My Defender deconversion/restoration

gregatron

In Memoriam

Donor 2011
Joined
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Location
Porterville, California
Like most of the rest of you, I am into Williams games. I have 3 (4 now) and we all know, no Williams row is complete without a Defender. I picked up this sad disheveled example of a once proud cab from MRtrentd about five or six months ago.
At the time I wasn't even aware that I was picking up a Defender cab, I bought 3 cabs for $100 and this was one of them.
It had a Cinematronics baseball game in it (can't remember which one at the moment) and a blown out K4900 with Tron burn. During the long process of collecting parts and whatnot, I began to slowly strip it down. During that process it became evident that someone/thing had used it as a lavatory for what smelled like many moons. That is a whole other issue in itself.
I will spare you the details and report that it now has a nice Fabreeze smell.

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When I was just a wee lad I can remember seeing a Defender for the first time. I clearly remember seeing it in a distant, dark corner of our local theater. I was immediately drawn closer by the beckoning lit quarter slots and the contrast of the shiny silver coin door against the black, red and yellow art.
I remember thinking the cab was fifteen feet high and four feet wide. I now know that the only Defender cabs that had the silver door were the early models and to my dismay this cab had a black Wells coin door. I decided early on to modify the cab to accept a silver coin door so I removed the existing door to see what was involved in doing so.
To my surprise I saw that someone had actually hacked the cab to accept the newer style door, Yippie!!!
It originally had a silver door.
They had also hacked the upper CP shelf to accept a conversion CP. Overall with the exception of several structual repairs and the lack of a back door, the cab was solid. Pissy, but solid none the less.

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Since I did not have a control panel and I was unsure If I was going to drop a full Defender board set and original PS in it, I could not make up my mind as to what to do about the control panel. I decided to go the most reliable route, so I went with a Jrok board and a switcher. I'm not really into multis, I'm more of an original or nothing kind of dude. So, I decided to make this as stealth a multi as possible. The idea was to restore the cab itself 100% as a Defender and make a stealth multi CP. I imagined a Defender control panel only slightly modified to accept the other required controls to allow full functionality of all of the games the Jrok board offers. After a little searching I found a thread here on KLOV that mentioned a Defender Multi layout. DPLouie was the man I needed to talk to. He sent me his file and I cleaned it up and slightly modified it to my liking.

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I had it printed up and used it as a template for my layout, The correct spacing was verified before printing of coarse. Again, I wanted to make this as original looking as possible so I had to devise a way to reconstruct a Defender CP without having an original as a guide. I looked at my other Williams CPs and although they are different there are several similarities. There are no bolt heads of any kind exposed, the joystick setup is somewhat unique in that the dust washers are under the surface of the CPO, and the control layout is very well thought out. (Or ergonomic depending on your school of thought.)
I used cabinet grade 3/4" oak plywood (because I had leftovers) and a sheet of 1/8" plexi.
I had to plane the wood down enough so that the two pieces combined would equal 3/4". I know you are all saying to yourselves "why didn't you just use 5/8" plywood to start with?" Well, the answer is because I already had the wood and I had already cut the piece before I thought about that...
Anyway, here are some assembly pics

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The prep and finish of the cab was pretty straight forward. Some woodwork, some bondowork, and a lot of sanding and smoothing. I used Rustoleum paint from prime to top coat and semigloss black as a base. I had some questions as to which finish I should use and decided to go with semigloss, but I could see using gloss and it would still come out great.

Sanded
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Prepped
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I had a couple of hiccups during stenciling and they were all my fault.
I knew better at the time but I was in a hurry and it turned out to bite me in the ass.
What I did wrong was after the last base coat, I noticed a few minor spots that I had missed in the bondo process. I decided to fill them with glazing putty, sand, and paint another coat over it. This was a huge mistake.
After the paint had dried I applied the stencils all at one time (also not a good idea).
I removed the first two stencils and everything was great. When I started to pull the last one off (the side that I had used glazing putty on) Huge chunks of paint came up with the stencil. You can imagine my horror, after all the hard work and time spent on prepping nearly 50% of the paint pulled up. After regaining my composure and sitting down with a pit in my stomach, I just calmly decided to quit for the day.
I contacted Prok about the mishap and man, I must say, the dude went well above and beyond customer service.
I won't go into the details for his sake but let's just say I'm a customer for life.

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And now without further rambling, here are the finished pics.
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There are a few spots in the pics which are dust specks. (it was windy that day)

I am currently working on building a switcher circuit to switch between the Jrok and Moon Patrol.
(almost done)
No MW is complete without MP
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I would like to thank the following KLOV members for their help with this project:

MRTrentd
DPLouie
Prok
DJDNS
Wu
Jfruge
 

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very nice...



skills man skills...

Isn't Rich at TOG coming out with a defender MW CP soon?
The design looks really good.
 
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Dude, if I wore a hat, I'd take it off to you! That cab is absolutely gorgeous! The amount of work you put into it is incredible, truely a labor of love. I love the cp, mine will look like that one of these days, lol. I've seen more pics than you posted of the cp construction, and it looks so perfect that most people won't realize the time and craftsmanship that went into that. Well done, sir. Well done indeed. I like the addition of Moon Patrol, I wish jrok would have included that on his Williams board.
 
When I saw the finished pics, my jaw dropped further than Fritz's at the Sausalito Sausage Fest of '89. Stellar work. I've never even wanted a Defender. Til now.
 
Wow.. 2 pimped williams cabs in one day! Another one lookin good!
 
Thanks guys for all the comps and kind words, They are much appreciated.
Yeah the inviso button is a bit off. I have big hands and can actually reach it with my thumb. It was the only real sacrifice I had to make when considering the layout.
But, the real answer is, I just play Stargate on my dedicated Stargate cab. I suck at that game anyway and inviso only slightly delays the inevitable death.
 
Wow. Very Nice. I don't know whether to be inspired or discouraged (because mine will never look that good). Either way, I bet it didn't look that good when it was brand new :)

One question for everyone -- What was the original Defender CPO like? Did it have a plexi cover, like this one, or was it just vinyl? I've heard conflicting reports...
 
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