Battlezone Cabaret Cardboard Bezel Repair

[Wahoobies]

I have a mostly nice battlezone cabaret bezel- it's not so far gone that it's worth replacing and losing the original.

The little radar area was looking pretty precarious though, it's quite thin there and it had been creased and nearly ripped


This image shows the rips around 3 and 9 o'clock



Mrs Wahoobies suggested we add some clear plastic backing to stiffen it. I tried a couple pieces, and this slightly diffusing one looks best.

Photo before geting all the dust specs off!



Finished, with a bit of black paint where the rips where to fix the middle sections. Once it's behind the dark plastic this vanishes pretty well. I considered using the red gel material here, though that is quite flimsy by comparison so this nearly-clear did the job.






I also had a couple rips/sags in the top of this bezel where there were likely originaly staples.
We did a similar trick of attaching some stiffening plastic to strengthen it and remove the sag

Plastic re-inforcing added to the inside top of the bezel, shown on the right here

 

[Mikonos11]

Scan it, I'll restore it, and I'll reprint it for you on cardstock with a protective gloss laminate on both sides. This way, it will never deteriorate or continue to turn yellow, and it won't get dirty either, since you can wash it with soap and water without any problem.

 

[Retroman839]

Nice repair man 👍😁
Loving the red for the radar very cool..

Reading an interview with battlezone creator , he had code with a rear view mirror,

 

[Wahoobies]

Scan it, I'll restore it, and I'll reprint it for you on cardstock with a protective gloss laminate on both sides. This way, it will never deteriorate or continue to turn yellow, and it won't get dirty either, since you can wash it with soap and water without any problem.

Mikonos11: that's a really nice offer and thank you!

I considered sourcing a reproduction, though there is still life in this one. Not much fading either (it's behind a dark plastic bezel, I don't think it ever saw much sunlight either!. It just has been in and out of the cabinet a couple times.

You can get a better idea of the overall condition in this photo- it's pretty good. the dark plexi goes in front of the whole thing, and a metal clamp holds it on the top covering that big rip in the gray.

 

[Wahoobies]

Nice repair man 👍😁
Loving the red for the radar very cool..

Reading an interview with battlezone creator , he had code with a rear view mirror,

the red/green is taped directly to the screen- that's the standard/original as far as I know! part of the joy of setting one up is getting the radar image to fit inside that precise space.. I still have a little fiddling to do. There is X & Y size, then some convergence pots as well. Mame + test mode serving as a good target for the test pattern!

The board has headers for vert and horiz centering, though early ones (like this one sigh) aren't wired up with pots.

Yes the mirror story is very cool. Would have been a very different game! Lots of playability/skill ramp in it, and it just looks so cool and analog to me

 

[Mikonos11]

The truth is that in these new photos, the entire bezel assembly appears to be in very good condition, so my congratulations.

I can notice a slight lack of color in the red on the buttons, but it's not too alarming.

If you ever want to scan it for preservation purposes, not replacement, but rather, you have an interested collector here. I'll explain how to do it.

Thank you for being so responsive!

Best regards.