Exidy Cheyenne Restoration! [PICTURE HEAVY!]

jimbodeanny

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 24, 2004
Messages
4,529
Reaction score
875
About two and a half years ago, I was lucky enough to pick up this Cheyenne from a little old lady who had this in her basement for the last 30+ years. Now (finally) I was able to get around to restoring this thing. I've been very excited to do this restoration. I love the theme of this game. It was a very fun project to tackle, especially since I've never dealt with an Exidy game (or any gun game) before.







 
Last edited:
Since the game was already fully working, I decided to first strip the cabinet and get the cosmetics going. The vinyl was a bit stubborn, but not nearly as bad as the CPO – that was a real bitch to get off. After using a combination of paint stripper and a LOT of elbow grease, I finally got the CPO off and the cabinet stripped. (Note that the black on top corner on the right side was from someone who had painted it black after trying to repair the broken corner, and did a terrible job.)






The cabinet needed some only some minor bondo work on the sides, but the control panel was really chewed up and needed serious attention. The broken corner also needed to be addressed.



This is the result after the bondo and a bit of sanding.



Control panel after lots of bondo work.




Here's the fixed corner. The person that previously tried to repair it did a terrible job. The bondo wasn't sanded flush so it stuck out and no t-molding slot was cut. They also used a ton of nails/screws as rebar that only added to the mess.

 
Last edited:
After talking to a few people, I decided to use polyurethane on the wood for a nice smooth, glossy surface for the new vinyl to adhere to. This was the first time I had ever dealt with something like this. It definitely was a learning experience, getting the technique right with laying it on. I ended up laying four coats on per side. It worked out great, but waiting between coats was a pain as patience isn't my strong suit. Still, I was very happy with the end result.



Prepping the control panel for the polyurethane. Working on this was probably the biggest challenge of the entire project since the panel isn't made to be removed.



While I waited for the coats of polyurethane to dry on the control panel, I figured it was a good time to clean the inside of the cabinet, which was filthy. Not only was it dusty and gross from sitting in a basement, but it also had plenty of sanding dust and sawdust I needed to clean up.









After some serious TLC...





 
Last edited:
After all of the waiting, I was finally able to apply the vinyl. Thanks to my fellow MN buddy, Chris (chris25810), I went with the fine-textured black pica vinyl. It's really nice and I like the texture. It's not as rugged as the morocco, but the texture is very nice and looks great on these cabinets. I was impressed with how well the vinyl stuck to the polyurethane. It went on really well.




I also applied it to the melamine on the kickplate to match the rest. I think it turned out pretty slick.






 
Last edited:
My CPO and side art arrived from Rich at ThisOldGame and looked awesome on the control panel. Great quality as always. Very sharp.





Side art applied...


 
Last edited:
I went ahead and did a tube swap on the 4900 that was in there. The burn wasn't too bad, but enough to bother me. I got extremely lucky in finding a perfect donor for it. It barely required any adjustment – just a little convergence strips for the corners and a little color/size adjustments to my liking. It's SO nice to have a burn free tube in there!


Here's the TV I used...







TA-DA! (and no I didn't swap the yoke)




(obviously the image is flipped because there's to mirror, but you get the idea)


 
Last edited:
I had all of the metal pieces powdercoated at the local shop. I'm always impressed with what a difference it makes.






 
Last edited:
My old pivot pin that was holding the gun in place, was a bit warped and very worn, much like an old trackball roller. Although it worked, I wanted to see if I could have a new one made so I reached out to a bunch of machine shops and eventually found one that fit the bill. Since I was looking for a new pin, I figured at least a couple other people would be interested in one as well. So I had a run of 34 done and sold all but two (for myself) to other KLOVers, which I thought was pretty cool.

Here's a comparison of my original (top) and the new pin (bottom)


New pins!



Installed and perfectly fit new pin.




For anyone interested, here's my thread that explains in detail what the pivot pin does: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=403559
And for anyone interested in a new pivot pin, there's a 2nd run interest thread here: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=405333
 
Last edited:
Now that the pivot pin dilemma was taken care, it was time to address the remaining artwork…the marquee and bezel. For the marquee, my original seemed pretty nice, but since they're relatively easy to come by, I picked up two more for pretty cheap to compare with my original. One of them looked identical to mine (color-wise), but the other looked far more vibrant and less faded so I decided to use that one.

The three marquees. My original is the middle one. The one on the bottom is the one I decided to use.




The last piece of artwork I was missing was a bezel. My game was missing the original bezel and instead just had a piece of plexiglass in its place that had black paint on the top & bottom to block light spill from the marquee. I did a little research and was surprised that so many Cheyennes are missing the original bezels. Maybe they break easily? In any event, I was even more surprised to find that nobody reproduces these! I was lucky enough to find an original bezel (thanks humdinger!) I sent it off to Rich at ThisOldGame to have it reproed. He did an amazing job!



Comparison of the repro (right) with the original (left.)
 
Last edited:
Now that the art was in order, the last piece of the puzzle was the gun. The gun that was on my game was the common, black synthetic stock rugged gun that most Cheyennes have on them. To my understanding, they were used as replacements to the original wood stock guns that couldn't take the abuse and would break.


While that makes sense and I understand that reasoning, it's just ashame because this game and theme SCREAMS a wood stock rifle! Well, last Christmas I received quite possibly THE best gift ever from THE best girlfriend ever. She went out of her way to buy one of the very few wood stock guns from fellow KLOVer LUCKYMAN. This gun is BEAUTIFUL and really completes the game. I was completely blown away when I received it.
 
Last edited:
After throwing on the marquee, bezel and gun, we have ourselves a complete and restored Cheyenne! I'm super pleased with this game and LOVE the theme! Such a fun game to have!














 
Last edited:
Restoration videos to follow once I have time to edit them. Thanks for suffering through my "look at me" restore thread. :D
 
Last edited:
Dude, that looks amazing! I would've been inclined to go with laminate instead of vinyl, but you did a helluva job. I'm sure you're on the lookout for a Collex'n Multi!

PALE FACE!
 
Awesome work man! I just picked up an unrestored Cheyenne and you've set the bar that I'm going to shoot for :D
 
d1Wiflbl.gif
 
Dude, that looks amazing! I would've been inclined to go with laminate instead of vinyl, but you did a helluva job. I'm sure you're on the lookout for a Collex'n Multi!

PALE FACE!

Thanks! I actually thought of laminate but with the textured vinyl on top, I didn't want to have to recut the t-molding slot and risk it being too thick. The vinyl is 8mil so it does add some thickness. But believe me...I LOVE laminate and use it as much as I can!

Awesome work man! I just picked up an unrestored Cheyenne and you've set the bar that I'm going to shoot for :D

Very nice... very nice indeed.


Thanks guys!
 
Glad the gun made it in one piece.... that wood stock is NOS.....I assume Carrie is your girlfriend?? Lol anyways looks great man... good job

Your deductions serve you well ;)

The gun is amazing! Not to step on your KLOV name...but I'm pretty damn lucky!
 
Back
Top Bottom