[Restoration] Waka Waka Waka (Pac-Man)

[Superully]

the restoration continues ...

my pac-man stencils came without copyright message stencils or stickers for that. because the artwork seemed to be missing something, i asked brian from gamestencils.com whether he could cut some of those tiny stencils for me from a file i sent him. he kindly agreed to do so and sent a couple of those over to germany. thx brian - you rock!!! 



taking measures for perfect alignment



after application, i'm removing the protective cover



maximum protection against possible overspray 



three thin layers of black later



the moment of truth!



man, those stencils are really tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny



just wonderful!!! no complications at all this time 



to be continued ...

[Superully]

the restoration continues ...

... with the control panel! torn overlay, full of rust - here's what i started with 







on most parts of the panel, the overlay peels off easily



on others i have to use the proper tools



done!



ok, this is as back-to-basics as it might get



all the metal parts get the usual powdercoating treatment - even the joystick parts which won't be visible. that's a lot of parts for one joystick by the way ...



i'm having troubles reassembling the joystick ! this is how the pieces are supposed to go on the joystick shaft ...



... but as you can see the rubber centering grommet won't slide in far enough because the shaft is too thick in the middle!



here's the solution: parts of the old centering grommet were still on the shaft, completely rusted in. it blended in perfectly with the shaft, that's why i didn't notice that. with some wd-40 and a lot of brute force, i was finally able to remove the rest 



the shaft gets its anti-rust treatment and some nice shiny polish - looking much better now!



i managed to find a nice replacement overlay with the original midway copyright message (no namco twobits s***) - this is going to look kickass on the powdercoated control panel!



running around the overlay are those pellets that pac-man has to eat during gameplay with the large hexagonal power pellets in the corners



in four spots of the overlay the screws holding the panel in place go directly through those power pellets, which means that the pellets are actually missing if i simply put in the screws! have a look at this test i did with blackened screws. although this is what it looked originally (although i don't know if the screws were silver or black), i'm not happy with that - pac-man needs to have his power pellets! 



so here's my solution for that:

step 1: paint the screws yellow

it took me three different spray cans to find the correct yellow color. i couldn't take the yellow from the sides, because that one is different from the overlay yellow, but in the end i succeeded!





step 2: print out some power pellet templates in the correct size on adhesive vinyl



step 3: cut out those templates



step 4: apply them on top of the yellow screws



step 5: "shoot" the screws again - this time with black



step 6: carefully remove the templates



step 7: dance around in joy because of the fantastic results! 



step 8: install them on the control panel





and here's the control panel after its complete makeover!







JUST PERFECT - don't you think? 

to be continued ...

[Muerto]

wow! - nice detail with the screws!
and as always, nothing less than the Ully-treatment!

[DarthNuno]

You're just crazy   



...but it kick ass! 

 

[ckong]

That is really awesome and very clever. Will have to remember this one. Very nice end result. 

[scr33n]

Wooooww nice touch Ully 

 

[kroustibat]

great job, totaly impressive

[Brry71]

WoW, SWEET!!! You must have a lot of patience.... Maybe I should try something like that as an anger management therapy 

[Superully]

guys, i need some input :

i'm about to install the t-molding on my pac-man, but i'm not sure which color to use. most of the original cabs came with the orange version, but there was also a production run with yellow molding. what i don't like about the orange is that orange is nowhere to be found on the cab's artwork. while i somehow like yellow, i'm thinking "too much yellow might be too much for the cab". what about red or blue? has anyone every tried / seen pac cabs with different t-molding colors than orange?

[scr33n]

In the original flyer T-molding is black 



 

[kroustibat]

imho you're right that yellow tmolding, would be too yellow. if it's was me, i'd keep the authenticity of the restoration with an orange tmolding, but as you don't like it  maybe some photoshopping of a pacman cab picture would help to decide

[Superully]

i've also put this up on klov, but i value the opinion of the DLF crew  here's what i put up on klov after some testing:

pac-land is yellow for the most part of the cab as well and it has blue t-molding which i think rocks! i've just done a short test with yellow, orange, red and blue where i put all four colors in the t-molding slot one after the other. i don't like yellow because it doesn't attract attention, the color of the red is off, blue looks kickass and orange ... well, orange is THE original color, but imho somehow it doesn't fit.

somehow my pac row would look great like this: yellow-colored pac-man cab on the left with blue t-molding, then ms pac-man and pac-mania both with black t-molding in the middle and on the right yellow-colored pac-land with blue t-molding again!

and if i ever get a jr. pac-man, i'm going to put it in the middle with orange t-molding ...

i need more input  

[Superully]

the restoration continues ... with the monitor bezel

as you can see on the following picture, the original glass monitor bezel has already "lost a lot of blood". of course i could buy a plexi reproduction, but i'm trying to save the original piece!



a couple more shots of the damaged areas - from the front and from the back









ok, here's how i tackled the problem: i started by getting a couple of different types of yellow paint ...



... and tested them on a spare piece of glass!



then i asked brian from gamestencils.com to cut me some stencil dots - which he did



stencils applied with the correct spacing



waka waka waka - i feel hungry, need to eat those dots



i covered the dots with some layers of black ...



... and finally sealed the paint off with a layer of white!



the results are in: the yellow doesn't seem to be a perfect match (which is isn't), but it looks much closer in reality and the difference is close to impossible to spot "on location"



here's a "full body shot" of the entire bezel after doing a lot of touch ups in different areas as well - i'm extremely happy with the outcome. another original piece saved!!!



to be continued ...

[Muerto]

stop posting here (for the moment) and get that GORF road trip report going! - That´s an order!

[Superully]

stop posting here (for the moment) and get that GORF road trip report going! - That´s an order!

i'm still waiting for some pics from someone else, so i thought i could do something else in the meantime