Elevator Action restore

I covered most of the cabinet in minwax wood hardener. the corner were pretty weak and seemed to have stiffened up some, but not like I had anticipated. I think it will be ok though.
 

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After the wood hardener cured, I went directly to bondo. I didn't sand the wood hardener because I didn't want the dust in the scratches that the cab had. And it had a good amount!
 

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sanded bondo, and now you can really see how many scratches there were! I also went around all the edges of the cab with bondo to help give it a little more strength. I think it worked great!
 

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bondo'd and sanded the 3 big divits where the washers from the control panel had destroyed. Inside the cab, sanded, primed with kilz oil based spray paint and painted flat black. There is absolutely no mouse smell, and It looks great! Very happy with the results so far!
 

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New parts are starting to come in!

Arcade shop power converter, T-moulding, filterboard, buttons, and multi taito kit. Waiting on the rest of the goodies which should be here soon!
On order:

Coin bucket,
correct joystick (went with a short skinny 8 way wico for the multi kit)
new glass bezel and marquee (from T.O.G)
stencils from gamestencils.com

Still more parts to locate, but im getting there!
 

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I fully intend to. Haveta sand the paint under them and polish the bolts before i put them back in. Gonna take out 2 at a time, sand, polish, then put back in . Dont want to disassemble the entire cab at once.
 
your making fast progress. I am curious on the monitor frame mount.

Your EA cab looks like it was originally an Alpine ski and has angle iron mount (Usually found in Vertical Taito's I thought?) but is turn horz for EA. I guess the holes line up so you can put a bolt simultaneously through mount and cabinet rail/bracket? Usually found in Vertical Taito's I thought?? but glad to see they can be use here.

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I guess the yellow circle bolt goes through the cabinet rail whether vertical or horizontal and the red line represents the bolt you need to move if going to vertical, otherwise the nut will rest on top of the rail. Sorry for hijack but I wasn't sure if all bolts needed to be in or not so this definitely helps...I think


Your donor cab is an alpine ski but has the wire form monitor mount turned vertical. These seem a bit easier to put either vertical or horizontal. I will edit pic as I am trying to figure this out for a zoo keeper.
 

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Originally the EA was an alpine ski. Im not too sure on rotating. I know both mounts are able to be rotated. Im not sure if you rotate the entire mounting bracket, or if you rotate the tube inside the bracket.
 
put in a good 20+ hours this weekend, shes coming along. finished up bondoing new corners. I cut the t-moulding channel back out before the bondo dried, this saved me from routering it out later.
 

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Went to Sherwin Williams for paint (they also had a 30% off sale! WooHoo!) painted with oil based primer and hvlp gun.
 

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first coat of black. Looks good, but up close it definitely needs a second coat. In bright light you can see a couple spots of primer that didn't get covered completely. After the second coat of black I will be applying the front stencil. I read a long restoration of a taito cab, and it was suggested to apply the stencil, and shoot the edges of the stencil with black (or whatever color you are covering to seal the edges before painting your next color. I think this is the route im gonna take to try and avoid the paint bleeding under the stencil.

(pardon the photogenic finger that just HAD to be in the pic):rolleyes:
 

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When I couldn't paint, I was working on all the other parts. Control panel is finished and wired correctly with the right connectors. I bought a complete harness to redo the hacked mess that was originally in there. The main cabinet wiring harness was perfect, but the filter board to pcb harness was hacked badly for another game. I thought I could rewire it, but its too far gone. But, Id like to give a big shout out to Taito Master Joseph77 for swooping in and selling me a new pcb harness! (along with all the other parts he has recreated.) Joe is an awesome asset to the community and his parts are truly top notch! The control panel I built for this game is one of his, and as you can see its flawless! I plan on buying a few more bits and pieces as the restoration continues.
 

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Remember that NASTY, filthy, rusty, mouse skeleton marquee fixture? It looks a bit better now! The lamp holders were soaked in rust remover from home depot (prolly the same thing as evaporust) results were AMAZING! Ive been soaking all kinds of bits and pieces in it since the lamp holders came out looking pretty good compared to what they were. They still have pitting, but im happy to be able to use original parts. The outer fixture I sand blasted, primered and painted with appliance epoxy paint. I did the first coat of paint and it was looking good, but I decided to do a second coat, and lightly sanded the first coat. I learned the hard way. DO NOT sand epoxy paint for a second coat! It cracked and bubbled and looked like hell. I had to take it back to bare metal and start over. Let me tell you, epoxy paint is NOT easy to remove! My sand blaster didn't want to even think about removing it in a timely manner, so I resorted to scuffing it up with sand paper and dumping naptha on it, and then using a heat gun to get it good and sticky and scraping it off with a paint scraper. I came out good the second time around.
Then I dug through my box of long dead, hacked and incomplete wiring harnesses and found the closest color match I could find for wiring the individual lamp sockets. Turned out pretty decent. It took about an hour and a half to cut, strip, and solder all of them together. Going to get new screws to mount them.
I also finished the coin door. Outside looks good (no pics of it yet) not too sure of the inside yet. It just doesn't have that clean look to it. There is minor corrosion o some of the guts. I haven't decided if im going to srip the guts out of it and try to scrub them or just let it go. Ill save that decision for last after everything else is one.
 

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I'm looking forward to the stencil work. I've been watching YouTube restoration videos and it seems like every time they peel the stencil off, it takes some of the paint with it. They also say there's arguments about wether or not to let the paint dry before removing the stencil (to keep the edge lines smooth instead of peeling/chipping.)

All of them used water based paints, though. I always wondered if oil based paints would make any difference.
 
I'm looking forward to the stencil work. I've been watching YouTube restoration videos and it seems like every time they peel the stencil off, it takes some of the paint with it. They also say there's arguments about wether or not to let the paint dry before removing the stencil (to keep the edge lines smooth instead of peeling/chipping.)

All of them used water based paints, though. I always wondered if oil based paints would make any difference.

It makes a huge difference. Latex will have much more of a tendency to tear like a thin sheet of plastic or rubber as you pull the stencil. I think you'd have to pull it wet. For many reasons, I wouldn't consider using latex paint for stencils. I can say I've done a stencil job with latex, then sanded the cabinet back down and re-bought the stencils. Oil based or lacquer is much more forgiving with stencil pulling/paint tearing.
 
I bought a set of Joust stencils, but I've been hesitant to use them. I've thought about using them to cut out a cardboard stencil instead of applying it directly to the cab. Or maybe taking a vector to a shop and having it CNCed out of some thin acrylic plastic.

Thinking just now more about using a plastic stencil, I might just give that a go instead when I stencil my Joust. I could then just clean it and give it to someone else to use. :)
 
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