There is not much to see here yet, but I hope to produce some more detailed posts of my restoration projects soon.
Well, I was and still am nervous about this, but decided I really wanted a clean monitor and chassis, which can both get really dirty over the decades. Some Simple Green and a light hosing seem to have done the trick. It will be several days before I put it back in the cabinet, so it will be nice and dry by then.
Saw another Pac-Man listed on Facebook Marketplace. The cabinet is in great condition and the price was right, so I could not pass it up. It does not appear to be working at the moment, so I will have to troubleshoot that. I drove to Lancaster, PA to aquire it, which is about 90 minutes from my home. Such is my mania.
This will be my primary Pac-Man, and likely will not take much work to get it where I want it. The other one I picked up in September will definitely be restored, but I'm going to take that cabinet in an exciting direction, so stay tuned…
The original artwork on the Super Pac-Man bezel (the glass over the monitor) was ruined by last owner and faded due to years of exposure to direct sunlight, so I decided to scrape it off and replace it with new vinyl, compliments of EscapePod, who make very nice reproductions. Sad that the original artwork can't be saved, but this is how it goes sometimes.
By some miracle, I have a couple of hours to kill this afternoon, so I'm giving the Super Pac some TLC. This cabinet is in pretty great condition, so I think that I will apply some light Bondo and try to match the colors and touch it up instead of doing a full restore. We will see.
Scraped the old Pac-Man Jr. art off of the glass bezel and replaced with original Pac-Man art. Looks sweet.
Got the new Control Panel Overlay (CPO) last week. It looks good, but is ever so slightly off from the original. Likely something no other human-being will notice, but which screams out to my anal retentive eyeballs.
Soon I will disassemble the control panel, clean everything, resolder if need be, strip, spray, apply new CPO and reassemble.
I'll be doing this to most other parts on the machine first, before working on the cabinet itself. So far, I'm still within budget.
I also replaced the plug. My son walked into the office a few days ago, barefoot, and started receiving low level shocks from the machine itself. Something I had not noticed before, because I always have sneakers on. Sure enough, the outlet was missing a third prong and that was the culprit. Fun with electricity!
Well here is the next big restoration, folks! I picked it up a couple of weeks ago. It was originally a Pac-Man, which was converted to a Pac-Man Jr. and I'll be taking it back to its original Pac-Man glory. The goal is to do this one on a tight budget. I have already made some modifications to it and it is in much better condition than the Galaxian, so hopefully it won't break the bank.
Did you all know that I got into arcade restoration to help deal with depression? It's true. I need to keep my mind busy, so it defiently helps. Anyway, stay tuned for more exciting updates!
Behold! I officially completed the restoration of the Galaxian cabinet! Isn't it glorious? Eventually, I'll get around to writing a more detailed post about the restoration of this cabinet, but for the time being, you can check out some photos of the process from start to finish. Enjoy!
Next Up: Pac-Man!
I had meant to post this a few days ago, but the cabinet itself is done and all that is left to do is install the electronic components! Wish me luck because that is truly the hard part!
I'm somewhat impressed with my newfound skills here.
The painting on the Galaxian cabinet is finally done! Next up are the decals, but even without them I think it still looks pretty darn sweet! I'll be posting all the details about this little endeavor over the Summer, so stay tuned…
I finished the Galaxian coin door today. The color is not 100% to my liking, but it will do and still harkens back to the original. Most people just paint them black because it is easier than matching color. The door is pretty easy to pop off and take apart, so if ever I land on the right color for it, then I will revisit. In the future, I will have a longer article detailing all the work and products used in this restoration.
Of course, I'm nowhere near being able to apply it yet, but it still has me excited! So sexy!
This is the arcade cabinet that I am currently restoring. Isn't it lovely? I used to pump so many quarters into these things! I hope to finish it this summer, so expect a lot of detailed posts about it in the coming months! If you think it looks bad now, you should have seen it a few months ago!