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.
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.
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.
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.
Last edited:
