Road Runner Reproduction Cabinet Swap

OU Flight

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I have finally gotten around to restoring the Road Runner cabinet that I got about a year ago. This is more of a transplant than a full restoration, but it will make a HUGE difference in the game's appearance.

Here is where it started.
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=175071
You may remember I was pretty clueless when I was just getting started in the hobby and almost passed this one up along with a Peter Pack Rat.

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Fast forward to today. The cabinet has basically sat in the same condition since I got it. I did get the boards working and had the kit in a different cabinet in our game room for a while. Today I stripped everything out of the original cabinet and began cleaning. Talk about gross. 27 years of dirt and grime. The fan was the worst.

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I have already built the new cabinet to place everything in. I still need to paint the exposed edges and speaker panel and install the T-molding.

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Which one do you want in your house? Left or Right?

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Are you building an army of Galaga cabinets?

That looks like a great project..please post the progress. I see that marquee is yellowed like a lot of the translites.. Could you get it reprinted I wonder?
 
Everything stripped out waiting to be cleaned.

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Empty cabinet on the left. You can see the water damage now quite clear on the inside of the cabinet. I found it kind of interesting as well that the wood inside the marquee area has a nice "baked" look to it. Looks like the bulb must have gotten really hot at some point in its life.

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Are you building an army of Galaga cabinets?

That looks like a great project..please post the progress. I see that marquee is yellowed like a lot of the translites.. Could you get it reprinted I wonder?

LOL. Actually that is just under half of what is in the garage. Those are all the right sides. When I am finished there will be 15 new Multi Pac's running around.

What you couldn't see:
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I have a new translight already that I got from Game On Grafix. It looks really nice. Got the CPO from them as well.
 
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Got the wiring cleaned up. It is amazing what a little cleaner and the garden hose is capable of.

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Next I painted all the exposed edges of the melamine and the speaker panel. I still haven't figured out the best or most efficient way of painting the exposed edge under the T-molding. I have been using a foam brush to paint the slot edges. It is quite time consuming, especially on this System 1 cabinet because there are so many edges that needed to be painted. It is important to paint it on the new cabs even though it hopefully won't be seen. If it isn't painted you run the risk of having a thin bare wood line show. I think I spent about 2 hours painting. If anyone has any suggestions on different techniques please share. I wish I could just spray it, but that is one of the big draw backs with using melamine. It would be a crazy amount of taping.

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Now time for the T-molding. Notice the saw horses the cabinet is sitting on. (you'll see in a minute)

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I've got my nippy cutters, razor blade and rubber mallet to install the molding.

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To get good "outside" corners I use the cutters to cut small "V's" in the ribbing of the molding. That way when the molding bends the ribbing has room to come together and not bunch up in the groove. For "inside" corners just slice the ribbing. No need for "V's" since the ribbing is expanding in the groove. I then go around the cabinet tapping the molding in with a rubber mallet. I have found there is a balance to be found when tapping in the molding in order to get it to lay smoothly.

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Ok, remember the saw horses the cabinet was sitting on? This was the first time I had used them, brand new. Up until this point I had always just layed the cabinet on the ground. I figured use the saw horses that way I would only have to lay it over one time. Less chance of damage I figured. Melamine is actually delicate stuff until the edges are finished with molding. The black coating likes to chip, sometimes quite easily if bumped on the corner. DPtwiz told me one time if you look at it to hard it will chip. Very true, that is until you get the molding on. And if you do chip it, you can't just sand it down and easily repaint it.

Enough about how delicate melamine can be. How about a testimony of its strength?

Back to the saw horses. Oh yea, you should know I am always working by myself and usually at night while everyone is sleeping. So I finished up installing the molding on both sides without having to flip the cabinet over to do the other side. I was so proud of myself for having that great idea.

Now for my "Lesson learned the hard way" as they say on the Gameroom Junkies podcast. I pick up the base of the cabinet and slide the saw horse on that end out of the way with my foot. As I lower the end toward the ground I feel the semi slick melamine cabinet start to slide on the hard plastic of the saw horse. I'm able to stabilize it (wait for it) and remember I'm by myself and this is NOT a light cabinet. Then all of the sudden CRASH!!!!!!!

All I see is the cabinet I spent countless hours building from scratch laying now flat on the concrete floor with pieces of black plastic shrapnel strewn about. I am positive the cabinet is broken and cracked on the bottom side and some of the black shards are pieces of melamine. What makes this worse is the fact that I am building this cabinet for KatanaJoe. I just stood there in utter disbelief and dreading the fact that I am going to have to start over and build another cabinet.

So I reluctantly stand the cabinet up and cannot believe my eyes. The only thing I can find wrong is one tiny nick in the plastic T-molding. Sorry Joe.

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Lesson learned. No more crapy plastic saw horses. Actually, I don't think I will use saw horses at all any more.
 
Yeow! Scary! Glad it survived. I don't think you really saved anytime using that saw horse trick. Put a blanket or two on the ground, lay it down, apply t-molding, and flip it! I just finished all of my work repairing a Paperboy cab. I wish I could've just started with a new cab like yours. Are you going to put System 1 side art on it?
 
nice lookin cabinet! Yeah, did i tell you the time i was all but finished with a custom atari cabaret, turned my back, and the saw horses blew over in the wind and destroyed the cabinet? and it was 30 minutes before customer pick up. One of the saw horses got destroyed, because i smashed it in anger lol.
 
nice lookin cabinet! Yeah, did i tell you the time i was all but finished with a custom atari cabaret, turned my back, and the saw horses blew over in the wind and destroyed the cabinet? and it was 30 minutes before customer pick up. One of the saw horses got destroyed, because i smashed it in anger lol.


No way. I didn't hear about that one. That sucks!

The side art is going to be up to KatanaJoe. It will look super sharp with it on there.
 
that one was for wethereds on here.. He was cool about it, i cut him a new one for free while he was here, and sent the new unassembled one and the damaged one with him to make it right.
 
That's the kind of restores i wish i had time to do. Love it, but no time to work on my own stuff :(
 
talked with someone earlier, i may be picking up babypac #2 and #3 lol
 
Alright, time to start installing stuff. First though I figured I would try this little trick out I saw someone else on here do. To clean up the nasty screw heads, I put them on the end of my drill and spun them on a piece of sandpaper. Works pretty well.

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