I’m jumping right into my next project: Donkey Kong! This cabinet has seen better days. It was repainted red so I need to strip it down and repaint with lots of other steps in the middle 
Right Side
Front
Left Side
Closeup of Control Panel Area
Tag Archive: restore
I always love the time when a game finally starts coming back together. I finished repainting the coin doors and all of the carriage bolts on the game and reinstalled them back on the cabinet. I cleaned the marquee which was really nasty:
Nicotine stains? Nasty none the less
Cleaned up the bezel, installed nicer CP latches and I fixed the casters on the front of the game. I ended up replacing the triangular blocks and screwed them into the cabinet so it is super stable right now. All that is left is to run a longer power cable from the transformer to the switching power supply and to reinstall the top marquee retainer (the screws were just painted about 15 minutes ago). I also need to find a good match for the silver paint and touchup a few spots on the bottom of the cabinet. I’m not going overboard on this game because too much work will make the imperfections stand out. If I were really to go overboard I would stencil and repair the bottom edges of the cab to make it look perfect.
Here are some pictures:
I’ve finished painting the front so now reassembly can commence. The front of the game came out looking really nice. If I were keeping this game I would probably replace the entire front panel and re-stencil the sides only because I’m picky about the condition of my games. Since I’m building a Multi-Williams cabinet I’m not going to do that much work to this. Plus it’s in original condition minus the repainted front so that’s worth something.
Full Frontal Shot - Robotron After Painting
Looking good! I can’t wait to play this once it’s back together.
The Front of my Robotron - Looking good!
I just applied my first coat of oil based black paint with a foam roller. It’s going to look awesome once I have a few coats laid down. Here is a picture of the first coat:
Robotron - First coat of Black Oil Based Paint Applied
I applied it with a dense foam roller. I ususally use the really huge rollers for the game sides. The problem with them is that they have a rounded edge so you can’t get them right up into a corner. I used this type instead:
Short Dense Foam Roller
Being picky is usually a good thing. When you want to get something done quickly it’s not. I sanded down my second coat of Bondo and went too far in two spots, enough that I had to reapply some bondo to the affected areas:
More Bondo! Yeah!!!
So now I have to wait until tomorrow so I can resand it, prime and hopefully be ready to paint the front. To be honest if I wasn’t picky I probably would have just moved on and started painting. Rolling oil based paint is a great way to cover minor imperfections. I couldn’t settle for that though
Everything is moving right along. It’s getting pretty cold right now so that is slowing me down a bit. When temps were in the 70′s and above my spray primer was drying within 15 minutes. It’s taking much longer now.
So on Friday I put the first coat of Bondo on the front of the cabinet. Since drying times are increased I had to let it sit overnight. I sanded that down on Saturday and put the first layer of primer on. The front of this cab has definitely seen water because the leg levelers are rusted to the T-nuts within the triangular wood pieces under the bottom of the cab.
Taking the leg leveler mounting piece off
Ever want to see what the bottom of the mounting piece looks like? Here ya go:
The piece is just stapled onto the bottom of the cabinet. Nice and rusty!!
After you first spray the primer down you get to see areas where you need to apply more bondo to make it nice and clean. I put on the last bits of Bondo today so I am waiting for that to dry before I can sand it down one last time and put the last layer of primer. After that all I have to do is repaint the front and reassemble!
I’d like to find a good match for the silver on the sides but I don’t want to get too heavy into touchups unless I can get a good match. Touchups in a color like that will stand out like a sore thumb. Below are some pictures of my progress:
The first layer of Bondo is applied.
Another shot of the first layer of Bondo.
The first layer of Bondo has been sanded down. The front is really smooth now!
Another shot.
The game is masked off in preparation of applying to first layer of primer.
I masked it all the way to the top of the game. I will spray all the black areas on the front of the game.
I was contemplating spraying the black areas with Rustoleum textured paint so that’s why you see a bit of shiny black paint on the front. I am going to stick with rolling on oil based semi-gloss paint with a dense foam roller instead.
After the first layer of primer was applied. I can already see some problem areas.
More Bondo applied.
Since today is Thanksgiving I won’t have much time to work on restoring my game but I did wake up at 5:00am to strip down the Robotron so I can paint the front of the game.
Robotron Stripped and ready for front restoration
I love how easy it is to remove the speaker panel on a Robotron:
How to Remove a Robotron Speaker Panel
I am going to have to fill a few non-factory holes that had carriage bolts. I still have to bondo the bottom and smooth it all out before I can prime and paint. I also mounted my power supply in a better location. When I first got the game it played fine for 30 minutes and it died. Turns out my power supply died. Someone installed a switcher and they mounted it to the back of the coin box. I mounted it where the original power supply boards went:
Mounted my Power Supply in a Better Spot
Here are a few small tips I will share. When stripped a cabinet down it helps to be organized. Make sure when you pull parts off you put the screws, washers, bolts, etc in a small baggie with a description of where you took them off written on them. It makes it so much easier to remember where to install the parts when you put the cabinet back together. I put my parts on a cheap plastic rack so that I am somewhat organized
A Cheap Plastic Parts Rack