I bought this project with the sole intent of cleaning it up and selling it. Joust is not a game that wanted as a long term keeper but this particular example turned out to be a great way for me to learn how to paint with an HVLP gun.
The cleanup was a chore and somewhere during the rebuild I decided to repaint the front of the cabinet. It didn’t desperately need to be repainted but it did have a hole cut in the front of the game where the power switch was relocated and some wood issues at the bottom.
I ended up filling the hole with a wood dowel and sanded the entire front of the cabinet to wood:
I had a few issues with spraying oil base paint through the HVLP gun the most significant being fish eyes. I ended up sanding the front of the cabinet down 4 times before I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, I was applying too much paint. There is a paint flow adjustment at the back of the HVLP gun that was set too high and once I adjusted that properly the front of the game came out like this:
I didn’t want to spray the paint too thick so you can see some of the wood grain in the picture above. It came out very smooth Iwanted it to come out smoother but the paint I used said to only thin 5% so I didn’t thin the paint. Next time I will experiment a bit more.
In the end I did the following to this game:
- Moved the power switch back to the top rear of the cabinet
- Filled the hole in the front of the cabinet and repainted
- Recapped the monitor
- Replaced all capacitors on the circuit boards and replaced the battery holder
- Installed new joystick (sticks only)
- Cleaned the game
- Installed a new ballast, starter and light bulb for the marquee light
- Touched up the sides of the cabinet
Here are pictures of the completed game:
