Picked up a DK today - Please evaluate

phrenzy

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Hey Gang,

I haven't been around here in quite a while. Sold my Namco 20 Year Reunion Cocktail (for a tidy profit) and have been busy with other stuff.

On a whim today, I was browsing around Craigslist and saw a Blue Donkey Kong for sale about 40 minutes away. Went to look at it, ended up bringing it home. It's farm fresh. From what the seller told me, it was in the wild for about 10 years, and then he bought it around 1991 for his kids. His kids are now long grown up and married, and he and his wife we're in the process of cleaning out their rather large steel building that he called a garage.

This was one of the items they wanted to unload. Got it for a reasonable price. It definitely needs some work, but there wasn't any water damage and it still plays.

I've never done a restoration before, and this is my first actual vintage 80s machine. But I think this might be a good candidate for restoration. I have a few questions:

1. The CRT seems pretty toasty, it works, but the picture is pretty rough. I'm not sure if it just needs recapped or what. Any thoughts on what the issue is? (See pictures below)

2. My first thought is to strip this thing down to just the bare cabinet, repair and repaint. New t-molding, sandblast and repaint the coin mech, etc. Am I headed in the right direction or do I want to leave it more original?

3. The joystick and buttons could stand to be replaced, any thoughts on that?

Thanks for any help you can give.

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The buttons and joystick looks fine to me, they probably just need a thorough cleaning like the rest of the game does. Your monitor looks fine too, my bet would be the kiddies messed with all the adjustments when they were young. I'd try some fine tuning followed with a cap kit.
 
Bad candidate for a FULL restoration because it really isn't all that bad to begin with. Takes just as much money to turn a 2 into a 10 as it does a 6 and what you have is a 6.

Clean it up. Cap the monitor. Do your best to glue that broken wood into place. Replace the t-molding, clean and replace controls as needed (someone here can probably give you an exchange service on the joystick). Get some sideart, repaint the coin door and black cabinet parts and you will be looking pretty good.
 
Depends on what you like to look at better. Do you want to see a minty showroom-quality cabinet? Or do you love the patinated cabinets of yesteryear? Donkey Kong was my very first game and I took to near-restored quality and it is one of my proudest games. My suggestion is to rebuild the monitor, work on the controls a bit, give it a complete wipe down and play it for a while. The last thing you wanna do is have the urge to play a game of DK and remember that you have it dismantled across your garage.

newmolding1.jpg
 
I was thinking light restoration until I saw the right front edge that is damaged. It's fixable but will take a bit of work and of course nintendo cabs aren't 3/4 in wood so that is a PITA too. The fact that I'd have to fix that and of course paint that side of the cab would seal the deal. I'd have to restore the whole game.

Not that this is a bad thing it just means more work and money. Like you mentioned, strip it down, fix that damage, bondo and sand any other surface damage, then primer and paint.

Yeah the brightness on the monitor is too high and possibly the blue drive is as well. Hopefully the lines I see are simply raster lines and not an issue on the board. Although that is fixable as well so not life or death.
 
Depends on what you like to look at better. Do you want to see a minty showroom-quality cabinet? Or do you love the patinated cabinets of yesteryear? Donkey Kong was my very first game and I took to near-restored quality and it is one of my proudest games. My suggestion is to rebuild the monitor, work on the controls a bit, give it a complete wipe down and play it for a while. The last thing you wanna do is have the urge to play a game of DK and remember that you have it dismantled across your garage.

newmolding1.jpg

I like minty fresh. Plus, I like to work with my hands. I've done some speaker building before, but this will be my first restoration project. I'm looking at it as a fun project for weekends.

That's a super nice cab you have there, by the way. I want it to look like that. I don't suppose you have a step by step thread of your restoration somewhere do you? :D
 
I was thinking light restoration until I saw the right front edge that is damaged. It's fixable but will take a bit of work and of course nintendo cabs aren't 3/4 in wood so that is a PITA too. The fact that I'd have to fix that and of course paint that side of the cab would seal the deal. I'd have to restore the whole game.

That's my thoughts as well. That big chunk sealed the deal that this thing is getting stripped bare. It'll probably take me six months, as I'm completely green to this sort of thing, but hey, I'll appreciate it that much more when it's done.
 
I'm about 5 months in and have done restores to 2 DK Jr, Pole Position (mainly buffing out rust and cleaning a birds nest out of it), Frogger, and in the middle of a 4 player tmnt. The real motivation is knowing the faster you get this looking 100% the faster it's in your basement or gameroom.
 
I vote to fully restore it.
You only need to buy side art,T-Molding and painting and repair supplies.
The rest will clean up nicely.
Get the true flat T-Molding from here http://www.chompingquarters.com/store.php/products/true-flat-nintendo-t-molding
Luckily Nintendo cabs are very easy to work on.
You should be able to remove the everything below the cp to make it easier to work on the black insides and those parts.
My first time I took plenty of pics and labeled all the little block as to where they went. The cab went right back together.
 
Just fix the dings and dents in the cp and repaint it.
You only need to worry about 1 1/2" around the edges,the rest is hidden by the overlay.
The cp is actually supposed to be gloss not satin.
The piece above the cp can be removed to aid in repairing and painting.
I would just buy a repro overlay or nice used one and instruction card.
 
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