Yet another Q*Bert

SuperGunGuru

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Well those that have read my Simpsons restoration thread might recall me saying how I generally don't enjoy doing the cosmetic work to game let alone a full restore attempt. Five years ago I picked up a converted Q*Bert with plans to restore it. It had been converted to a Dragon's Breed so of course it had almost none of the original parts except for the monitor and the power transformer which wasn't hooked up anymore. Initially I made a decent amount of progress but I lost steam and the cabinet has sat for the most part these last few years. I have made sporadic progress such as acquiring parts like the marquee, the knocker, or the repro bezel, but I've lacked the real drive to finish the project. My Simpsons project has helped renew my interest in finishing this cabinet and I hope by posting here will be even more incentive to finish.

The cabinet itself has been a pain to get ready for painting and it still needs a bit more work. The biggest problem is of course water damage to certain areas. Even with wood hardener applied some areas still feel a bit soft, but not as bad. My question is will the primer help seal up the soft areas or do I need to apply more hardener? Here's a few pics, basically of how it's sitting now. I got the monitor pretty clean but it will need a new flyback or I may just swap the chassis. I hope to drag the cabinet back to the garage for the last time to finish cabinet prep and then paint it at my cousin's house (he has a proper spray gun setup). Time is running out weather wise so I need to get this thing done soon. I hope by posting this thread it will keep me going to finally get this cabinet finished up. Electronically the game will need more help. Here again I've spent time doing some minimal repair to the main pcb (replaced transistor to fix missing green color), sound board (dead), and touching up the filter board solder. The background is all messed up at the moment but the game can be played. The sound board has no voice output, but does have the other sounds. Now that I've condensed 5 years of procrastinating into this story, here are a few pics. I think the most interesting has to be this "unique" way the op covered the extra holes on the control panel....a piece of an Oreo cookie box! This first pic of the oreo box is the only one I have from 5 years ago when I first got the cab. All others are new as evidenced by the picture quality improvement lol.

The infamous piece of Oreo cookie box the op had used to cover one of Q*Bert's original buttons.
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The monitor after getting cleaned Saturday. It works but would lose focus and the flyback was hissing at me. Not good so I removed it to prep for its replacement.
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Sheesh finally about a year later an update to this thread. I must be setting a record in terms of longest time to finish a restoration. Major progress made on the cabinet with primer and yellow applied and black coming soon. Just wanted to share a few quick pics. My cousin has a nice HVLP spray gun setup so I have to say it wouldn't have been nearly as easy without access to it.

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Looks like a brand new cab. This will turn out nice.
Thanks. The pictures help hide a few imperfections, but I'm also a bit picky. Hopefully I can get the black put on it this weekend if mother nature will cooperate. I'm hoping that finally getting this thing finished will be the motivating factor to get games like Pac and Ms Pac done next spring/summer.
 
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Went over today intending to put a nice coat of black on, but when I wheeled the cab outside, the sun really showed what imperfections I had, particularly on the right side. I ended up light sanding a few spots and going with a few more coats of yellow and it definitely helped. The goal is now to get the black put on by next weekend. Overall I'm pretty happy, but I question now if I'm being too OCD about every little defect or if I was too sloppy in my prep work. As I said before these pics aren't showing the defects very well, but the bottom area of the right side (which is in the shadow in the above pic) had some things I wanted to try and get rid of.
 
Looking good bill, seems you and i are on the same course...just finished up qbert last month and next is a pac in the spring..
 
Well the last coat of yellow seems to have done it. I'm very happy with how it sits so now I just need to give it time to cure before painting the black...maybe this weekend. I wanted to do it today, but the newspaper I started to cover the sides with was allowing the soy ink to transfer on to the cabinet. Luckily the cabinet was dry enough to allow a gentle cleaning that removed the ink. The new back door was finished but I ran out of time to put a coat of primer on. I'm sure I can do that relatively quickly one of these nights after work.
 
Sorry to bump without pics, but I guess it helps keep me on track. I'll definitely have pics once the black goes on, but tonight I took time to shoot a quick coat of primer on the back door. I ran out of Kilz before getting to hit the inner side of the door, but since nobody will see it, I may just leave it as is.
 
So mother nature rained on my parade today so no black on the cabinet again. :( I did however get the Wico coin door re-painted as well as painting the control panel in prep for the new cpo. The Wico door actually came off my Pole Position cockpit cabinet. I had noticed it for a while but only recently found out these Wico doors were from other games as well. I'm pretty sure PP never used this door so it's a replacement someone else put on it. It's an odd way to get a Wico door but I have another over/under door already in place on PP. The door that originally came with my Q*Bert cabinet was in rougher shape, but also not the Wico door so I decided to make the switch. No Gottlieb logo plate on there, only a blank one but I'll keep my eyes open for one.

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Tomorrow is looking like a rainy day as well, but I'll keep my fingers crossed. I'm not panicking yet but as fall is setting in I know I'm running out of days to get this cab painting finished. I have only myself to blame for not getting my ass in gear sooner but I still feel like I can get this thing done before it gets too cold.
 
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Another thing I've been thinking of doing is looking for a different set of side art. I bought this set and it ended up being a little bit off from what is normally seen on Q*Bert because one piece is mirrored. Unless I'm mistaken I thought all Q*Berts have the same piece of side art on each side. In a way it makes more sense to have the sides be mirror images, but that doesn't seem to be how it was done. Anyway this art is in okay shape, but the wrinkles in it make me wonder how well it will apply anyway.

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yes that side art looks terrible. i got mine from arcade shop. its pretty good. and they are not supposed to be mirrored.

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Yeah the plan now is to just get a set of art from arcadehop or someone. I want this thing to be really nice and I think the mirrored side art would just look out of place.

I did get a first coat of black on tonight, but I have more work ahead of me tomorrow and maybe Tuesday. I was a little over anxious to get the last phase of painting underway and was too close with the spray gun so I need to sand down a few spots and give it another coat.
 
A second, and much better, coat of black was applied yesterday after work. I still will give it one more coat, but then I think the cab will finally be done in terms of paint (frankly that's been the biggest obstacle). Hopefully I can share pics of that soon.
 
Got a 3rd and final coat of black paint on tonight. It turned out pretty well overall, but I may do some touch up paint. I admit to being OCD/anal about every little imperfection and for a Q*Bert cab that's probably not a good thing since the wood can be a pain in the ass to work with. Of course the pics hide imperfections a lot better, but here's where I'm at with the cab.

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I wanted to give the cab enough time to dry before moving it back home and today was that day. Thanks again to JoshBrown80 for helping move it and helping with re-assembly. My memory was pretty good on how things went back together so it's probably 70% together electronically. The big thing is still drilling the hinge holes for the back door and mounting the board set and rest of the wiring harness. Now after having this thing for 6 years I was seriously doubting I would ever get it to this point, but finally the last few months have proven otherwise.

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My memory was pretty good on how things went back together so it's probably 70% together electronically.

Looks like you did better then 70%. I can see the game on the screen so it must be working. :D

This looks really good. One thing you may want to consider is touching up the t-molding area edges with some black. Sometimes if the t-molding doesn't line up perfectly, you may see a bit of white. Doesn't happen all the time, but it did on one of mine.
 
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