston Arcade Expo. I already have commitments for other people to bring their Sinistar and Smash TV games. I'm working on a Joust 2 and a Make Trax to fill in some of the other holes. At this point no luck in finding a working Blaster or a Turkey Shoot in Houston :(. But there will be a Varkon & a Joust pin :D. Now if I can just sneak those out with all my stuff at load out.....;) (I'm just kidding Keith if you see this).

I did post pictures of last year's expo with the smaller Wall o' Williams (Joust, Robotron, Moon Patrol and Mystic Marathon).

ken
 
..

Looks great! Considering what it looked like originally.
Im glad you took the restoration route vs multi williams.

I picked up several black wms cabinet recently, but Im horrible at removing the black paint and preserving the original art underneath.

Jon
 
Im glad you took the restoration route vs multi williams.

I picked up several black wms cabinet recently, but Im horrible at removing the black paint and preserving the original art underneath.

Jon

Hi Jon,

Thanks, I already have a multi-Williams (I converted a second Stargate) but I really wanted a Bubbles since they didn't make that many of them and not a lot have survived.

I have had really mixed results with paint and Williams cabinets. The best luck I have had was with heat. I have a Defender in storage and I put it out so I could move some other cabinets on a hot day. When I was ready to move it back in, I saw the paint had curled a little and I was able to peel big chunks off from the side in the sun. I imagine a heat gun properly applied would work just a well.

I have had no success in saving the artwork with chemical strippers. Anything that would take the paint off inevitably took the Williams artwork off as well.

The only 3 that I have been able to save so far have been the Bubbles (it came that way), a Stargate and a Joust that had laminate put on the sides. I was able to peel the laminate off and then use GoofOff to dissolve the laminate glue still stuck to the artwork.

The Defender looks to be the 4th and that will depend on whether a heat gun will take the last of the paint off (it looks like the hot summer days are over and I don't wan to wait til next year to get the rest of the paint off...:) ).

ken
 
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