Crystal Castles Part 1

So far this has been a fun project.  For the most part, I have been hurrying through the work.  This is a great looking cabinet with cute art and great colors.  It should clean up nicely and deserves a little respect.  It's not such a bad game after all.

Of course I couldn't help but to lay out the cash for the repro'd artwork, the control panel and the marquee.  Sadly the speaker overlay is no longer available.  The old control panel was stripped down to bare metal, sanded, and cleaned of rust.  It then received a good coat of Rustoleum primer and satin black.  The marquee was really a mess, and needed sanded down.  Since the wood portions of the marquee were questionable, I gave it several coats of the Zinsser sanding sealer.  The hardest part of the marquee was just getting the old artwork removed.  The glass portion was glued back in place with a silicone sealant.  Like I said, I've been really lucky just to find time to work, so I've been lazy when it comes to taking pictures.


The base of this cabinet has some water damage and the back corners have been smashed.  The water damage looks to be from someone mopping the floor around the machine for years.  I don't like for the wood to be crumbly and falling apart, even if it is just the bottom corners.  So I made new corners and replaced them using a biscuit joiner.  Here are a few shots of the repairs.  I hope to just touch up the damaged artwork.

For the trackball, being pretty much the basis of game play, I wanted it to work perfectly.  I decided to do a full replacement of the bearings and rollers.  The ball also needed replaced,  this game originally came with a lighted red trackball.  The ball, when lighted, is part of what made this game so unique in the 80's.


The back door on this game was missing, and replaced with cedar planks.  Well those had to go, so I made a new door, and replaced the upper and lower panels also.  I matched the panels exactly using a tracing bit and a router,  the only difference being the new pieces are plywood and not fiber board.  The door now looks nice and has a fine new cam lock.

The very front of the cabinet, above the coin door was split.  I braced this piece up with a piece of steel and bondo'd the crack.  After painting it black, it's hardly noticeable.  The control panel area needed some filler and it too was painted black just to make it all look fresh again.


As far as the internals, very little needed to be done.  The capacitors on the AR board got replaced and I did the whole Bob Roberts power brick rebuild, which included a new big blue.  I cleaned up the power switch and replaced the nasty power cord.  The bottom of this cabinet was pretty nasty, so all that and the harness was cleaned or washed.  The inside is looking pretty nice now, not perfect, not spotless, but clean and presentable.  Also you can see this is going to be a really pretty game when finished.