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