Egret 2 Restorations logs

[Monstermug]

Was meaning to do this quite a long time ago but been held back with work.

Originally posted on Jamma+ forums but will post it here as I know someone will want to see it (you know who)

Although working fine, it has a lot of dings, rusts, scratches,cigarette burns and generally looking pretty beat up.

First thing is first, I start by removing the original stickers. I do this by using freezer spray on the corners and using the back end of a Stanley knife peel away at the corner.



(can buy in Maplins)

Thee freezer spray acts to freeze the adhesive so that it gets released from the surface. I got this technique from removing Mylar from pinball tables. Great thing about this technique is that it allows you to re-use the stickers afterwards.



There were a lot of rips on the artwork so I discarded what I couldn't re-use.

So here is the machine full stripped from artwork.


Look's like someone's tried to do a repair job with eggshell paint in the past



Scratches everywhere



Other side a bit better but not much lol





The bezel looks like the paint has cracked from the heat of the monitor.




The nanao MS8 looks like it has been dragged along the floor.



Cp a little dirty but nothing I can't fix.





Here is the back of the Egret 2. Looks cleaner than the rest.





The front of the cab. Nasty bit of rust here.





Inside the cab was a mess. Can't believe I allowed my pcbs to sit inside here.



Okay. So now lets get some more work done. I will now have to strip the whole thing down so I can respray it.

The control panel goes out first. It is connected with 4 bolts. It might be a good idea to take out the coin mechanism as well. I keep all the screws labeled inside little food bags. E.g. CP screws, coin mech screws etc so I know how they go back.



Next I discharge the monitor and disconnect the Chassis. And with the help of a friend, out goes the monitor. (careful not to neck it)



After removing the power supply unit, light unit, coin mech which is all connected to the jamma harness the cab is now almost bare.



Speakers comes out next.

And then the rotate mechanism.

Now off to my brother's car body work garage

[emphatic]

Nice work. You will find this thread in the Hardware section later.

[chempop]

Excited to see how this turns out

[Monstermug]

Okay I managed to spare some time last night and did some more work to the egret 2.

I used a mechanical sander and this scrubbing pad which costs £1. It's a bit like the stuff you wash the dishes with but much more durable.



The idea here is not to remove as much paint as possible but just to make the surface as flat and smooth as possible before being primed.








There were some dents that had to be filled up. I used normal bodywork filler. This dries pretty fast. Under 10 minutes and can be sanded down.

Here are pictures of the areas that were dented that had to be filled.











This is what it should look like after sanding down.







So far so good

I used the air gun to blow of all the dust out from the machine and threw a bucket of water on the floor to stop more dust from circulating. A final wipe down and the machine is ready to be primed.





The equipment I used to do the spraying.



These are Devilbliss GTI. The gold one in the middle is a limited edition. These rrp for over £300 each new. Yes no Halfords spray can's in sight. The spray guns produce a very fine mist in a twin fan like shape. The results are a more even distribution of paint and no dripping. I use three guns, one for primer, base coat and lacquer. Saves me from washing out each one immediately.



I used a white primer. This white had a very very slight hint of cream in it so it won't turn out brilliant white and make it look as close as stock as possible.

These things don't come cheap. At over £10 for a liter.



Turning the Egret 2 on it's back revealed loads of rust underneath so I quickly sanded that down etc ready for priming.

Before.


After



I didn't take to much care at the underneath as nobody is going will ever see it except possibly, Martin if I decide to ever sell it. The idea here was just to stop the rust from coming back.

First coat of primer.









And then several coats after.. Wow this machine sucks up paint like a thirsty cactus! PLEASE NOTE THE YELLOW JAIL BARS SHOWN IN THE PICTURE IS MY CAMERA PLAYING UP. Its actually not there. But as these were the only pictures I had taken at the time. I guess you guys have to use your imagination hehe.









The piece of wood inside the egret 2 was a little beat up so that had to be restored.

Before




After



The wooden panel that fits behind the egret was a little beat up so I had to restore that as well.

Before:



After

[Monstermug]

Yesterday I managed to sand, prime, base coat and lacquer a few bits a pieces.

And after a final polish here are the results:

The coin door.



Can't see the reflection? Try this one



The coin tray.



and finally the front entry door...



I had sprayed a couple more smaller parts like the marquee holder clips and speaker grills but it was pretty hard to show the reflection on those.

Oh I forgot to mention that the base coat is a ford diamond white (with a tiny tiny hint of cream in it). I didn't want it looking too white. This was a stock paint on the color sheet provided.

Results? An identical colour match.

[Monstermug]

Another little update.

Had been a little while since I went back to the garage and to my surprise, the other parts were already sprayed/buffed up. Patience is a virtue I say







So all I had to was to wrap it up and chuck it in the back of my car

Here's what it looks like in my office.



Photo of my office?




Nope, just the reflection







As I saved some time on painting the rest of the cab, I decided to do a spot of cleaning,

Dirty wiring looms...









All cleaned up







I start by putting it all back in the cab..



But got side tracked and began work on the control panel instead...

Underside of the control panel,











The populated control panel was from a trade. Someone on this forum might recognize it? Was originally a 2l12b layout but I planned to use this for shumps only so didn't see the point of having the extra buttons.

Found out I was a knob and got the wrong sized locks for the cab. So I thought I throw in the towel for today.

[Monstermug]

Found some more pictures which I forgot to upload with the last update.

The monitor bezel nicely sprayed. I had to actually spray this one twice because the first time round left little tiny potholes on the finish due to some wax residual left over from the previous paint job.



The lid nicely painted and lacquered. Now ready for a buff.



Wasn't sure if the handles were meant to be white or cream I decided to leave it like this. I quite like the look of the cream handles lol



A few cleaned up speakers ready for installation.



Fitting the light fixture before putting up the speakers. If you do it the other way around you won't be able to fit it.





This speaker had to come back out as I forgot to put in the light fixture first :S



Then goes in the monitor rotate mech. Make sure you get these holes on the bottom left corner otherwise you won't be able to attach the chassis shelves.



Nearly there...







Remember the cracked and scratched bezel?



Here it is all done up








I had the color of the bezel color coded to match that of the original.

[emphatic]

Very awesome. It looks brand new.

[chempop]

Wow, just incredible work! Looks ridiculously good man.

[Monstermug]

Thanks guys. I didn't realise it would tun out like this. I could'nt go for the powder coating route as Egret 2 are 35% plastic. I got fed up of grabbing a handful of rust every time i reached for the power switch and looking at all the bumps and scratches just got me depressed.

Now it's a finger print magnet. I will upload some final pics as soon as the new crt comes.

[daskrabs]

Where are you getting a new CRT for an Egret 2?

[cools]

Fantastic work. You could charge for work of this quality. It's a shame no-one has done a proper run of accurate repro stickers yet.

Retrobrite on the handles btw

[Monstermug]

Where are you getting a new CRT for an Egret 2?

I got them from Jeff. He was selling them cheap for a limited time only. Fantastic monitors, brilliant picture, convergence etc. Got one in my other Egret 2.

http://www.digitalsystemsdesign.co.uk/s ... ull&id=155

Fantastic work. You could charge for work of this quality. It's a shame no-one has done a proper run of accurate repro stickers yet.

Retrobrite on the handles btw

Thanks cools! Will look into Retrobrite.

[Monstermug]

This was meant to be the final update but the CRT I purchased from Jeff has not yet arrived.

So I got bored and thought I make another small update.


Brand new Artwork.



Also got these reproduction artwork which were really bad quality. Not only that they aren't even the right size.



Anyway, here is the side of the Egret 2 without artwork.



Bottom half of the artwork.. (leave 5mm gap from the bottom and 17mm gap from the edge)



Top half.. (8mm gap from the edge and 1mm gap from the bottom half)



Closer look..



Other side artless..



Now with art....



If Bernard Matthews was reading this he would say "Beautiful" and the Man from Del Monte would say "Yes!"

Lets compare the reproduction artwork...

Color way off. And I don't know where this guy got his measurements from!!! Must have been blind.







Hopefully the monitor should come tomorrow...

[cools]

Not to be rude, but that "brand new artwork" is repro as well. The gradients are screwed on some letters and why aren't you comparing it with the original (removed) artwork?

[Monstermug]

Not to be rude, but that "brand new artwork" is repro as well. The gradients are screwed on some letters and why aren't you comparing it with the original (removed) artwork?

Naw don't hold back on the comments bro If you have something to say just spit it out. Rather hear bad comments and suggestions to be honest so I can improve next time round.

I did compare it against my other Egret 2 and it looked pretty damn good. Didn't take any pictures though. Color slightly off but will do I guess. I had thought they were original when I got them. Should of checked really. Can't return the bad quality one either as I purchased that last year.

Will compare them to the original when I take it out of this room back into the other and line it up against the original one. (Hence the control panel not connected)

[Monstermug]

Here we go. No natural light to see the slight color difference but it's really good work if you ask me

[emphatic]

Those applied repros look really good. Did you get them from BIGTIME?

[KmanSweden]

Not the color match.. check out the "shading" on the II in Egret II in this pic.. Just a straight line..


And it's a straight line in the R and missing totaly in the 2nd E in this..


Your paint job however is fantastic!
The Repro art is 80% done.

[Monstermug]

You guys got amazing attention to detail. I can see the difference on the II now. I was never good at finding Wally

Didnt come from BIGTIME. Had pm'd him wanting to buy a 100 yen sticker but no reply.

[chempop]

very strange about the "RE" one that one side... maybe that side can rest against the wall or better yet, another cab

[Monstermug]

I see the E now. Was looking at the E on the otherside! That is strange! I'm officially depressed now. Gonna go play some twin hawk n try forget about it.

[KmanSweden]

But your respray is top notch.

[Monstermug]

I am thinking of doing a run of repo artwork myself. I guess if u wanna do something right you got to do it yourself

Found a link on AO uploaded by Cools for some artwork. I notice the II on this file has also no gradient on the II. Looks to me like it was purposely done like this?. Does anybody have a good file I could use? Had made some inquiries this morning and it seems that printing it on self adhesive vinyl will cost a bomb. Also the image that is produced comes out really pixelated.

So I was thinking of printing the artwork out on good quality paper and then using a 3m adhesive spray to apply it on. This way the artwork would come out perfect.

What do you guys think about this idea?

[cools]

If you're thinking of doing a run do it properly and people will jump on board - no-one has done an accurate run of E2 art and the demand is there. To do it properly it needs to be on self adhesive vinyl, colourmatched with some (unfaded) original pieces and gloss laminated.

The art is normally ripped from the E2 manual PDF file, where it's close but not 100% accurate (and certainly not colourmatched as that depends on the printer). Nerdygrrl on AO is looking at it at the moment: http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic. ... 4&p=273750

[lettuce]

Lovely looking cab mate, i miss my Egret 2

Where are you getting a new CRT for an Egret 2?

I got them from Jeff. He was selling them cheap for a limited time only. Fantastic monitors, brilliant picture, convergence etc. Got one in my other Egret 2.

http://www.digitalsystemsdesign.co.uk/s ... ull&id=155

Noticed this paragraph on Jeffs site...

"Please do not try live switching of resolution modes - this will always reduce the life of a multisynch monitor and they were not designed for that purpose - if you are using mame with a pc then I would strongly recommend using the PC in 640x480 at 60Hz (which can be accessed via the advanced setup on your graphics adapter tab) and generate scanlines via mame. If you start running on VGA at boot and then force the monitor back down to CGA to play a game, then back up to VGA for the menu etc you run the risk of damaging your monitor, and almost certainly will reduce its life expectancy - these are the very last that will ever be available - look after them "


Had always wondered this when i had my MAME Egret 2 with a MS Pentranic monitor in, on boot up it used to switch between, CGA, EGA and VGA about 4 times, and then when load a rom from the frontend into the game and then when exiting again, guess there only designed to switch between resolutions now and again, thats one of the reason i got 2 standard res monitors for my next mame projects

That said im guessing theres owners who have used these tri sync monitors for mame setups for years without any issues!?.

[chempop]

Noticed this paragraph on Jeffs site...

"Please do not try live switching of resolution modes - this will always reduce the life of a multisynch monitor and they were not designed for that purpose - if you are using mame with a pc then I would strongly recommend using the PC in 640x480 at 60Hz (which can be accessed via the advanced setup on your graphics adapter tab) and generate scanlines via mame. If you start running on VGA at boot and then force the monitor back down to CGA to play a game, then back up to VGA for the menu etc you run the risk of damaging your monitor, and almost certainly will reduce its life expectancy - these are the very last that will ever be available - look after them "

Damn, that is really good to know. Hopefully I haven't done too much harm on my trisync, I will not be messing with resolutions so often.

[Monstermug]

Noticed this paragraph on Jeffs site...

"Please do not try live switching of resolution modes - this will always reduce the life of a multisynch monitor and they were not designed for that purpose - if you are using mame with a pc then I would strongly recommend using the PC in 640x480 at 60Hz (which can be accessed via the advanced setup on your graphics adapter tab) and generate scanlines via mame. If you start running on VGA at boot and then force the monitor back down to CGA to play a game, then back up to VGA for the menu etc you run the risk of damaging your monitor, and almost certainly will reduce its life expectancy - these are the very last that will ever be available - look after them "

Damn, that is really good to know. Hopefully I haven't done too much harm on my trisync, I will not be messing with resolutions so often.

I think I will second that! Didn't really pay much attention to it but since you have highlighted it I am a little worried too. Won't be using my mame system on it anymore. Like Jeff said, "These are the very last that will ever be available - look after them"

If you're thinking of doing a run do it properly and people will jump on board - no-one has done an accurate run of E2 art and the demand is there. To do it properly it needs to be on self adhesive vinyl, colourmatched with some (unfaded) original pieces and gloss laminated.

The art is normally ripped from the E2 manual PDF file, where it's close but not 100% accurate (and certainly not colourmatched as that depends on the printer). Nerdygrrl on AO is looking at it at the moment: http://forum.arcadeotaku.com/viewtopic. ... 4&p=273750

I had a quote on self adhesive vinyl at a local printer and it came up to £130 a set!!! Now if I mass produce it, I will come to £100. Will people be willing to pay £100 + postage for a set of accurate repo artwork? I also had a quote on similar quality gloss paper instead and it came to only £25. Only problem is you will have to stick it on yourself with 3M self adhesive spray.

Had a look at that thread too. Hope Nerdygrrl can pull it off so I don't have too lol

[emphatic]

Where are you getting a new CRT for an Egret 2?

I got them from Jeff. He was selling them cheap for a limited time only. Fantastic monitors, brilliant picture, convergence etc. Got one in my other Egret 2.

http://www.digitalsystemsdesign.co.uk/s ... ull&id=155

How well does it fit against the EGRET II's rotation mech and bezel? I've been meaning to get one myself as one of my EGRET II's had Garegga burn-in, but I'm still on the fence because of these factors. I need answers.

[Monstermug]

Where are you getting a new CRT for an Egret 2?

I got them from Jeff. He was selling them cheap for a limited time only. Fantastic monitors, brilliant picture, convergence etc. Got one in my other Egret 2.

http://www.digitalsystemsdesign.co.uk/s ... ull&id=155

How well does it fit against the EGRET II's rotation mech and bezel? I've been meaning to get one myself as one of my EGRET II's had Garegga burn-in, but I'm still on the fence because of these factors. I need answers.

Fits really nice. Tiny gap on the side but that hardly noticeable.



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Here are pics of the #103 that should be arriving soon.



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