The first Pac-Man was delivery to the customer. I love to restore games, but I like Pay day quite a bit, too!

Tags: SOLD

Rick assures me that the first of the twins is complete and nearly ready for delivery to the customer. PacTwo still needs paint.

Go figure.

I am packing up the shop around Rick for my relocation to Scottsdale, AZ. He is just calmly painting.

How thin is your patience now? Rick is infinite in his patience.

Rick is adding elements of the side art. Did I mention the patience required.

Photo: Painting

Rick is painting the side art back on the games. This is a slow process involving stencils and layers of paint. Mostly it involves patience I do not possess.

Photo: Masking and Patience

The second Pac is working with Bill's repaired board. We are one control panel short of complete on this second game.

The second Pac board got real hot and started to smoke. I disconnected it and sent it off to Bill Karkula for repairs.

Bill fixes your board, he doesn't rotate stock like El Dorado. Rates are based on your needs, not a pure flat rate, though.

The second coin door is ready and the first control panel is ready. I tried firing up the one machine. I played Pac-Man today!

The coin door parts arrived and I rebuilt the coin door for the first Pac-Man. The lights are on and the coin mechanisms trigger the harness by meter test.

We got the PCBs installed today. The wire harness is now connected to the Power, Monitor and PCB. Too afraid to turn it on yet.

We had to build monitor racks for the monitors, but they are now installed and getting power from the power supply.

The metal parts, coin doors, Control panels and marquee bracket were sanded and painted today.

The power supplies and wire harnesses arrive and we are building the electrical systems.

Photo: Power Build

Applied the T-Molding today. Looks great! Yes, it is Orange. Yes, it should be Orange.

Photo: Molded

The black paint went on today. Next Stop, T Molding!

Photo: Maze Takes Shape

Rick sprayed the Yellow on the cabinets. It took 2 coats to cover but the finish is smooth.

Photo: Nice Finish

Rick stopped by to strip the paint off the cabinets. It was easy sailing with the right tools and no regard for the underlying artwork.

I removed the Donkey King Jr. and Dr. Mario games from the cabinets. I completely gutted the cabinets. I plan to put these games and the harnesses and everything but the monitors up on eBay.

The Dr. Mario seems to be a licenced product. The Nintendo tags are on the back and a sticker is on the marquee. The sticker is for Duck Hunt, though. This must have had several Vs. games in it.

Donkey King Jr. is definitely NOT licensed. The marquee looks OK, but the board is different than Donkey Kong Jr. and the Nintendo name is not etched on the board. The game plays just fine. The opening screen does proudly bear the Donkey King Jr. name. Ah, conversions.

We bought a second project from John. Rick decided to join me in this venture. We are conceding the artwork to bad conversions and want to restore these cabinets as Pac-Man cabinets. They are solid cabinet and will make great machines. They will have new power supplies, new artwork, everything.

Galaxian has Full Side Art painted on a White textured laminate. It depicts a huge blue sky with Moon base and large green bug ships attacking. It is really quite nice. The conversion involved painting over the side art with two coats of yellow latex paint. I hoped to use a safe stripper to remove the latex and preserve the underlying screen-printed art. I failed last night.

I can discern the art is there. In fact the blue is coming right off with the yellow latex. The white laminate is coming clean. Some of the black and green are sticking to the laminate, but mostly I am losing the art.

Reproduction side art for Galaxian is about $250. When I add the reproduction marquee and monitor glass this project becomes very expensive. I still don’t have a working game PCB.

Time to seriously consider this reclamation project. I have the working Pac Man PCB, Joystick, Buttons and harness. I can get artwork for Pac Man at TwoBits.com for $350. Pac Man does have a broader appeal.

I called my fellow hobbyists and asked their advice on paint removal without art removal. It was suggested I try the aerosol Goof-Off. So I went to the Home Depot and bought a can of Goof Off (with Xylene!) and tried it.

It very effectively removed the remaining artwork and left the overcoats of yellow completely intact. AAARGHHHH!!!

The Xylene gave me a headache, too. It rolled the game out to the garage. I opened both doors. I even put on the safety glasses! That is some powerful stuff.

I rented a truck with John and we drove out to Chester, NY to buy some project machines. We came back with 21 games.

This is one of the project games. It has a bootleg Donkey Kong Jr. installed now. But the cabinet shape and remaining green T Molding and Control Panel Overlay are evidence it was a Galaxian.

Tags: Acquisition