Taito Alpine Ski clean up/semi-restore

OldTymeToys

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I was searching for an Alpine Ski cabinet after playing it at GrinkFest in October 2014. I started a WTB thread on here in April 2015 and finally got a PM from a member on here with one relatively close. Behrmr and I took a ride to Columbus, OH and picked up the converted Alpine Ski cabinet in May of 2016:

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As you can see, it lived a lot of its life as a Romstar Championship Bowling with the bowling frames burned into the monitor. You also can see the Alpine Ski burn in. So the plan is for more of a clean up than a restore, as I just can't bring myself to re-do those sides/front. It's just not far enough gone to do that.
 

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For a Taito cabinet (and you know what I mean), that's in pretty good shape. Since Alpine Ski isn't super common, no way in heck I'd repaint the cabinet. That's gonna turn out nice..
 
My search was on for a control panel and I ended up finding one on eBay. It was far from perfect, but I thought I could clean it up enough for it to be presentable. Unfortunately, the scuff marks in the pic were basically scratch damage to the polycarbonate and would not get less noticeable, no matter what I did. Here's my thread on the cp: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=401228

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I gave up on that control panel and just bought a new repro panel from Joseph77 (wow, what a great product!) I then picked up a screen printed repro overlay from Rich and began on the control panel finishing:

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This cpo isn't die punched and therefore is much harder (for me anyway) to line up. It's probably a hair too low, but it still looks great. Here it is with new, white leaf buttons, bolts and an original, 2-way, white Wico balltop installed:

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For a Taito cabinet (and you know what I mean), that's in pretty good shape. Since Alpine Ski isn't super common, no way in heck I'd repaint the cabinet. That's gonna turn out nice..

Yep, it's just too nice of an original example to fully restore.
 
Next steps will be to install the Taito back door lock mechanism. If you're not familiar, these Taito cabs use a "special" lock that has long bars running from the lock to the top and bottom of the cabinet. Most of the time they have been replaced or just destroyed. In the case of this cabinet, they just bent the lock bars in half. I picked up a lock set from Joseph77 as well (I think it was Joe!) I'll get that installed next.
 
Agreed, the cabinet looks good the way it is.

New CPO looks sharp though. Now will bring out all the minor defects in everything else, lol.
 
Can't wait to see the end results, love Alpine Ski a pretty uncommon Taito game you don't see everyday.
 
Can't wait to see the end results, love Alpine Ski a pretty uncommon Taito game you don't see everyday.

Yeah, definitely uncommon out this way. I know the cabs are normally trashed, so that probably has something to do with it. It's definitely not a popular game, by any means. I don't remember seeing one growing up. The game is hard, not intuitive, the collision detection is pretty bad and the AI cheats... but I do love the game play. The blue and black cabinet seals it for me.
 
Very nice restore to date. Glad I could help you out with some of the parts. When you are finished with it you can send the whole game to me!
 
I installed the back door locking mechanism last night. It took longer to remove the bent and mangled one than it did to install the new one.

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Here's a pic of the rat's nest hacking that went on inside this thing...

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I plugged it in for the first time last night and crossed my fingers. No signs of life... which is absolutely fine at this point. I'll tear it all down and figure out what's what later. Back to some cosmetics...

I pulled out the bezel and monitor shroud. I laid the bezel on a shipping blanket on top of my pinball machine close by. It slid for a second, but settled and stayed put. It was only going to be there for a few seconds while I pulled out the monitor shroud. As I was sliding the shroud out, it came out of its track and got wedged a bit and started to buckle. I went around to the front of the cabinet to re-situate it back in the groove, so it would slide out easily. As I was monkeying around with the shroud in the front of the cabinet, I heard a shuffling sound and then a loud POP. Fuck me...

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The bezel slid off of the pinball machine and blew up all over the floor. I'm such an idiot. Of course, it was a bad idea to put it there! Especially after it was initially sliding!! Needless to say, I spent the rest of the evening cleaning up glass (pissed off AF)... and I will likely be finding pieces until next summer. Sonofa.
 

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I wonder how many different games use that same bezel art, just different colored inks? Alpine Ski and Space Dungeon for sure. Wish we could get some silk screened ones.

Sorry to see that.
 
I wonder how many different games use that same bezel art, just different colored inks? Alpine Ski and Space Dungeon for sure. Wish we could get some silk screened ones.

Sorry to see that.

I think Wild Western is the only other one. I already had a paper bezel, but I thought I could salvage the old one. Not now.

Can someone get an exact measurement of the bezel glass for me?
 
I was able to pull the monitor this weekend and put in a newer one that I had. I'll look for a tube swap on the one that was in there for future use. Here it is with a control panel and bezel in place:

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So fun to see your progress!

LOL Thanks. My progress is soooooo slow. It's frustrating sometimes. I spent about an hour dicking around with the monitor swap. I took the K4900 out of the Alpine Ski. If you've never seen a Taito of this era, it's got a solid metal framework piece for the monitor mount like this pic below:

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It's pretty slick and makes sliding the monitor in and out pretty simple. So I get it out, remove the K4900 and get the Vision Pro ready to install. At first I take measurements of the Vision Pro frame to see if it will fit in the cabinet with the door closed since it already has a horizontal frame attached. Due to the angle of it, I had to make a few educated guesses. I went with the current horizontal frame and attached it to the frame mount from the Alpine Ski. Lifted it up, slid it in, closed the d...o...o...r... DAMMIT! It jutted out about 3 inches too far! Nice educated guess :mad:

I realize that I needed to remove the K4900 vertical monitor frame and use it for the Vision Pro. I take the Vision Pro back out and remove the horizontal monitor frame from it. I discharged the Vision Pro and then attached the vertical frame to it. I then re-attached the Vision Pro to the Alpine Ski frame mount and slid it back in the cabinet.

Sometimes I just feel like I need three hands. My older son walked through the garage a few times during that time and said, "I can't believe you like fixing up those games." It must have looked like I was doing the exact same thing each time he walked through. Ugh.
 
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