1993 Atari Arcade Cabinet Restoration — 3 WEEK CHALLENGE

Absolutely. I’m a computer person by trade, so the electronics part is fun and easy for me.

I’ve done my fair share of restorations, but this is a pretty involved one.

The last thing I restored to this extent was a Miller 180 MIG welder.

 

Tell all your friends!

 

Stoked to see the final product. Are you going to do ball tops or bat tops? I’ve built a couple sticks but never a full cab.

 

Bat Tops. My buddy plays Street Fighter competitively, so I’m decking out the cabinet in the Street Fighter II livery. To stay accurate, the controls would be the Bat top.

What do you mean full cab?

 

This is the glass that covers the screen. I removed it for safe keeping at put it inside the house. I took it back to test fit something and then...

I forgot thermal shock was a thing. When I took it from an air conditioned room and put it into the hot garage in direct sunlight, the result is that it spontaneously shattered in my hands into a million pieces.

I have the security footage for your entertainment.

https://youtu.be/wlzo1q--w4k

 

You could just see me standing there in absolute disbelief for a few moments trying to figure out what happened. I didn’t hit anything with it or even set it down. It shattered while I was holding it.

 

Can you find replacement glass, or is it a custom-fit kind of thing?

I remember when we were kids, my brother filled up a squirt gun with ice water and sprayed it at a light bulb (on) in the garage, which caused it to immediately implode and rain glass down all over the cars. That was my first lesson in thermal shock.

Awesome project by the way!

 

Oh yeah it’s nothing special, just some tempered plate glass. I’m going to be replacing it with Plexiglass so this doesn’t happen again.

 

Ah, cool! I didn't know if it had some kind of tint or polarized coating for the CRT screen. Good deal, onward!

 

So on Arcade machines it’s actually just a piece of protective glass. There is a whole standalone CRT tube under there.

 

Working on restoring the original Atari decals in Photoshop, they are all pretty beat up. This is the serial number sticker I'm working on.



Through sheer luck, I managed to find a picture of two intact ones online. I'll be using this as a basis for restoring the old one.

 

Serial Number decal restored in Photoshop. I had to guess what some of the digits for the serial number was because it was so damaged.

 

There’s a company that does repro labels. Metal or stickers.

 

I am in for the final results, Grew up playing arcade games

 

For Atari cabinet decals? I looked everywhere and only found two results. One guy in the Netherlands on some obscure arcade forum, and an arcade parts site that discontinued them. The originals are on Aluminum.

 

Not sure if Atari specifically but most of the pinball games. Check with Bay Area Amusements.

 

In for the restore!

 

Going to be doing more work on it come the weekend. Going to finish up painting the outside, and work on mounting the CRT in there.