Author Topic: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot  (Read 54365 times)

Superully

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[Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« on: February 28, 2010, 07:54:16 PM »

thx to andré and his belgium warehouse raid, i'm the proud owner of an original berzerk cabinet. i must admit i've never played this game in the arcades back in the days, but it was one of my absolute favourites on my beloved vextrex which i still play from time to time.

now that one of the three cabinets has found its way to my place, it's time to give this beauty the "superully treatment". while i was lucky to score one of the cabinets with the original bat joystick, i wasn't that lucky when it comes to the cabinet itself. all the berzerk cabinets suffer from the same problem: no leg levelers! the only thing they have to move them around easily are two wheels at the bottom of the cabinet. one can scream out the words "wood damage" loudly!



in order to prevent any further damages in the future, it's time to "reveal" a new tool i got FOR FREE from a friend of my brother: a pillar drilling machine!



it will help me to create some leg levelers for the game. here's what i need  :arrow:



first, i'm drilling a wider hole for the t-nuts to "sink into"



the pillar drilling machine helps me to drill straight through the big block of wood



and here they are: 4 stylish leg levelers  :)



let's glue them under the cabinet!



now that i can move the cabinet around safely and easily, let's check out its condition! right side ...



... and left side!



the cabinet has the usual wear on the corners



and the sides also suffered a little over the years





but worst of all is the bottom of the cabinet - caused by moving the game around WITHOUT leg levelers



in detail



ouch - that hurts!  :'(



but before i start with the woodworks, i need to remove the pcb drawer board from the cabinet (because it's so damn heavy). for those of you who don't know how this works, here's a short description: all of the pcbs are mounted on a single board of wood which can be easily accessed from the front by opening a small "compartment". the drawer board is mounted on some kind of sliding rails and can be pulled out which makes working on the pcbs a piece of cake!

here's the pcb drawer board already removed. notice that some of the pcbs are missing because at the time of the removal they were at andre's place for a magical repair session! thx andre  :-*!



as you can see on the following picture, the grip which you use to pull out the drawer board is damaged! but not for long ...  ;)



pcbs and wiring removed



and finally: metal strips removed - check out the heat spots on the metal plate



although nobody (except myself) is ever going to see the inside of the cabinet, i want to have those parts clean and shiny. call me anal, i don't care  :P

here they are, lined up nicely



some detail shots - see the rust and the oxidation?





first order of business: throw the strips into my giant rust remover bath. check out the reaction  :o



the parts will spend a cozy night cuddled up together



the next day, some steel wool and metal polish should do the trick



after a lot of ellbow grease and hand sanding / polishing ...



... the strips look way better!





another candidate are the sliders on which the drawer board is being moved back and forth: here's their original condition  :arrow:



in detail



much better after the same kind of treatment



the flat cables have collected a lot of dirt and dust over the years



fortunately i have a tooth brush at home  ;)



the damaged wooden grip has been reconstructed ...



... and repainted!



voila - the clean pcb drawer board (still missing some of the pcbs). because of its weight, it will stay out of the cabinet until the cosmetic restorations have been completed.



the inside of the cabinet is extremely dirty and smelly



so i'm using a sander to remove the layers of dirt - much better afterwards!



in fact, it's so clean now that our cat pesto likes to sit inside and watch me work - well, at least as much as a blind cat can do that!



in between, some minor work to be done like cleaning the marquee. see that brown layer?



fortunately, this is cleaning up nicely



this is worth another "voila", don't you think?



now the woodworks: you've already seen me do a lot of wood filling and sanding, so i won't plague you with hundreds of pictures - just a few  ;)



sanded down



as always - happy with the results!  ;D



up next: restoring the coin door and repainting the cabinet - because of the structure used this is going to be interesting

to be continued ...

all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

Muerto

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #1 on: February 28, 2010, 08:08:17 PM »
looking good ully! - fortunately my cab was not so damaged, but hey, you got the one with the Bat joystick  ;)

And poor cat, is it bumping in to a lot of things with that poor sight  :-\

level42

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #2 on: February 28, 2010, 08:22:26 PM »
What, didn't you try your ZPU board yet ??  ;D ;D ;D

I'm up for a set of those leg-levelers !!!

Superully

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #3 on: February 28, 2010, 08:42:23 PM »
I'm up for a set of those leg-levelers !!!

i'll make you one!!! you've done so much for us regarding the berzerk, the least i can do is make you a set of leg levelers  ;)
all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

level42

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #4 on: February 28, 2010, 09:26:09 PM »
Thank you !!!!  ;D

Etienne MacGyver

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #5 on: February 28, 2010, 10:48:08 PM »
Like always, the "Ully treatment" is looking good so far !

baritonomarchetto

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #6 on: March 01, 2010, 09:47:49 AM »
Nice work on those strips ad very good work with the leg levelers! Without the need to drill your cab you had an excellent result  :pac: :pac: :pac:
"A true Gentleman leaves no puzzle unsolved"

Superully

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2010, 11:10:18 AM »

the restoration continues ...

since the cabinet itself is in an average state (damaged wood, faded colors), it's going to need some layers of fresh paint.

just to give you an impression, check out how worn the front of the cabinet is  :arrow:



there are parts of the cabinet which just need to be hit by some fresh spray can paint



et voilĂ 



however, the problem with repainting a berzerk cabinet is that the original paint wasn't applied evenly, but that some kind of structure "within the paint" was used to create a three-dimensional effect. take out your modern 3-d glasses, guys  8)



because i had to reconstruct parts of the cabinet and other parts of the structure were worn out, i can't simply repaint the cabinet, because i would lose that structure. i've been thinking back and forth about how to recreate that original look, have tried at least three different types of structure spray cans, but none of them gave me results i was looking for.

up next, i tried mixing the paint with different grains of sand. here's are some examples on a test board



close-up of one test run: difficult to see on that picture, but the sand didn't blend in well with the paint and the structure was too strong!  :(



coming up: one of my favorite arcade stories ;D  :arrow:

it was obvious to me that it wasn't going to work out with the sand, so i started to look somewhere else. at that time i was lucky to spot phetishboy's restoration thread of his berzerk over on the klov forum. he had repainted / restencilled his entire cabinet (which i was not planning on doing) by adding some kind of "sand structure" (at least that's what he called it) to his paint and rolling it on afterwards. i was happy with the results he had achieved and so i asked him whether he could get one of those sand structure bags for me. he told me he didn't have to, because there was so much left of the structure in the bag that he would gladly pass it on to me FOR FREE :)! now we're talking  :-*

i asked him to send it over to brian from gamestencils.com who's very helpful in collecting arcade stuff for me at his place and then sending it over in one huge package (to save on shipping costs). so brian packed everything up and off with it to germany!

i waited ...

(one week)

... and waited ...

(another week)

... and waited ...

(some more days)

... until i finally received a notification from customs to pick up some arcade stuff at their place.

i was thrilled that the package had finally arrived, so i quickly went over to pick it up. the guys at the customs already know me (and my arcade stuff) by now, so i had a little chitchat with them about why it took so long for the package to arrive this time. well, the answer was obvious! have a look at the following picture  :o



i'm pretty sure you're thinking the same thoughts the customs' guys were thinking: a plastic bag with white powder inside and on top of that the message "enjoy ully" written on the bag ... hmmm ...

THAT GUY IS TRYING TO SMUGGLE COCAINE INTO THE COUNTRY!!!

can you blame them?



so they did some testing with that stuff, but eventually came to the conclusion that it was not cocaine, but something else. i had some explaining to do, but in the end they handed it over to me  :spaceace:

anyone got a better story to tell?  :P

ok, back to berzerk business. let's do some testing with the cocaine powder by adding it to the paint



i'm trying different ratios to get as close to the original structure as possible



after a lot of testing, i'm extremely happy with the results. way better than my sand and spray can tests. it's going to need some sanding (and spraying) afterwards, but all in all this is the way to do it!



the sideart needs to be masked off, because i'm going to hit the cabinet with some black spray can layers first





here we go!



afterwards, the white powder - black color mix is being rolled on



and the results are in! coming up: some BEFORE and AFTER shots  8)











the cabinet's front



and the sides  :-*





the large screws which hold the monitor frame in place go right through the artwork



originally, those screws were shiny and silver, but i don't like the look of those silver screws amidst the black, blue and red artwork, that's why i'm painting them to fit in with the rest



the back door didn't have any structure at all, but in order to blend in with the cabinet, this needs to be corrected  8)



a close-up of the back door after repainting it



of course, no lock is complete without the correct keyring



when i put the cabinet on its back, i realized that there was a gap of about 5 millimeters between the control panel area and the wooden front - i have to admit, it's difficult to spot on the picture!



although this gap is not visible when the cabinet is in its upright position, i don't like the idea of it being there (dust!), that's why i'm using some black silicone to seal it off



nothing's going to get in there anymore!



to be continued ...

all i need is ... PONG - and a select few others: TOUCH ME, DRAGON'S LAIR, JOUST, ROBOTRON, MR DO, SAN FRANCISCO RUSH THE ROCK!!!

ckong

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2010, 11:53:17 AM »
Very nice work Ully, as always you are very thorough with your restorations.

And now I am thinking of all your ongoing projects you almost seem to have a restoration factory. Maybe you should consider doing this professionally, there might be a market for it.  :)

Ronald Reagan

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2010, 12:02:10 PM »
wow that looks marvellous. An absolute improvement
nice story too about the sand/cocaine  :pac:
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Laschek

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2010, 01:03:18 PM »
Looks great!

So and now you can have sent over bags full of real cocaine and the customs guys will only think "ah, Ully is painting some cabs again"  ;D

Etienne MacGyver

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #11 on: March 19, 2010, 01:27:46 PM »
Looking good ully !

kid

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #12 on: March 19, 2010, 02:04:05 PM »
good job !!! :wink:
Sorry for my poor English...

Belike

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #13 on: March 19, 2010, 02:41:58 PM »
Nr.1 ;)

slowcade

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Re: [Restoration] Human - Restore Like a Robot
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2010, 08:42:49 PM »
Looking great! That structure paint is impressive.  :)