Home Made CPO Part 1

YellowDog

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Donor 2011, 2013
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Well I finally have given up on getting someone to print this so, I'm going to do it myself.

I found a small but complete JPG of a Mystic Marathon CPO. It was a little skewed and not evenly lit, but it was mostly flat, so that is where I started. The first effort was to try and convert it to a vector image. I gave that up after the nervous twitch got too bad.

For the second effort, I carefully deskewed the picture as best I could. Blew it up to 22.875" x 15.75" (the size of a NOS Moon Patrol CPO, which I just happened to have handy). After adjusted the lighting and stretching the edges so that it was square, it was time to try to get rid of the JPG artifacts and smooth the image out.

Original Image:
attachment.php


With a lot of cleanup and a buttload of patience I managed to get it to look halfway decent.

Modified Image:
attachment.php



So after cleaning the picture up, it was time to try printing it. It was too big to print on any of my inkjets in one pass so I decided to print it in three strips. I attached two sheets of paper together to make an 8.5 x 17 inch sheet and did that three times. I told my printer that it was going to print a custom size and then printed the picture three strips; right, left and middle.

With some careful aligning and some tape to hold it together, the final result looks like this:

attachment.php


The flash washed it out, it is actually more colorful than that.

Tomorrow I will see if I can glue it down onto the CP. I've had enough fun for one night...:eek:

ken
 

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What is it printed on?

A high white paper. I have a clear plastic sheet that I will be laminating to the top of it. I was originally hoping to just use it to position the holes for drilling the buttons & joystick while I waited for it to get printed by one of the people that do CPO's. And so far, I have been bugging several of them for months now and gotten squat. Hence the do it myself. It's low tech and it will probably look like it when I'm done, but I can't seem to get any of the control panel printers interested in making a one shot CPO.

<soapbox rant>
If these people are serious about being useful to the arcade community, then they need to start answering their PMs and emails. I understand that this is probably a small part of their overall business, but don't offer a service and then evaporate for months at a time and expect people to be all happy about it. At least read your friggin' email and tell me if you can do it or not. All I want is to get the JPG printed at size and laminated just like you would with any other CPO. I know it's fuzzy and I know it is not perfect. I'll probably finish the vector version in a year or two at the current rate of progress. I'll get it reprinted then. I just want something on the bare wooden CP for now!
</soapbox rant>

ken
 
<soapbox rant>
If these people are serious about being useful to the arcade community, then they need to start answering their PMs and emails. I understand that this is probably a small part of their overall business, but don't offer a service and then evaporate for months at a time and expect people to be all happy about it. At least read your friggin' email and tell me if you can do it or not. All I want is to get the JPG printed at size and laminated just like you would with any other CPO. I know it's fuzzy and I know it is not perfect. I'll probably finish the vector version in a year or two at the current rate of progress. I'll get it reprinted then. I just want something on the bare wooden CP for now!
</soapbox rant>

ken

Looks great Ken! FWIW, I've used online sign companies to print side art before, maybe not a bad choice for your CPO?? http://www.largeformatposters.com/Adhesive-Vinyl-Posters.html Reason being, is that printing IS their business. And for about $50, it's professional and turnaround time is quick.
 
<soapbox rant>
If these people are serious about being useful to the arcade community, then they need to start answering their PMs and emails. I understand that this is probably a small part of their overall business, but don't offer a service and then evaporate for months at a time and expect people to be all happy about it. At least read your friggin' email and tell me if you can do it or not. All I want is to get the JPG printed at size and laminated just like you would with any other CPO. I know it's fuzzy and I know it is not perfect. I'll probably finish the vector version in a year or two at the current rate of progress. I'll get it reprinted then. I just want something on the bare wooden CP for now!
</soapbox rant>

ken[/QUOTE]

maybe your just not asking the right people :D
PM sent
 
I've posted several times that I would be willing to help (I own a sign shop) but no one EVER has responded to me and to be honest it gets old offering your service and then just getting ignored so I quit. If you want help LMK.
 
I've posted several times that I would be willing to help (I own a sign shop) but no one EVER has responded to me and to be honest it gets old offering your service and then just getting ignored so I quit. If you want help LMK.

Rick,

Thanks for the offer. For the record I had not contacted you or Richard (ThisOldGame.com), so you guys were not the targets of my rant. I was talking about some of the more high profile printing operations that either don't answer their email or they do so sporadically.

I completely understand about feeling like you are being ignored when you offer a service. In my case, if I had seen your postings, I would have probably contacted you several months ago. Yes, this has been dragging on that long.

Richard got to me first with a PM. I outlined what I am looking for and if he can help, that would be great. If he can't, trust me a PM will be headed your way.

FWIW, I didn't know (or remember) that Richard did custom one off printing jobs and I have been out on his site numerous times. In fact, I am pretty sure I have bought stuff from his site and it still didn't dawn on me to talk to him until his PM.

I am starting to think a small vendor services area might be a good addition to the KLOV board. Someplace where those of use who have neither the time nor the spare money to build full out web sites could post the services they provide (except Phet & Jow, those services are best left unposted).

ken
 
I am starting to think a small vendor services area might be a good addition to the KLOV board. Someplace where those of use who have neither the time nor the spare money to build full out web sites could post the services they provide (except Phet & Jow, those services are best left unposted).

ken

I like this idea!
 
Looking good so far! Is the original cpo on your Mystic Marathon torn up or missing?

Never had one. I've been looking for parts for 3 years. Found the boards about a year and a half ago. Paid an arm and a leg and had to do some boardwork to bring them back. I originally put them in a WoW cabinet I picked up cheap, but I was looking for a Williams cabinet and found a Moon Patrol cabinet about 5 months ago. Needed a lot of body work and some electrical work, which is all done now. So it just needs art.

I have an original MM marquee that was the one piece of art I walked away from Williams with (everybody on the develpment team got one). As luck would have it, it is Moon Patrol sized. But I have never found a CPO or bezel, so I have to reproduce them from really bad photos. I just got PMed by a guy with both a NOS bezel and a NOS CPO. He won't part with them, but I am going to try and get him to get them scanned so they can be reproed.

There is a operator I know that claims to have some parts, but I haven't been able to get them from him. He found them last year in one of his storage units and put them in his shop to bring down to me and then lost them again. AAaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!

But my Mystic Marathon will live again in all its glory! It may just take longer than I would like...:(

ken
 
Never had one. I've been looking for parts for 3 years. Found the boards about a year and a half ago. Paid an arm and a leg and had to do some boardwork to bring them back. I originally put them in a WoW cabinet I picked up cheap, but I was looking for a Williams cabinet and found a Moon Patrol cabinet about 5 months ago. Needed a lot of body work and some electrical work, which is all done now. So it just needs art.

I have an original MM marquee that was the one piece of art I walked away from Williams with (everybody on the develpment team got one). As luck would have it, it is Moon Patrol sized. But I have never found a CPO or bezel, so I have to reproduce them from really bad photos. I just got PMed by a guy with both a NOS bezel and a NOS CPO. He won't part with them, but I am going to try and get him to get them scanned so they can be reproed.

There is a operator I know that claims to have some parts, but I haven't been able to get them from him. He found them last year in one of his storage units and put them in his shop to bring down to me and then lost them again. AAaaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!

But my Mystic Marathon will live again in all its glory! It may just take longer than I would like...:(

ken

Well hopefully you can get the artwork/parts soon enough... It would be pretty cool to see another rare game like Mystic Marathon back up and looking good! I know its unlikely, but if I happen to come across any parts for the game I will let you know.
 
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