Donkey Kong

Ghostlyguy

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Donor 2013
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Part 1/2

I don't think I ever document the stuff I work on, enough, to post a before and after. But it's fun seeing the progress, so I might do more of these. -shrug-

I never wanted to own a DK, but I got stuck with one. Thankfully it only took 3 weeks of work to get it into presentable condition while working on the DKJR in parallel & was able to bring them to Zapcon.

Pretty much every aesthetic aspect of the cabinet was messed up; T-Molding was missing chunks, Marquee was drilled, CPO cracked, Instruction sticker above CPO was water damaged, Side art was torn on both sides, cabinet had been repainted & bondo'd already (very poorly), missing coin door mechs & faceplates, coin door frame was so messed up it was nearly impossible to open, backdoor was a wreck, micro switches were dead.

Pulled about 3lbs of un-needed screws and bolts from the cabinet, that were used for poorly thought out repairs by previous owners.

Rebuilt that bizarre[*] pop-rivet coin door so it would actually open, bondo'd, sanded, spray painted the blue using latex. (you can't get oil anymore!), painted the black with 2X rattle-can.

[*] Bizarre in the sense that it was so difficult to assemble and was overly complex compared to other nintendo doors. It's was cool the see the pop rivet design though. Don't see that often.

The pictures below make the cabinet look nicer than it really was.

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A small sample of the bondo work done by a previous owner. Bondo wasn't mixed well and failed to completely fill in any of the forty something holes in the cabinet. They clearly were frustrated and gave up
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Couldn't save the marquee. I tried my best to glue back down the lifted edges of the instruction sticker and coat it with semi-gloss.

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They drilled a hole through just about everything on this cabinet. They drilled half a hole through the SN plate for some bizarre vertical back-door locking bar. Beyond me why they didn't just move the drill down a half inch lower to make drilling easier. Someone needs to explain to me why they also installed a piece of plastic to "protect" it. - facepalm -

Wood below the backdoor had about a little less than half of the top layer missing and someone tried using about 12 screws to keep what was remaining, attached.

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Tons more holes drilled though the control panel face board. Thankfully the speaker teeth weren't knocked out.
 
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Part 2/2

I know DK isn't the most exciting restore, there is relatively a lot of them, but I had enough pictures of this one to post up about it.


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Thankfully I took 1 picture (and only 1 sadly, but it's a start of me getting better at this whole documenting thing) of the in-between process. The black is already painted, game is (almost) ready for latex spray. You can see the LED light fixture a previous owner installed. Not a big fan of LED, but I didn't have a spare fixture so I left it in. Was still in the process of fixing the coin door. Instruction sticker was glued down & clear coated.

I had to remove the Coin Sticker on the faceplate so it could be properly sanded smooth. I believe it was a repro anyways. I gave the new owner an uninstalled coin sticker set that he could put where he wants (if at all, some people don't like them which is fine).

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Had to fix the wooden box that holds the wooden coin box. Was painted. The back door wood has all been repaired.

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Put back the old SN plate. :-/ It's so clean on the back now. I was tired of getting splinters from all that dry wood!


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I personally prefer loops on the coin door, so that's what was installed.

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First time using True-Flat T-molding. At first I thought it was dumb, but after working with it, I decided I really like it.
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The 'restore' (or I guess it's better to call it a fix up) is not perfect. Certainly better ones out there. (I'm probably just being to hard on myself) However, I'd still be very satisfied with how it came out if I could have kept it. I miss the game a bit because the hours of work that went into it (& that flat t-molding), but I'm happy it's now owned by someone who will play it.

First time using latex. Learned a lot from this experience, want to apply lessons learned to the next game project.
 
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damn i missed this, stunning restore OP. i'd have believed this was a repro it's so clean, the before-after really shows the work



never too many DK restores. again, massive ups, it's great to see another DK live on
Thanks for the kind words. Hope to post more pictures of other projects I am working on.
 
I can't believe how crisp the paint is, a beautiful job. How did you spray the latex?

Thanks. Latex is a pain in the butt to spray. Overall, long-term, it's better to learn how to use; as it's easier to clean latex from the sprayer, better for the environment, less toxic particles/smell, etc. However, it is hard to match the superior smoothness of oil based paint.

Used a GRACO airless sprayer (picture of specific model below); it has better capability to atomize the latex paint, when compared to a Wagner Control Painter. Followed instructions that came in the box, for the spray technique.

Mixed into fresh/new latex paint: 6-oz per 1-quart of Floetrol; thins the paint for a smoother finish. The Floetrol bottle instructions recommend between 4-8oz.



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