Archive for May, 2007
May 16th, 2007
Got out tonight and worked on the control panel. The control panel I am using is a rusted, beat up Pac-man with most of the chewed up overlay still on it. I had gradiose ideas of taking that off in one piece and keeping it, but sad to say, in the end it was anything but in one piece. I did some scraping to take away the outside plastic layer with a 5 in 1, and then started trying different chemicals to get it off.
I had read Acetone worked really good for getting Midway overlay’s off, but all that did was take off the painted artwork for the overlay, it did nothing for the 3M adhesive. I tried Goof Off, and that worked fairly good, but the best was the same remaining paint stripper I used on the cabinet (Stripeeze). That got me right down to the painted panel.
I got it sanded down fairly well. I thought briefly about leaving it as just the metal color, but I would have had to work that much harder on the details to get out all the small areas of paint left. I didn’t need to in painting it over, so I wiping it down, and gave it two coats of spray paint before the night was over. Looking pretty cool, amazing how nice it looks after you do that. I was pretty surprised when I sanded down the exposed panel on the Pac-man I have.
Next is setting up the wood for the backside, which a friend was going to help me but he may be busy for awhile now, I am not sure.
Black fill on Agent X robots
Worked on the artwork just a little tonight. I finished the outline for the robot so I could make the main black fill. I traced it as
best as I could see, knowing that at the very least I would have to go back and redo the detail on the arms. But Richard had emailed to see where I was at, so I thought it would be nice to show him this piece at least, since it has so much detail.
May 14, 2007
Nokes had another appointment at the vet today. Tonight he was uncharacteristically wild, and we had a hard time trimming his toenails again. Sarah had even taken him out for a walk and that didn’t seem to help. He understands what is going on when he sees the leash and gets really excited. I don’t enjoy the walks right now because he does go all over the place and is constantly stopping to smell. We are going to be enrolling him in some sort of obedience school very soon.
But the big news, the vet weighed him, he gained 7 pounds in just a week plus. He now weighs 22 lbs!
Ms. Pac-man Marquee Light Working.
Kenny was over this weekend, and he took a look at my connection behind my Ms. Pac-man marquee. He changed out the starter with the one that was in the Pengo, as well as the bulb, and found that both the Pengo starter and bulb worked fine.
So looked back at the light fixture and figured out that it was just that the connection needed a little push and on the marquee came! Exciting to have that lit up.
Unfortunately, I now realize why the operator in Ohio was selling this marquee. Although there is great color, there are some significant scratches. I don’t think I got a bad deal per say, I just know that deep scratches on the artwork of a marquee, which would have to come from behind, wouldn’t happen naturally. So to say, “Hey, that’s just the age of the game” doesn’t exactly work.
But getting another one isn’t high on my priority list with what else I have to do with my other games. Maybe sometime I’ll just come across one when talking with people.
Only arms left on Agent X robots
Worked over the weekend on the Agent X artwork. I got the antenna done, the rest of the arms, the remaining shapes on the base and the outline shape of the robot, so for all intensive purposes he could be finished. But frustrating enough, I was looking at the hi-res photos that were sent to me, and some small details got dropped in the arms and the green section on the robot from the original image I was working from. I already retraced the green area and transferred it. The arms are now left to do. Who would of thought this would have been so much work for one robot?
Finally got an Atari Audio II Board
Months just creep by. Today I finally met up with a contact from Kentucky who wanted the monitor tube I took out of the Robotron to Pacland conversion and in exchange gave me an Atari Audio II Board. It needs a resistor soldered on, the typical one I guess that got overworked in Pole Positions in particular. That should be an easy fix, and in theory, again, I think I have all that I need minus that little connector for the coin door. We’ll see if I make it this week either to Happ, or out to the other lady’s house to see if I can get one of those.
May 11th, 2007
I finally made it back to the garage for a short period of time.
Went up in the attic and think I found a piece of composite board that I can use for the spacing on the backside of the control panel. I also installed the PCB holding brackets and secured that inside the cabinet.
It sounds like Tuesday I may be getting that piece of wood cut out at a friend’s house. I have the sander for the panel, so that would leave very little left to getting that done and out of the garage.
