Part 1:
I always loved Tron, even before the recent movie; and recall all the fond memories of playing it in the arcade. So, although, it's not my first time owing an arcade machine, it is my first restoration. I see many full size upright Tron's get restored and they look great, but I had an opportunity to pick up a cabaret version of Tron, but it needed a lot of work. It played alright, but visually it bothered me. When I got it, the whole game was patched pretty roughly and spray painted black over the existing wood grain vinyl. The cabinet was really watered damaged around the bottom. 3 out of the 4 bottom sides were non existent because water damage had rotted away the wood. The back side was saved because of a metal right angle plate that was still there. There were no feet on the game and was obvious that it had been through rough times. When I first examined the cabinet wood, I thought it was unusual to have 1" thick particle board. After closer inspection, the wood wasn't originally 1" thick, the water damage had swelled the wood to 1" from 3/4". This was mostly on the entire backboard & lower half of the cabinet. I literally had to build the lower 2" - 4" of the cabinet from nothing but splintered rotted wood; and had to rebuild all the right angles on the bottom. One funny thing happened... to make it easier to move, I added castors to the bottom of the cabinet. One day while moving it outside to sand, one of the wheels fell off, but the wood chunk was still attached to the fallen wheel with screws still in it. The bottom was literally missing @ 30% of the wood & the rest rotted.
A friend asked me, instead going through the headache of fixing it, wouldn't it be easier to just cut new wood & build a new cabinet. I was determined to bring this old game back to it's original glory. I explained to my friend, it was like restoring a classic car... You could either restore it from the ground up or go buy a replica kit car; it's just not the same. My original thought was to restore it with the wood grain vinyl, but later thought I had an opportunity to do something really special; so I decided to do something really custom. I wanted this thing as perfect and unique as I could make it. I wanted every pot hole & knick fixed to perfection. When I started, I didn't know it would take me over 3 1/2 months and @ 100+ hours. Granted I only worked on it on weekends, it was torture & endless patching of bondo, wood filler, and sanding. It just never seemed good enough for me, I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist.
So here are some pics of the sanding & patching phase.
I always loved Tron, even before the recent movie; and recall all the fond memories of playing it in the arcade. So, although, it's not my first time owing an arcade machine, it is my first restoration. I see many full size upright Tron's get restored and they look great, but I had an opportunity to pick up a cabaret version of Tron, but it needed a lot of work. It played alright, but visually it bothered me. When I got it, the whole game was patched pretty roughly and spray painted black over the existing wood grain vinyl. The cabinet was really watered damaged around the bottom. 3 out of the 4 bottom sides were non existent because water damage had rotted away the wood. The back side was saved because of a metal right angle plate that was still there. There were no feet on the game and was obvious that it had been through rough times. When I first examined the cabinet wood, I thought it was unusual to have 1" thick particle board. After closer inspection, the wood wasn't originally 1" thick, the water damage had swelled the wood to 1" from 3/4". This was mostly on the entire backboard & lower half of the cabinet. I literally had to build the lower 2" - 4" of the cabinet from nothing but splintered rotted wood; and had to rebuild all the right angles on the bottom. One funny thing happened... to make it easier to move, I added castors to the bottom of the cabinet. One day while moving it outside to sand, one of the wheels fell off, but the wood chunk was still attached to the fallen wheel with screws still in it. The bottom was literally missing @ 30% of the wood & the rest rotted.
A friend asked me, instead going through the headache of fixing it, wouldn't it be easier to just cut new wood & build a new cabinet. I was determined to bring this old game back to it's original glory. I explained to my friend, it was like restoring a classic car... You could either restore it from the ground up or go buy a replica kit car; it's just not the same. My original thought was to restore it with the wood grain vinyl, but later thought I had an opportunity to do something really special; so I decided to do something really custom. I wanted this thing as perfect and unique as I could make it. I wanted every pot hole & knick fixed to perfection. When I started, I didn't know it would take me over 3 1/2 months and @ 100+ hours. Granted I only worked on it on weekends, it was torture & endless patching of bondo, wood filler, and sanding. It just never seemed good enough for me, I guess I'm too much of a perfectionist.
So here are some pics of the sanding & patching phase.
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