the restoration continues ...i was not completely happy with the way the control panel came out, because there was still a lot of rust and blank spots on it. unfortunately, no repros are available for the overlay and i've never seen a NOS set of artwork come up for sale. so the only option i had here for now is touch up the spots as good as possible. in order to do so, i scraped off the rust to the best of my abilities!
then i gave the control panel the maximum protection - wrap me up like a birthday present, baby!
i carried it up into the attic where i've set up a "paint booth" (this place is like a sauna in summer, must be 60+ degrees celcius up there - i will bring a thermometer with me the next time). there, i hit it with some rounds with anti-rust primer first!
paint dries quickly up there this time of the year, so i didn't waste a lot of time and followed the primer with some layers of black paint
of course, i seized the moment for something else which had been bothering me ...
(who would have guessed?)
after giving the paint enough time to dry (and the vapors to disappear), i started unwrapping the present
there was some minor bleeding around the edges ...
... especially visible on the yellow section, but i managed to get everything off with some paint remover!
and here it is: the finished product! it is still not perfect, because there are spots where the rust has eaten through the overlay, where the overlay has cracked up or where it is simply damaged, but all in all it is so much better than what i originally started with. i know that there is still some rust underneath the overlay, but i've done the best i can do and it is totally usable!
now i was almost ready to re-assemble the cabinet, but before that there was one last task i had promised to do for our australian vindicators friend womble who is currently
restoring a vindicators himself which is missing most of the art: scan the artwork on the front.
for that, i put the cabinet on its back one last time (hopefully) and set up my equipment
scan in progress!
here's a "thumbnail" of the stitched file. it's not perfect, because the art has a reflective protective sheet on top of it and uses reflective silver colors, but it's better than nothing and definitely something to work with. whoever is interested in the "full file" (warning: it's huuuge), drop me a message and i'll send it over ...
once i was done with the scanning, i could
finally throw the electronics back into the cab! here's how the "power wiring" looked BEFORE ...
... and AFTER
dropped in the monitor
but then i realized something: since the cab is now running with the 110v power supply from the states and in order to make it work over here, i have to drop in that stepdown converter somewhere. the big question was:
WHERE? as you can see above, the back is fully loaded, so i saw only one option (which would ask for some re-arranging): throw it in where the audio pcb rests. here's a picture of how the setup looked originally. as you can see, also no space for a bulky converter at the moment!
i thought about this long and hard, tried different setups, but there was only one solution which made sense, which would work and which would leave every single component fully accessible: i had to move the audio pcb itself! for that, i had to change the orientation of the piece of wood where the pcb slides into. careful, careful, i don't wont to destroy it!
and here it is after moving the audio pcb from a horizontal to a vertical setup. as you can see, the coin counters also had to be moved upwards!
with that step finished, i could disassemble the stepdown converter (look at that mess in my study)
i screwed the lower housing onto the wood from above ...
... dropped in the electronics and fixed the upper housing with two long screws from below! that stepdown converter isn't going anywhere anymore! it fits in nicely, doesn't collide with the coin mechs ...
... and everything can still be reached easily through the coin door (volume control, test switch, ...)! i'm extremely happy with that solution
, but it cost me some hours of sleep!
to be continued ...
