So the powder coaters finally finished their work on the main base of the cabinet a few days later, and I picked up the finished result.

It looks brand new! The powder coating process was definitely the way to go, I’m really pleased with the way it turned out.

So now we had everything needed to start putting this cab back together. The first job was to get the control panels sorted out. The trouble with the originals is they are silk screened onto aluminium panels. Very very hard and expensive to get these re-printed. So I went with a different route – I’d managed to get the original control panels vectorized, thanks to another arcade forum member. Here’s what came back from the printers:

These are printed on heavy duty textured vinyl. I sanded down the aluminium panels, and applied the art, and cut round the button holes.

Replaced the cushioning for the glass on the table top. Used the soft side of a long strip of Velcro, cut down to size around the edges. Came out OK:

And started to repopulate the cabinet with the cleaned up hardware:

Slowly slowly catchy monkey:

So it’s starting to look like a cabinet again. The next part is to clean up the old carriage bolts for the control panel. Polishing and removing rust. It’s a real drag of a job, but the M4 sizes cannot be found anywhere over here in the UK.

Anyway, everything is here – new joysticks knobs, wiring, the lot. Not much left to do.

Should be plain sailing through Part 5 – keep an eye out!

Tony