Very nice cabinet!

And it doesn't need to be completely new, it's an old game after all.

It turned out really nice!

I hope you've regained some interest in the arcade hobby. There are indeed times when you're more interested in one thing and less in another.

Back to the most problematic part: the control panel



There’s no repro available as of today.
I managed to find this picture (I think another collector took it for me a long time ago, but I can’t remember who—shame on me  ) :



I pitched the idea to Barry from ArcadeArtRepro website, making a reproduction of this control panel.
He kindly agreed to help, on the condition that I provide a scan of a control panel along with all the measurements.
Since I had no one who could provide a proper scan, I started from the same photo above, stretched it in every direction, and turned it into a nice rectangular image. Barry won’t notice a thing  … and anyway, we’re dealing with geometric shapes here—no risk of distortion, or at least nothing that can’t be easily corrected if needed. 

The original Polaris control panel is a silkscreen print on a metal plate, which isn’t feasible to reproduce at this stage. However, something that would work great is printing the artwork on the back of a rigid plexiglass plate. This is something that Barry can do! 

I’m taking all the necessary measurements…



And finally, the long‑awaited moment arrives… the delivery of the first version 



And then all the questions I’d been asking myself come rushing back: did I give Barry a proper scan, are my measurements accurate, won’t the margin of error cause problems?   



We’ll find out very soon — I’m starting the transplant…



Great! The four screws that attach the CPO to the wooden panel line up perfectly. The three buttons do as well   



You’ll notice I managed to find an old white‑ball joystick.  I can finally get rid of that hideous generic stick...



And then it’s truly a miracle — everything lined up perfectly. I never imagined the first version of this repro would be the right one. Barry did an outstanding job. 



Sure, the ultimate step would be a silkscreened version of the panel - hopefully for later - but for now here’s a solution that looks fantastic, and honestly, admit it, it looks a hundred times better than that bare metal plate I had at the beginning, right? 

For anyone who might need a repro of this panel, it’s now available in the ArcadeArtRepro.com shop 



And now, just for the pleasure of it, a few photos of the cab it really makes me want to play with such a beautiful panel 











Ah yes, I just realized the button colors aren’t the right ones. I’ll need to redo the photoshoot with the proper colors! 

One last thing — I think the folks at Taito must have been Beatles fans.   



 

Repairing the cabinet’s load‑bearing structure — as a reminder, one side of the cabinet had started to come apart. I didn’t take any pictures of the restoration, but I used wooden battens, wood glue, and metal angle brackets to realign and reinforce the whole assembly.

For the damaged wood sections, I use my usual method: rotten‑wood hardener and wood filler…















For the sides of the cabinet, I didn’t want to repaint them completely, because I don’t want it to look like a brand‑new machine...



So I go with a more hands‑on approach: I load up a cloth with black paint and lightly dab it over the cabinet, just enough to blend and tone down the most worn‑out areas without erasing too much its original patina 

Woah.
I'd kill ofr that Sprint 2 if only I had the space 

Of course!!   I couldn’t believe it when I found all of this!