Custom Tron Cabaret Restore and Modification

xstoys

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After seeing so many wonderful restorations, I was inspired to take a shot at doing one. This is my first real thread of any significance, so please bear with me.

Part 1:

I always loved Tron, even before the recent movie; and recall all the fond memories of playing it in the arcade. So, although, it's not my first time owing an arcade machine, it is my first restoration. I see many full size upright Tron's get restored and they look great, but I had an opportunity to pick up a cabaret version of Tron, but it needed a lot of work. It played alright, but visually it bothered me. When I got it, the whole game was patched pretty roughly and spray painted black over the existing wood grain vinyl. The cabinet was really watered damaged around the bottom. 3 out of the 4 bottom sides were non existent because water damage had rotted away the wood. The back side was saved because of a metal right angle plate that was still there. There were no feet on the game and was obvious that it had been through rough times. When I first examined the cabinet wood, I thought it was unusual to have 1" thick particle board. After closer inspection, the wood wasn't originally 1" thick, the water damage had swelled the wood to 1" from 3/4". This was mostly on the entire backboard & lower half of the cabinet. I literally had to build the lower 2" - 4" of the cabinet from nothing but splintered rotted wood; and had to rebuild all the right angles on the bottom. One funny thing happened... to make it easier to move, I added castors to the bottom of the cabinet. One day while moving it outside to sand, one of the wheels fell off, but the wood chunk was still attached to the fallen wheel with screws still in it. The bottom was literally missing @ 30% of the wood & the rest rotted.

A friend asked me, instead going through the headache of fixing it, wouldn't it be easier to just cut new wood & build a new cabinet. I was determined to bring this old game back to it's original glory. I explained to my friend, it was like restoring a classic car... You could either restore it from the ground up or go buy a replica kit car; it's just not the same. My original thought was to restore it with the wood grain vinyl, but later thought I had an opportunity to do something really special; so I decided to do something really custom. I wanted this thing as perfect and unique as I could make it. I wanted every pot hole & knick fixed to perfection. When I started, I didn't know it would take me over 3 1/2 months and @ 100+ hours. Granted I only worked on it on weekends, it was torture & endless patching of bondo, wood filler, and sanding. It just never seemed good enough for me, I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist.

So here are some pics of the sanding & patching phase.
 

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Part 2:

Ok, after weeks of sanding, filling holes, rebuilding edges, etc, it was finally time to primer & paint. This was another nightmare. The primer wasn't bad, but when it came to paint, I had all kinds of headaches. I used several cans Rustoleum automotive primer & that went fine. I thought the surfaced looked great & I was ready to paint. I have read the various techniques here on the boards from spray paint, to rolling, to shooting from a gun. I knew spray paint would not cover this large surface nicely, so that was a no go. I didn't have a gun and compressor handy so I figured I'd try the rolling method. I heard some others here have had good results. I went and got the Rustoleum satin black wall paint. The first coat actually wasn't bad. Then the bugs started landing on it. Then I was getting irritated trying to fix the bug landings. It seemed you could control the texture by controlling your application pressure on the roller. The small texture didn't bother me that much. It looked like formica; other furniture looked like this, so why not. I gave that 2 days to dry. I thought I could just wet sand it out. Tried that, definitely not working for me... it was a giant mess, so I power sanded it all down to primer again & repainted it again. STILL NO GOOD... damn bugs. I stopped working on the game at that point & went straight to the computer & ordered the black vinyl form Rich @ ThisOldGame. Power sanded everything off again in preparation for the black vinyl. Now the wait for the vinyl to come. I want "near" perfection!!!
 

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Part 3:

Ok, now onto the vinyl... This was my first experience applying vinyl that ran the length of the cabinet. It took myself & the help of 2 friends to get the vinyl down as smooth as possible. I can't say it's perfect, but it's not bad. I re-vinyled the top, both sides and the front. I sprayed painted the edges satin black for the black vinyl to blend into. It was a nice combination and clean blend. I'm finally satisfied.

After the vinyl was applied to satisfaction, I cut a new back board & painted it satin black. I then attacked the vinyl side art. I had done a Photoshop mock up in scale of cabinet & graphics to design my final look. I had a few different options, & my friends voted for the one they liked best. I cut up the OG Tron side art using parts that I thought were appropriate. I also had to cut up the individual T, R, O, N letters to recreate the logo in the location I wanted.

Now I had the visual look I wanted. Now was the time to do the special mods to my Tron arcade machine. The one big thing the cabaret Tron arcade machine lacked was the UV lighted joystick. Unlike the full size upright, there was no black light in the cabaret. I had read the threads about how to possibly light up the Tron cabaret joystick, but I have personally never seen one done. Sure, UV LEDs, but what kind & where would I get the parts & how would I have to modify the joystick for the lights to fit & have the effect I wanted. I went on the search for LEDs. I found some flexible groups of UV LEDs I could use & took a chance & bought a bunch. These were already 12V+ LEDs so it was a straight hook up. Gamble paid off! I couldn't do the soft glow, but these didn't look bad either. I finished the game off with an homage to Discs of Tron with the "light blue" T-Molding and the cool Tron arcade toppers. I just need to get a black light to light the toppers and that will be a wrap!

I hope you enjoyed my journey! Big thanks to all the board members for all the posted knowledge. I couldn't have done it without reading about everyone else's arcade restoration adventures.
 

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That turned out really nice. I would say it looks much better the the original.

Now you need to get started on the poor old Punch Out/Street Fighter in the background.....:D
 
So what is the story on the TRON parts? Where did they come from?
Like to here more about that and how you got the parts running.
 
I was fortunate that my cabaret was still in working condition when I got it & just needed some tweeking & clean up on the inside. The outside went through the major make over.
I did purchase a new joystick, CPO, kick panel, & graphics.
 
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