Al's Project

For my first arcade machine project, I bought a cheap Magic Sword at an Auction. It was a Robotron 2048 conversion. The machine worked, it just looked beat. The control panel had a crack, the monitor bezel was faded, and the side art was half missing. There had been a few re-paints and there were quite a few scratches. The joysticks functioned, they were just very sloppy. Everything worked except the coin and marquee lights. My wife requested that this not get converted to anything else, so it would remain a "Magic Sword" (I wanted it to be a "Final Fight", but who am I?).

I took everything apart, removed the coin doors and mech. Soldered all of the "twisted" connections, and used shrink tubing where necessary. I added a "coin-up" button where the coin-door lock was. Replaced the marquee light with a used one from a defunct game and replaced the tube. All of the parts I removed were painted separately. There was a tacky piece of plexi cut to fit below the speaker. I removed it and recovered the speaker panel with speaker fabric.

I started the cabinet by using 3M's Safest Stripper to remove the old paint. There was at least three layers of black over the original Robotron 2084 screened logos. I followed this with some 100 Grit sandpaper and a vibrating sander. The wrongly marked "Magic Sword" in the background is actually Ameridarts, I had a generic marquee in it for a while.
	Sanding and stripping of sides looking good. I figure that this picture was how it looked around Christmas of '97.
	Here we see it taped up and ready to paint a couple of weeks into 1998..
	Same Day. an hour or two later after a few coats of Rustoleum interior satin (Wine)
	I acquired a new Control Panel overlay, Monitor Bezel, and 1 side art from Capcom via the local distributor. I got a second from a good guy on the internet named Bob Roberts. Had a new piece of glass cut to replace the icky plexiglass. Added some new Happ joysticks that I got from Video Connection.
	It took me a couple of days to remove the old Contol Panel Overlay and re-cover it. I overpaid for it, so I took my time and CAREFULLY measured it so it would fit perfectly. It took me 3 hours to do (with cutting all of those holes and stuff). Looks great. I spent an equal amount of time working on the Monitor bezel. This was harder because I had to deal with the pre-cut hole fot he monitor.

	Screenshots from the CALLUS arcade emulator. Note: This page is finally complete. Click to email me