Gorf: my first restoration

nomore25s

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Well, its time to start a thread. I finally have my funky cable to transfer pictures.

A quick note - Gorf was one of my favorites growing up and, bitd, I never found anyone that could touch my scores. Being ~20 years ago, I guessed to :hail:gorfchampion :hail:that I might have had 75K, haha. I doubt he has to worry about me.

Anyway, I picked this one up and of course it didn't work :001_ssad: So it has sat for 4 or 5 months. I was reading through a thread and decided to check the voltages. They were WAY off. When I adjusted them the damn thing fired up :rock:

I was ready to fix the joystick issues and call it "working". Then I came across Spyridon's most excellent restoration thread and my OCD kicked in. So here I am. Damn him :rolleyes:

My purpose is simply to document this process and hopefully inspire someone (like I was inspired). I know I'm going to do some things differently and hopefully they'll help others. The main one being that I know I'm going to roll my paint and not spray - lets hope that works out.

Okay, now that I've used up my smilie limit, on to pictures.

Comments, suggestions, snide remarks are all welcome!
 

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Beginning the cabinet work

I followed Spyridon's restoration advice. I removed everything, labeling and placing things in their own ziplock bag. No need to repeat that part here.

The bottom had the typical lock bar - so I had to fix those holes. I didn't have major cabinetry problems, so I just used Elmer's Wood Filler. My first mistake in this process was to do all that before I stripped the cabinet. I used Citristrip stripping gel (the orange-ish smelling stuff). Thats when Spyridon confirmed for me that the base of Gorf is not painted! No biggie, except that the stripping gel stripped every ounce of crud and grease and oil and dirt off the base! So, if I had not filled the two holes and the 1 or 2 minor nicks, I could have gotten away without repainting the base. Oh well, too late now. You'll understand why I'm semi-kicking myself (remember my OCD?)

Sorry, no pre-shopvac pictures of the inside. I learned I need to do that before it gets in the house. As you can see, I have the base primed, inside and out. I had enough paint in the pan to put a layer inside and the nasty looking stains were irritating me. They didn't smell, but I had to do it.

I used a 6-inch "cabinet" foam roller and some standard Lowe's latex primer. I hit it with some steel wool afterwards.
 

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The top part of the cabinet

I was torn a little on the side art - mine wasn't terrible. It was just bad enough that I didn't want to fool with trying to preserve it by masking it off. Seeing the citristrip in action, I applied it directly to the side art as well as the painted part. I scraped the first side off less than an hour later and had to re-apply. The second side I left on for 3 hours. It scraped off like butter, side art and all. There were a few spots I hit with a little more stripper. I need to do the top and other parts. I'm going to have to mask off the inside art, as its not available anywhere.

Before I sand, I'll have to fix a buckled/separated piece on the side about 2 inches by 5 inches, probably just wood filler after I cut it out.
 

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Lookin' good so far! Where is your bad piece of wood located that you have to fix? If it will interfere with your t-molding, then I suggest using bondo as the wood filler will crack if you need to cut a new slot.
 
Lookin' good so far! Where is your bad piece of wood located that you have to fix? If it will interfere with your t-molding, then I suggest using bondo as the wood filler will crack if you need to cut a new slot.

I crudely circled the area on this attachment. It can't easily be seen unless you're looking for it or run your hand on it. There is a 1 inch square that I can push in slightly, so my guess is there is a void under the first layer and when the first layer got a little wet it started to degrade. I'm far enough from the edge that I don't think it will hurt. I'm going to cut it out tonight and see.
 

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More cabinet prep, misc

Well, the bad spot on the side ended up bigger than I expected, but I think I got it all without compromising the edge. It was only the top layers, maybe 1/10th the thickness of the side. I went ahead and sanded and applied the 2nd layer of filler. While sanding I came across another section towards the bottom. Its running inline with the piece above, so I wonder if it was just a flaw in that piece of wood. The rest inline seems solid.

Ordered sideart from arcadeoverlays today. I have to decide if I am going to try and match original paint or the new sideart color. I'll leave that up to the Mrs. She has no interest in the games, but is very good about making sure something is the right color(s).

Put stripper on the top, should be easy to clean up tomorrow. Then I'll be real close to picking out paint.

Got my order from Bob Roberts today, so I am going to go rebuild the PS. I also ordered the parts (from jameco) to make up a converter for using an ATX just in case.
 

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Slow progress

Okay, sanded and primed the top part of the cabinet. Two spots that were definitely not there before "popped up" (you can see they in the 2nd picture). So I don't know if I'm dealing with a defect in the cabinet, or what. I cut the two spots out and filled.

I noticed some others towards the bottom, but they're not as noticeable.

Next, I need to make a decision about the inner par of the cabinet. The art is not reproduced anywhere, and I noticed (just now) that one piece is missing a chunk. Its 13.5" at the widest, I wonder if some "sticker" sheets ala labels are available. I'm tempted to produce my own with a high resolution scanner and printer/plotter at work.
 

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Inside art/cabinetry

I ended up masking off the inside art. This was after some extensive cleaning. Disgusting, well you decide.

The first paper towels were after I used windex and then switched to 409 - maybe I should have tried bleach. The second set are from the right-hand-side where I started with 409. I sprayed it directly on the art as opposed to the paper towel and then let is soak for 15 seconds. The bottom two are from the black painted part itself.

After I masked it off I used Rustoleum Satin Black (spray can). Its dark here now and the black doesn't show up in the pictures. Maybe next set I'll drag the carcass outside and snap some pictures.

I guess I'm waiting now on sideart to decide whether to match its color or go with the original as much as possible. Sideart will be here this week, hopefully. I'll get started on other stuff.

The difference in colors on the inside-art was amzing after cleaning. The pictures don't do it justice. If it weren't for that torn piece I'd just leave them now that they are fairly bright and colorful.
 

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Glass, plastic cleaning

Boring stuff today, waiting on sideart.

Cleaned all the marquees and bezels. Disgusting, again.

I also sprayed the back door bubble.
 

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Wow, that cleaned up nice
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Various pieces, plus the cleaning evidence....not for the faint of heart

Anyone know how to replace the small foam/rubber pieces attached to the lower marquee? What about the plastic "channel" that goes on the outside edges of the upper marquee?

Pictures attached - as well as the cleaning remnants....
 

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Yep - I didn't know the bottom was "clear" - thought it was painted black!

I am starting to think there was more than just smoke and ozone in/on this machine.

Anyway, I have the AC power harness to clean and thats pretty much it for the dirty/nasty parts. Thank goodness!

Wow, that cleaned up nice
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Stupid paint

Well, I'm bummed. Went and got paint for the bottom part of the cabinet. I think it ended up way too light of a grey. I'm going to let it fully dry and see. My camera and lighting won't do any good to post pictures.

Oh well, while I was at Lowe's I picked up various other things including the paint for the coin door and some dremel bits to start working on the bolts and such. Maybe tomorrow the paint will look better.
 
Paul, its looking really good! Great choice for a game to restore...

Hey let me know when you get the speaker grills, glad someone could put them to use.

75K is an awesome score...not many people can get past 15-25K....
 
Paul, its looking really good! Great choice for a game to restore...

Hey let me know when you get the speaker grills, glad someone could put them to use.

75K is an awesome score...not many people can get past 15-25K....

Thanks John. You know its funny, I have (2) Gorfs and both of mine (and Spyridon's) have the end wire on the PS soldered directly on the PS. Mine look like they melted through the molex connector....

I realized while reading Spyridon's restore thread that my cabinet didn't HAVE speaker grills. No problem, I'll just grab ones off my 2nd cabinet, except it doesn't have speaker grills either - so I've got 2 sets on their way.

Anyway, weird coincidences.....

And of course I say I can get 75K, but until I get it all back together I won't really be sure. I'm going to look pretty bad if I can't post a respectable score after all this.

I should have worked on the joystick before tearing it apart - the few games I played beforehand were handicapped by it trying to go right while centered....hopefully just some cleaning (this thing is a filthy mess).

Oh well, I've mellowed about my paint issue. It is what it is - either it will be fine, or I'll buy some more when I get the blue for the top.

Arcadeoverlays emailed me and say my sideart is shipped.....thats good news.
 
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