Kenphone Puckman

[muddymusic]

The cabinet

Superb artwork on this cab. For a change this one is fully working so everything I'll be doing is cosmetic.

The
bezel, marquee & control panel aren't in the best shape, the usual
fag burns, cracks & quite bad flaking. The artwork is all on perspex
rather than glass - and that includes the side art which has a thin
layer over the top - I've never seen that before on an arcade cabinet.

I won't be doing anything with the sides apart from a good clean and tidy up of any holes or breaks.
Because
of the way it's printed I'd have to scan it all with a hand scanner,
then have 2 giant pieces of perspex reverse printed, and the cnc cut to
the exact profile of the cab, and it's just not worth the effort when
what's there isn't that bad.

muddymusic2013-09-26 22:11:39

 

[muddymusic]

Recreating the artwork

A real help was finding that the artwork has already been vectored by
Zorg on the Arcade Art Library, that will save a massive amount of work.

Unfortunately the control panel graphic he used is different so I'll have to recreate that myself.

I've
taken a 3 part scan of the original panel and stitched it together
ready to start remaking it. I can pull some of the parts from the vector
images above and also copy the colours so everything matches.

Added in existing elements to cpo, you can really see how much the original has faded!

All the right side and points info done.

Getting there!

Most of the panel has been redrawn, just a few little ghosts to draw.

Control Panel finished:

Didn't take that long to do, probably 4 hours give or take.

Bit of detail from the scan:

Ends up like so:

 

[muddymusic]

Cab Cleanup

Cab stripped of all perspex ready for a hoovering and polish.

Because
the whole shell is covered in a perspex layer it's been quite easy to
clean using Novus 2 to get any filth off and work out any small
scratches, followed with 1 for a nice shine.

The front now looks lovely and glossy, but that doesn't really show in any pics!

The
inside black area took a hell of a lot of cleaning as it was all sticky
from cigarette smoke, several yellow cloths later it was back to a
glossy finish, then I touched in any scratches and chips with my trusty
paint pen, gave it a polish, and now there's a nice shine.

Need to clean the inside and sorting out the wiring.

Cleaned up the sides as best I could. Can't do my normal thing of
touching in the gaps with a sharpie as all the art is covered, so next
best thing is to work out the scratches with Novus 2.

Before

After

Whole side before

After

I
filled in a few areas with white but needed to be careful as the cab
isn't as white as it appears. It's a shame there's a big gouge out of
the middle, that's something to look at further down the line - but most
of the big scratches are out now and the whole shell is lovely and
glossy now.

Gave the inside a good hovering and polish and gave the wiring a tidy.

Finalised the graphics ready for print, with a small colour adjustment.

(original colour)

 

[Dex-Jay]

Very cool work!
Call me a sick monkey, but I do like the mis-registered inks on the ghosts!

 

[muddymusic]

The new control panel has arrived.

Old one:

New one, with lighter blue which will be used on the other bits:

I'm really pleased with how close my design came out compared against the original.

Here's the other art. It looks superb against the old stuff.

Marquee:

And the bezel. This looks amazing, and it f*cking should as it cost a small fortune.

Exactly
the same process as used on the original, so it looks the biz. What's
annoying is after I've ordered about 15 pieces of expensive plexi
printing the company aren't going to produce it any more

 

[muddymusic]

Control panel has been fully rebuilt, thanks go to VirtVic for getting
the expensive perspex drilled nicely - and removing the need for any
visible joystick bolts 

Marquee
has been refitted, bezel fitted, almost as soon as the new artwork arrived the monitor went completely blue so that needed a repair
(bad neck card transistor) and I managed to get an original rom to
replace the speed up hack that was previously on the pcb thanks to Porchy.

Another one that
turned out well I think, the brand new artwork is stunning compared with
the faded, cracked and scratched stuff.

Soon to be united with its new owner after it spends a weekend at Play Expo next month

muddymusic2013-09-26 23:52:47

 

[Dex-Jay]

Looks great! The white sides and blue marquee and bezel remind me a lot of PacMania too...

 

[Sciddleybop]

That looks awesome. Great work.

 

[Jase]

Superb job on a beautiful cab, the nicest looking of all the Pac/Puckmans.
Really glad you got rid of the death-spike joystick too!

 

[shrunkenmaster]

Excellent stuff, I'd love one of these, even though I suck at the game. Looks much better to me than the regular Pac cab.

 

[Alpha1]

Nice work duder

 

[puckman]

Thats awesome work you are doing! Really happy to see my old cab getting fixed up! I bought it from Jonathan Thompson, still have a photo of him posing with it

 

[tronads]

I'd like to see that pic if you can.
This cab has been mine for the last year or so. Olly did a fantastic job on it.tronads2015-01-17 00:22:27

 

[Danny Ogg]

Looks super! Sorry to hear that they aren going to make any more, since i would really like a PUCK MAN marque and bezel for my UNICAB.

 

[Guests]

Barely seen a better looking Puckman ever..,

 

[tronads]

Here it is in its current home.

 

[muddymusic]

It sure is a beautiful cab, I really enjoyed restoring it. It's nice to see it in your games room next to one of the best looking cabs ever made!

 

[minwah]

Love the artwork on this cabinet, never much liked the US Pacman 'normal' artwork.

Nice job on the cleanup and new artwork!

 

[Guests]

It sure is a beautiful cab, I really enjoyed restoring it. It's nice to see it in your games room next to one of the best looking cabs ever made!

Yes....and yes, many Puckmans look at least as good as the original yellow Pacman. This one looks better for my taste.

And Cristle Castle one of the best looking cabinets ever made.....nobody could deny that

Also Millipede (the upper section as well as on CC) is one of that one of a kind cabinets.

 

[zekid63]

Waaah Amazing work ! i love this cabinet design ! Do you share your files somewhere ? Thank you.