June 25, 2008

It’s almost that time again. My first restoration went so well, I decided to do it again. Since I was fortunate enough to pick up a cabinet while looking for a Donkey Kong board for the last project, I already have a head start.

Initial Assessment
The cabinet is in somewhat rough shape and extremely dirty. It sat in someones garage without a back panel for several years. So, the inside was caked with dust. I removed the marquee to find a mouse nest. Fortunately it was unoccupied at the time. For the machine being so dirty, it doesn’t have any visible water damage so it just needs a good cleaning and some patching. I may try my luck with a pressure washer and just towel dry the inside to make sure there is no standing water.

I used the power supply out of this machine in my last project because that power supply had some issues. I’m planning on digging down to see if I can locate the problem. The power supply works, but the screen is a little wobbly.

The monitor that came with the machine is bright with no visible burn-in or shrinking at initial assessment. However, I will install a cap kit just in case.

Costs
As of this post, I am $117.28 into the project. I really only expect to spend about another $100-$150 to have a nice, shiny, new looking, fully functional Donkey Kong machine. My budget for this project will be $300.

Here are my costs and estimated costs to date. I haven’t started actual work, but I’ve been collecting the parts I need when I see a good deal.

- Cabinet – $0 (left over from last restoration)
- Primer – $0 (left over from last restoration)
- Blue paint – $0 (left over from last restoration)
- Wiring harness – $13.49
- Monitor bezel – $40.81
- Donkey Kong pcb – $44.99*
- Control panel overlay – ???
- White t-molding – $17.99
- Side art – $52 + shipping (QuarterArcade.com)**
- Information stickers – ???
- Monitor cap kit – $10 + shipping (QuarterArcade.com)**
- Black spray paint – ???
- Spray primer – ???
*Ordered from eBay but yet to receive it. The auction was for a Donkey Kong add-on, but from my understanding, the original Donkey Kong board comes with it… I hope. If not, I have a backup board that needs a couple of chips.
**Should be $73.80 for the side art and cap kit + shipping

That’s all for now. I will take some pictures and have them up before I start any work. I plan on trying to be a little more detailed this time through.

10.19.08
Here are a few pictures I snapped of the cabinet.  It wasn’t in the best position in the garage, so I just grabbed a handful of photos.

As you can probably tell, it is *really* dirty inside.  The people I bought this from had it sitting in a shack of a garage (more like a shed).  However, the game worked perfectly.

The next step will be to remove the rest of the internals, marquee, control panel, coin door, and anything else I can find and scrub the cabinet down, inside and out.  From there, I’ll assess the damage a little more and report back with the repairs I will have to make.

On the surface, I can see I will have to patch tiny holes (I’m assuming pictures were pinned up) and fix the ding you can see in one of the pictures above.  The control panel overlay will also have to be replaced.  I have no idea what happened, but it appears to have been burned.

3.8.09
Over the last couple of days, I have sanded the entire cabinet and patched the dings.  I still need to sand a little more and I’ll be ready to paint.

I decided this is going to me turned into a multicade 60-in-1 machine.  I am solely doing this to raise money for my other projects and 60-in-1′s seems to be going for more that original DK machines.  Since the machine was in such rough shape to begin, I don’t feel bad for defacing an original DK machine.

2 Comments »

1. [...] DK Project II [...]

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