Mario Bros Cabaret - Restoration / Conversion

bongoben

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I picked up a KLAX mini in a trade about a month back. I do love KLAX but I realized I really wanted a Mario Bros mini and this would be the perfect cab to create it in since Nintendo never created their own. I'll post a few pics here of the progress but everything else can be seen at: http://s38.photobucket.com/albums/e107/bongoben/Mario Bros Mini/

Here is the KLAX cab when I received it. It wasn't in horrible shape but the overlay and bezel would have needed to be replaced at a bare minimum even if I kept the game as KLAX.
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The first thing I did was design custom overlay art and bezel art. Game on Graphix printed this for me and it turned out fantastic. I didn't want to hack up the control panel at all so I had to work with the button locations where they were for KLAX. For each player, the left button is the Start button and the right is Jump... not ideal but it works and looks good. I also installed black t-moulding, new bolts on the control panel and red-ball 4-way joysticks.
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I posted the previous pics up on another thread and was happy with what I had accomplished until Phet made it known that I should really finish the job. And he was right. I stripped everything from the cab and dragged it back to my garage. First step was Bondo and sanding. The cab wasn't in horrible shape but there were definitely a number of dings and scratches and a bolt hole near the coin box door to fill in.
One side Bondo'd...
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And Sanded...
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I then rolled on a coat of primer on the sides, front, in the monitor well, and on the top. I taped off the sides and sprayed on 4 coats of black on the front, in the monitor well, and on the top. I also sprayed the speaker cover and bolts along with the half-circle plastic strip that runs along the top. This strip is normally chrome on the KLAX. I don't have any pics specifically of these steps... sorry.

Next up was the sides. I had Menards color match the Behr Kumquat color and I got that in their Pittsburgh Paints. I used a high density foam roller to roll on a total of 7 coats of orange. This is one side after two coats of orange and all the coats of black.
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After the paint was finished I moved the game back to the basement. Spent awhile cleaning the inside of the cab along with the power block. I reinstalled that and re-ran the wire harness. I am using the Jamma harness that came with KLAX and then I picked up a Nintendo>Jamma Adaptor from Mikesarcade. This is awesome as it inverts the colors and amplifies the audio so you dont need a Sanyo or Sharp monitor normally used in Nintendo cabs. The pcb is installed on a shelf on the right side of the cab and I'm using pcb-stand-offs on the top corners so it doesn't move.
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I decided to order white t-moulding and black ball joystick shafts along with a new lock for the backdoor which was missing when I picked up the game. Here are a few pics of the finished paint with the game put completely back together, the new joystick shafts installed and the white t-moulding installed.
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The last thing I'm waiting on is the 60% sized side art I had specially ordered from GameonGraphix. That will be here Monday (11/14/11) so once I have that installed I will put up the completed game pics. It's not a perfect restoration but to be honest I am thrilled with how it turned out. I can't wait to get this side art. I was just too excited to show this off to wait until the side art got here.
 
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Great idea! That looks really bitchin', I love it! Can you put some original joysticks on there or are you restricted cause of the CP?
 
Great idea! That looks really bitchin', I love it! Can you put some original joysticks on there or are you restricted cause of the CP?

The CP holes are "standard" dimensions so they would have needed to be modified to get Nintendo 2-way sticks in there. I really didn't want to change anything physically on the cp because I hate finding cp's that someone hacked all to hell years ago for some project. So I worked with what I have. The 4-way sticks play fine for Mario Bros so that's not an issue plus when I get the Popeye pcb in there those will work nicely.

Though, if someone ever created a mounting plate to mount a Nintendo joystick in a standard bolt pattern cp I would buy them in a heartbeat to get the little Nintendo sticks for this game.
 
That is gorgeous. Man I am jealous of that one. Awesome, simply awesome. Did you get the side art in the standard rectangle or did you tweak it to fit the profile of the cab? I am trying to decide how to treat the top of my mini Popeye and DKjr sideart when the time comes. I may change it to match the peak of the Nintendo cabaret.
 
Now that you have posted the rest of the pictures and with the orange sides, I say screw that KLAX CP! Install some original Ninty two-way sticks on that bad boy!
 
That is gorgeous. Man I am jealous of that one. Awesome, simply awesome. Did you get the side art in the standard rectangle or did you tweak it to fit the profile of the cab? I am trying to decide how to treat the top of my mini Popeye and DKjr sideart when the time comes. I may change it to match the peak of the Nintendo cabaret.

Thanks Phet. I really wanted to create the side art to fit the profile of the cab like the original art did for this cab. But to be honest... I just wanted to finish this one. I am going to spend some time playing around with the art in Photoshop for awhile (when I have time) to see if I can make it work... if so i'll have the art reprinted and will apply that instead. For now though I just had them size down the regular side art by about 60% which puts it at 24" x 16". I think it will look great regardless... but eventually creating art that fits the cab profile would put this over the top.

Now that you have posted the rest of the pictures and with the orange sides, I say screw that KLAX CP! Install some original Ninty two-way sticks on that bad boy!

I know I know. Now that I have it all together I have started thinking the same thing. I may see if I can pick up another KLAX cp to work on so I can keep this one as is then turn that one into the Mario Bros CP I would have wanted on there. It would be really easy to adapt the art I already have to fit what I would adjust on the cp.
 
Wow, that was my crappy Klax??

Great job on the project, it looks much better now and will get tons of more love.
 
Damn, so you ruined a perfectly good Klax for that?!?




Kidding, dude, kidding! This is one of the coolest things I've seen on here in awhile. That thing is frickin' awesome! What a great idea, nice work! And, I agree with John, you really need some Nintendo sticks on there. I can't wait to see the pics with the sideart installed...
 
Aaaaand, we're finished. My first "restoration" and I feel really good about it.
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And my little row or cabaret cabs...
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Looks freakin' awesome!!!

I never did like the look of cabarets, but you guys are are really churning out some nice ones lately...I'm really starting to like them lately :D

I might be interested in your Klax pcb if you still have it :001_sbiggrin:
 
You should definitely be proud of that!

Outstanding work!

+1 it's awesome!

Looks freakin' awesome!!!
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I might be interested in your Klax pcb if you still have it :001_sbiggrin:

Thanks guys. I am actually excited to restore another cab but unfortunately I'm stuck until next spring because my garage isn't heated and doing Bondo work in the basement is just a bad idea. :)

@philt80... The KLAX pcb is definitely available. I'll PM you.
 
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