Magic sword to Tapper/RB Tapper Restoration!

dethfactor

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So last year I picked up a bunch of cabs off of Pepelapew and some of them were conversions. One such a conversion was a Magic Sword with wood laminate side art in a Bally cab. At the time I thought it was a Rootbeer tapper and so I managed to snag a cheap PCB set on feebay and had them fixed by CDJump. I also ended up picking up a spy hunter harness and a RB tapper control panel from Chips4Sale. Recently I finally decided to pull the laminate, it was revealed to be a Bud Tapper with a modified control panel.

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So where I sit I have the makings of putting together a root beer tapper or a tapper cab. The tapper will cost considerably more in art so I'm not sure what to do. Especially since I already have a RB tapper PCB and CP. It looks like they shaved down the wood near the control panel a bit and drilled doll rods into it to get the wood in place so I'm going to need to do some woodwork in that section anyhow. So the question is the difference between the tapper and RB tapper a matter of ROMS? and if not does anyone have a working Bud Tapper PCB they'd like to trade? and lastly which one should I go ahead with considering I'd need the cup holders, rail and all the art for it?

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Rootbeer Tapper & Bud Tapper are just rom swaps. I don't think anyone makes art for Rootbeer Tapper so I think your best bet is making it a Bud Tapper. You can get the rail from QA and I have a pair of cup holders I can sell or trade you. I think the bezel & marquee are in the works of being reproed, but not 100% sure on that.
 
Rootbeer Tapper & Bud Tapper are just rom swaps. I don't think anyone makes art for Rootbeer Tapper so I think your best bet is making it a Bud Tapper. You can get the rail from QA and I have a pair of cup holders I can sell or trade you. I think the bezel & marquee are in the works of being reproed, but not 100% sure on that.

After a little more research, it seems that my RB tapper CP is wider than the original tapper CP so I'd have to hack my CP in order to get it to fit between the two cup holders. Also, I've seen RB tapper marquee art files floating around for free so I can have a repro made for marquee and I think Rich at ToG has the sideart for it.
 
He may have Root Beer Tapper in the works for all I know, but Rich only has Bud Tapper and Timber on his website.

http://www.thisoldgame.com/products...et?PHPSESSID=092d0df6bc34ae26ea35c32d4f23861e

I had emailed him a while back and he said he had the Rootbeer art and he's eventually going to run it.

I decided to stick with Rootbeer as I'd have to hack up my control panel, etc in order to get it to work with the cup holders, let alone get roms, all new art and basically taking on $800+ on a machine I got about $400 in already to only come out about even or possibly behind some. I need the marquee and bezel and the art from rich and I'd be good to go. Also need an MCR sound amp if anyone has one.
 
I think I bought a spare MCR sound amp when i got my kickman, you can have it for what I paid, $10 shppd if you want it, I never tested it...
 
I have a root beer tapper marquee, but I would say build back to tapper. It may cost more in parts, but it will also be worth 25% to 50% more..

Or you can go custom Bud tapper overlay and leave the beer holders off..

Or you can go timber.
 
Update:

So I managed to get a trashed tapper control panel, power brick, wiring, cup holders and a rail for super good price. So I'm going to probably repair the CP and transfer the RB tapper panel controls over with a new CP overlay. I now need to figure out what ROMs I need to swap to make it a regular Tapper.

Off to the races! I'll post pics of everything as they start coming together.
 
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Update 2/1/12:

Pulled apart the converted control panel and am getting ready to fill the holes. I'm wondering if I should cut slugs and weld slugs to fill the holes? or bondo the holes in? Suggestion from the pros?

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My next step is to sandblast the glue off this damn thing and plug 'er up. And work on these nasty things:

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Whats your plan with the cupholders?

I was planning on sandblasting mine and using some gold Rustoleum paint that another member used.
 
Whats your plan with the cupholders?

I was planning on sandblasting mine and using some gold Rustoleum paint that another member used.

Already have the paint but I'm also pricing what it'd cost to powder coat them, sorta like how they turned out in krackjerjac's thread.
 
I was getting ready to patch some holes in one of my CPs, and asked some of the guys who have done this before... they suggested to make sure if you go the welding route to only spot-weld the patches. Otherwise it could warp the CP.
 
Anyone's input on the cp patch job?

Yes, if welding in, small spot welds slowly around the patch. The panel will warp otherwise. Take your time. I had my brother patch a hole in my Pacman panel and he took his time (he is an autobody paint and repair guy) and it still warped a little.

As far as using Bondo, if you are doing that I don't believe that just Bondo will hold up. You should do something along the lines of what Prok did here:http://www.rgvac.com/blog/control-panel-restoration/

The only problem that I see with doing this is that the little pieces underneath may get in the way of mounting the joysticks.
 
Those control panels are fairly easy to reproduce. I made a couple PAC man panels to replace the rusty ones I had. The only tricky part is getting the bends 100% perfect. With a little practice they come out great. Just need a brake to bend the metal. I buy the sheets in 4x8 sections.

A lot easier than trying to patch all those holes.
 
So the CP has been welded whole again:

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Removed the other side and front of laminate and pulled the extra wood fill on the cp area out.

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Now ready to sand down the CP and paint/apply new art and transfer the controls from my RB tapper control panel.

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So now that all the laminate is removed we noticed there's 4 holes that look like they're capped off for the coin box wiring. What are these? Also I need a lower marquee bracket, anyone got a spare?

Waiting on the sound amp to come in and then I can begin wiring as I have all the parts.
 
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Cleaned up that hideous CP.

bare:
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To white:
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To black:
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Waiting in QA to get back from vacation then I'll put the CPO on and transfer control parts from my RB tapper panel.

Blasting the cup holders/polishing the brass this weekend. Will more the. likely paint the holders if I can't get a good price on powder coating.
 
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Got the CPO and installed it. Looks a little too red in the brown. Thinking about getting one from arcadeshop now, anyone have any experience with the AS CPO in terms of color matching?

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