Taito Alpine Ski clean up/semi-restore

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.

Fun times, and that about sums it up.

FYI, my Alpine Ski had the original monitor in it, and that was a 4600. Doesn't matter though. I am fixing a 4600 to put in my Jungle King though. Glad to see your progress on it.
 
Fun times, and that about sums it up.

FYI, my Alpine Ski had the original monitor in it, and that was a 4600. Doesn't matter though. I am fixing a 4600 to put in my Jungle King though. Glad to see your progress on it.

Hmmm, strange. The 4900 in mine "looked" like the original monitor... original monitor labels, frame was filthy, serious Alpine Ski burn, etc. But, you never know.
 
I've been out of town on business for 9 days, so I haven't been doing much with this for a while. I was able to get the marquee area cleaned up and working last night. For those that aren't familiar, the Taito marquee light fixtures are a bunch of bayonet lamps in a metal casing. I didn't snap a pic, but here's an image of a Zoo Keeper one:

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These link up to the instruction sheet lights under the left side on the bezel. I replaced the burned out bulbs with 47's so they would run a little cooler behind the marquee. I'm not exactly happy with how dull they are, but I tried a few LED lights and thought it was too much...

Hoping to get to building a base and the coin door soon.

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A bit more progress last weekend... I decided to work on the coin door and front of the cab. I'm not a huge fan of cleaning up/restoring coin doors, but a quick and easy way is to use Rustoleum Hammered Finish spray paint. I've used it plenty of times and I think it's a good alternative to powder coating if the game is only going to be used in the home setting.

I disassembled the coin door down to the parts needed to spray.

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With a wire wheel on my drill I began to remove the rust. Even though the rust doesn't look too bad, you will be able to tell how far you need to go with the wire wheel. Unfortunately, this door ended up being pretty bad. The powder coating was just flaking off with barely any pressure. I took it down to the metal on almost the entire door. After removing all of the loose particles, I wiped it down with alcohol and then sprayed it with the paint:

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To get a "heavier" texture, you can depress the nozzle on the can just a bit to make the paint sputter out. You can see the larger spots on the drop cloth. It takes some practice to get it right without concentrating the splatter all in the same area. You definitely don't need to do this, as the hammered finish paint looks just fine without this technique.

Some people will then spray the door again with a more black paint, but I always feel like I miss spots with the final black coat and only notice them after I re-assemble and install the door. Ugh. I'm just fine with the lighter shade of "black". Here's the door installed with custom Taito coin reject inserts. I will add a Taito Coin door badge eventually.

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Before I re-installed the coin door, I stripped down the front of the cab and took out all of the bolts from the brackets holding the front on and the coin door bucket.

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I looked at the front and thought that this would be a perfect time to mask off and repaint the front black area. It would be very easy and it would clean up all of the small knicks and scrapes. So I masked off the stencil area, filled the small divots with wood filler and then used a micro foam roller and black oil based paint thinned just slightly. While the front was drying, I sprayed the black bolt heads, black again and I polished the silver bolt heads.

After a short business trip, I came back 2 days later and was sure that the front would be fully cured. I re-installed the coin bucket, the silver bracket bolts and the coin door. It came out really nice for a quick clean up!

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Fun times, and that about sums it up.



FYI, my Alpine Ski had the original monitor in it, and that was a 4600. Doesn't matter though. I am fixing a 4600 to put in my Jungle King though. Glad to see your progress on it.



My alpine ski has 4600 to, I'm starting to appreciate them after a couple repairs to a few of them last year... great monitors and super bright... !
 
A bit more progress last weekend... I decided to work on the coin door and front of the cab. I'm not a huge fan of cleaning up/restoring coin doors, but a quick and easy way is to use Rustoleum Hammered Finish spray paint. I've used it plenty of times and I think it's a good alternative to powder coating if the game is only going to be used in the home setting.



I disassembled the coin door down to the parts needed to spray.



attachment.php




With a wire wheel on my drill I began to remove the rust. Even though the rust doesn't look too bad, you will be able to tell how far you need to go with the wire wheel. Unfortunately, this door ended up being pretty bad. The powder coating was just flaking off with barely any pressure. I took it down to the metal on almost the entire door. After removing all of the loose particles, I wiped it down with alcohol and then sprayed it with the paint:



attachment.php




To get a "heavier" texture, you can depress the nozzle on the can just a bit to make the paint sputter out. You can see the larger spots on the drop cloth. It takes some practice to get it right without concentrating the splatter all in the same area. You definitely don't need to do this, as the hammered finish paint looks just fine without this technique.



Some people will then spray the door again with a more black paint, but I always feel like I miss spots with the final black coat and only notice them after I re-assemble and install the door. Ugh. I'm just fine with the lighter shade of "black". Here's the door installed with custom Taito coin reject inserts. I will add a Taito Coin door badge eventually.



attachment.php




Before I re-installed the coin door, I stripped down the front of the cab and took out all of the bolts from the brackets holding the front on and the coin door bucket.



attachment.php




I looked at the front and thought that this would be a perfect time to mask off and repaint the front black area. It would be very easy and it would clean up all of the small knicks and scrapes. So I masked off the stencil area, filled the small divots with wood filler and then used a micro foam roller and black oil based paint thinned just slightly. While the front was drying, I sprayed the black bolt heads, black again and I polished the silver bolt heads.



After a short business trip, I came back 2 days later and was sure that the front would be fully cured. I re-installed the coin bucket, the silver bracket bolts and the coin door. It came out really nice for a quick clean up!



attachment.php



That's excellent!!!! I was thinking of giving this a try, and now that i see it looks nice, Both my Elevator Action and Alpine ski could be refreshed. Need to read from the top and follow this thread...

Love it...
 
That's excellent!!!! I was thinking of giving this a try, and now that i see it looks nice, Both my Elevator Action and Alpine ski could be refreshed. Need to read from the top and follow this thread...

Love it...

Thanks! This cab is a really nice original example so I couldn't bring myself to strip it all the way down. This front work is really worth it though. I have to rebuild the base for sure so that's next.

I'm also experimenting with waxing the black stenciled area of the side art. I think it's going to work nicely. Stay tuned...
 
Very nice OT!

I still need to find me another Alpine Ski (hopefully a conversion) for my Water Ski project to get started on soon.
 
Damn I'd like to see that. Does the art exist or are you doing custom?

I haven't found any evidence it came in an upright cabinet. I did pickup an Japanese instruction decal for a tabletop version.

I'll probably have Rich do the custom work. I'm going to basically mimic A.S. w/ the colors and fonts. Replace the skier graphic w/ a water skier on the panel; I'll keep the marquee font, replace the snow clumps on certain letter w/ pools of waters. I'll have the instruction card translated and carry that over to the instruction decal we use on the upright cabs here.
 
I haven't found any evidence it came in an upright cabinet. I did pickup an Japanese instruction decal for a tabletop version.

I'll probably have Rich do the custom work. I'm going to basically mimic A.S. w/ the colors and fonts. Replace the skier graphic w/ a water skier on the panel; I'll keep the marquee font, replace the snow clumps on certain letter w/ pools of waters. I'll have the instruction card translated and carry that over to the instruction decal we use on the upright cabs here.

The Alpine Ski flyer has the "Alpine Ski" with some color and pizazz. I'd thought that it would be a good way to do a Water Ski marquee. Do the CPO same as Alpine Ski with some waterskiing clipart or something drawn to mimic style of AS. Bezel would be same with slightly different color scheme, and possibly carry color variation to cabinet color. Same base blue cabinet as AS with stencil layer in green. I'm not building it though..
 
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The coin door looks great. Would you willing to share the custom inserts/file? I like that.. I just recently cleared the junk in front of my not-now-working AS. Need to recap the monitor, get a boardset working, and the grommet in the joystick is shot. Lots to do. Yours in inspiring!
 
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