The making of "The Quest for Space Knife"

IMBerzerk

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Donor 2021
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Being a huge fan of Stranger Things and knowing this cabinet and game didn't exist, other than a fun tribute to someone that worked on the show, I decided it would make a really cool wedding gift for my daughter and son-in-law who love my arcade machines, both the real and MAME cabinets I own and restored. The original "Space Knife" appears in once scene in the episode "Dig Dug" from season 2.

Stranger_Things_spaceKnife.jpg

The plan was to find a Midway Galaxian, Galaga, or any variant of that cabinet in a condition that I wouldn't mind cutting up and converting to a MAME unit...but with giving honor and respect to the classic age of arcade machine for which this unit will represent. I don't like converting cabinets to MAME machines unless I mostly restore them and pay tribute to the original game. I did this with 4 of my cabinets. BerZerk, Gorf, a Strata Bowling Cafe and a converted Heavy Barrel cabinet. I always start with a really beat up cabinet, usually painted over in that usual black goo they use for paint.

Onwards...this cabinet I found was just what I needed. The cabinet was a disaster, but the Galaxian electronics worked, and most of the cabinet was intact. It had a lot of wood damage covered with bondo, the sides were replaced at one time, and heavily slopped over in black paint as was the rest of the unit. It was already converted to a JAMMA unit, so there went all the original wiring and power. The monitor works great, but was not original and was heavily modified to fit the cabinet.

So I went to work... Cleaning, stripping and repairing all the damage. This gave me the opportunity to make some changes as there really is no set design for Space Knife other than a single side shot in one scene of the show. It's definitely a Midway cabinet though.

I wanted wheels on it so they can move it around, which means I had to extend the sides when I make the repairs ...

First here it is before anything happened...working as it should.

Arrival... On the porch, running before I gutted it, and the damage from age.
 

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Stripping was arduous...but I found that Easy Off oven cleaner works great! That when I found that these were not the original sides to this cabinet, no white Formica. I also discovered from the layers of paint that it had been converted to a Ms. Pac-Man and some other game before returning back to a Galaxian machine.
 

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Finally, today I finished the repairs. The extensions give a whole different look to the cabinet. The bottom looks more like a Stern cabinet. Lol.
 

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A big shout out and thanks to TheArcadeBoneyard.com. I purchased a Midway cabinet back panel that he hand makes. It's perfect. An exact duplicate of the original unit...right down to pre drilled and countersunk screw holes. I'm very happy with the fit. I picked it up in person while I was near his home area by chance last month. Great guy, a real old school arcade guy.

The unit is for sale on eBay as well.
 

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Following! What's the plan for software?
Hi. Thanks.

So I'm tossing up using GameEx under a windows 7 64bit build, vs doing Batocera... with Batocera, I don't like using MAME2003 or the older variants. I run my other MAME cabinets on version 140 through custom GameEx themes. I know Batocera is nearly bullet-proof, but for Arcade emulation, I'm just not a fan of it. I still have a lot od playing around to do. The PC is already built with a custom GameEx theme, and I have a spare HD with Batocera loaded on it to play with as well.

The screen is Horizontal and the CP will have a trackball, 2 WICO sticks and a spinner... with buttons squeezed in somehow. lol.
 
Been working my tail off on it the past week. I'm very happy with the progress...

Coin door is done now, painted semi-gloss black with gloss play splatter for effect. All new $.25 lenses and new 161 bulb sockets which it was missing.

The monitor mount is complete. Will be a Dell 20" 4:3 Horizontal. This will allow for more games because the horizonal position works better for vertical games rather than the other way around. I used what was there and just added in the extra plywood for mounting and closing in the area. I added in a lip at the bottom to catch the monitor in case something stupid happens.

I originally cut hole in the new speaker deck for 5.25 in speakers, but I didn't like the sound, so I upgrade to a set of Black Diamond 270w 6x9's. I added in the 4" subwoofer and built the front of the cabinet into a woofer box. The LED strip went in under the cabinet as well. It will follow the best of the music like a jukebox.

I added a ton of egg crate foam to the sub box and added a back panel with egg crate foam to the top 6x9 mount as well. These cabinets make fantastic speaker boxes when done right. Lol. It's very loud and thumps really good.

Almost ready for paint and graphics.
 

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