So what’s your story?
This is the 4th addition to my basement arcade and was purchased at a local auctions. Gauntlet,. although not as old as some of the other machines in my collection, holds a special place in my heart, for it was one of the first 4 player games that 4 players could all play at once. I remember the Friday nights at the local arcade with 4 of us fighting side by side to get too the next level, or smacking the player who "
shot the food" .
Restoration: (part 1)
There isn’t too much to say on the restoration of this machine as it is not restored in my eyes. Cosmetically it is ok, but 20% of the side art is missing and I haven’t found a source for replacement art yet. The front of the machine was repainted and the control panel was cleaned some. The coin doors were shot, so I opted to replace them with new ones from Happ Controls. The Screen has some nasty screen burn, so I purchased some smoked Lexan to cover the monitor. The tinted plastic hides some of the monitor burn when the machine is off. The control panel was rough on the top edge so I put some trim around the top and all the joysticks were rebuilt
What’s left ?
What’s left ? Well… I’m still not happy with the joysticks even after the rebuild so Ill most likely replace them soon. I really should replace the monitor due to the bad burn in and I hate not having side at on my machines. The control panel should be replaced as well. I may or may not keep my Gauntlet machine depending on if I can find these replacement parts or I may purchase a machine in better shape to replace this one but until then….. "
Save keys to open doors"
Restoration: (part 2 AKA: Update)
Even the most "restored machine" is never fully done. It is sort of like owning a house.. there is always something that need to be fixed or could be better. The closing of the last update, proved that we could do much more to make things better and the time has come. With the purchase of some reproduction side art off of Ebay, I set off to rip off the old and replace it with new…. Things did not got as planed. As I started off on the right side, some of the black laminate (for lack of a better word) started to lift. After tit started.. It was all over.. There was no stopping it and is almost fell off the machine. Well that is not what I planed, but the dried glue that has soaked in to the partial board cabinet has acted like a sealer and it was obvious that a coat of black paint would look and feel just like the original. Off to the left side, Things were different over here. This side the laminate would not come off at all and I tried as I thought It would be nice to 100% match both sides of the cabinet wit fresh paint. No such luck. My 2 year old son Luke helped me pull it all off and the new art when on immediately after that. A coat of paint on the right side was applied and allowed to dry overnight. But what next??? THE MONITOR! Yes it was time to replace the burnt monitor that we covered with smoked Lexan with a nice new monitor. I also had a NOS overlay in stock so now was the time to do that too. The sticks and buttons were removed ands the steal panel was heated form underneath to soften the tough overlay material. It took the better part of 2 hours to work it all off, but once it was removed the panel was sanded clean and some dents that were by the wizard joystick were hammered flat. I also replace the wizard stick because the rebuild we did two years ago was not enough to keep the wizard from getting stuck. Before snapping it all back together, I replaced the Gauntlet board with Gauntlet 2. Gauntlet 2, is a better game with better attract music (IMHO) and that wraps up Gauntlet!
