MS. Pacman was Abused....

[postmortem01]

Thank you. I'll try to find those replacement chips

Orion3311: That moon patrol sounds like it was a monster project

 

[postmortem01]

Located a chip locally and will pick up tomorrow. I did a quick sanding on the cabinet after work today. What a nightmare. I mixed up some polyester primer to help seal and fill the dried out wooden cabinet. I thinned it a bit more than normal to help it soak in. It was too difficult to see the problems in the wood with the mottled finish. This grey primer finish should make it a tad easier to see where I need to fill.

I also picked up a can of the Glidden mix. I hope it matches well. I'm going to attempt to cut vinyl stencils for the sides and paint the art onto the cabinet later.

The glass for cabinet has me wondering what to do. The artwork on the bottom of the glass is in near perfect condition but the glass has pretty sever scratches. I can buy a new pieces of glass with silk screening or I can have a company sand and polish the glass for $175. I think I should just buy a new piece.

 

[postmortem01]

I also printed this glass bezel artwork on matte vinyl to see how close the colors are.....Looks a little red. This might be an option also if I can adjust the color closely enough.

 

[joeycuda]

The glass for cabinet has me wondering what to do. The artwork on the bottom of the glass is in near perfect condition but the glass has pretty sever scratches. I can buy a new pieces of glass with silk screening or I can have a company sand and polish the glass for $175. I think I should just buy a new piece.

For that amount of money, just buy a nice silkscreened reproduction glass. If do a thorough restoration on the wooden cabinet, you'll probably be glad you did.

Looks like you may have the resources and patience to pull off a stencil job. I see the base coat, but what kind of paint will you use for the stenciled layers? Using a spray gun?

Good luck. I picked up a beat, but solid, Ms Pac cabinet that I want to do the full stencil restoration on someday. Mine has 2 sloppy holes cut in the front for a lock bar.

 

[postmortem01]

Thanks. I'm going to pick up a new piece of glass. I went to Vintage Arcade today. They didn't have anything in stock. Gene over there is very nice and helpful. There's tons of vintage arcade stuff there. He programmed me two new speed chips for my machine. He made me a Standard and a medium speed.

Day 2: Cabinet Restoration continues...

I filled and sanded cabinet and repaired the corners. I rebuilt the bottom edge. I used Evercoat instead of Bondo because it sands better. This entire process took about 3 hours.

I should have removed the monitor because I dragged this sucker into the spray booth. Ugh.

I used a large HVLP sprayer to shoot the paint on nice and thick. I didn't water it down hoping to get some of that original texture back.

At this point, the paint is drying. 3 coats of paint. I only used less than a third of the can of paint. I have paint left over to paint my other machine.

 

[postmortem01]

I decided to go home because I got bored watching the paint dry. On my way home, I went and picked up the other machine I bought. I was pleasantly surprised. This machine was in great shape. The original marquee is nearly perfect. The glass is perfect. There are barely any scratches on it. Minor cabinet work needs to be done. Repainting is necessary.

I never realized how poorly these were stenciled.

Looks like someone tried to rewire the door wiring harness. Coin mechanisms did not work initially.

I de-soldered the wires and cleaned up the bundle. The credit button was disconnected. I reconnected it. Theres a small molex connector that goes to nothing. Can't figure out what it is.

 

[smalltownguy2]

I never realized how poorly these were stenciled.

That's because when these were mass produced at the factory, they used rigid, reusable stencils. There was almost always a slight gap between the stencil and the cab, resulting in overspray.

 

[postmortem01]

First attempt at stenciling.....Ugh. NOt the best the first time around.

 

[Tonym]

i think your on the right track. who did the stencles? i could use a set myself

 

[shirkle]

I'm not sure that that kind of stencil will work once you get to the black. There are a lot of "floating" pieces to keep track of. You'll definitely need some kind of adhesive to hold them to the cabinet when painting.

 

[postmortem01]

We made the cardboard stencils at work. I spray a light amount of spray 77 on the back so it would adhere a tad to the cabinet. In hind sight, I would have applied vinyl to the cardboard prior to laser cutting the stencils. This would have kept them from wrinkling when painted. Unfortunately, Now I have a very authentic looking stencilled cabinet. LOL

We used that pdf file that is available for download. The black will be done on a low tack vinyl from our vinyl cutter. This will allow to hold the floating pieces. We will wait for the paint to fully dry before we apply that to the cabinet.

It's come a long way from this.....two days ago

 

[postmortem01]

I think the glidden blue is a little off. The pink is for sure. I think those formulas could be tweaked a little. We painted a white down prior to color change between templates. It helped bring the colors brighter a little but still off.

 

[joeycuda]

I think the glidden blue is a little off. The pink is for sure. I think those formulas could be tweaked a little. We painted a white down prior to color change between templates. It helped bring the colors brighter a little but still off.

The original finish was faded to some extent, so maybe not that far off.

It's looking good. Good luck with the remaining stenciling. Anxious to see how it turns out.

 

[postmortem01]

Thanks. I probably will not stencil again until this weekend. Work is getting in the way of progress.

Does anyone know what it takes to connect an lcd to a vintage arcade machine?

 

[shirkle]

You would need a cga to vga adapter. You have a working monitor in there though. I wouldn't replace the old crt monitor for an LCD unless I had absolutely no other option. They look like crap in comparison, in my opinion. If you do go that route, don't scrap the monitor. Sell it to someone here. They're getting harder and harder to find.

 

[joeycuda]

You would need a cga to vga adapter. You have a working monitor in there though. I wouldn't replace the old crt monitor for an LCD unless I had absolutely no other option. They look like crap in comparison, in my opinion. If you do go that route, don't scrap the monitor. Sell it to someone here. They're getting harder and harder to find.

Agreed. It would seem backwards to go through the trouble of restoring this cabinet to the original look and feel, but use an LCD. It won't look right to most and isn't worth messing with, when you can easily use the real monitor

 

[postmortem01]

Oh. I'm sorry. I absolutely didn't mean for this machine. It's for a complete up from the ground up. It's for a Galaga. I'm definitely keeping this Ms. Pacman original all the way.

 

[RetroInjection]

Midway cabs are a dime a dozen.

Are you referring to all Midway cabs?

 

[shirkle]

Oh. I'm sorry. I absolutely didn't mean for this machine. It's for a complete up from the ground up. It's for a Galaga. I'm definitely keeping this Ms. Pacman original all the way.

In that case, if you are literally building it from ground up (including wiring it), I would simply wire it for JAMMA, put a x in 1 board in there, and connect it directly to the VGA monitor. Those modern boards have a VGA connection. Plus, if you want it to play only Galaga, you can set it up for that. That would be the simplest and probably cheapest solution by far.

 

[SuperGunGuru]

Thanks. I probably will not stencil again until this weekend. Work is getting in the way of progress.

Does anyone know what it takes to connect an lcd to a vintage arcade machine?

Don't ya hate when work gets in the way. Looks good so far. I want to do this to my Ms Pac this summer and I can only hope I can move as quick as you have so far.