Now I started to feel like I was on the home stretch. I think just being able to actually play the game was the big turning point. Unfortunately, due to the broken pot, when I say play the game, I can coin up and move Stanley about and fire at Kong; but the scrolling screen…

I was finally in a position to open the Donkey Kong 3 kit I’d bought nearly a year ago. This was a NOS (New Old Stock) kit that I imported from the US from a guy who had a couple of them in differing completeness. He had a couple of eBay auctions up with these kits…

After numerous coats of paint (and a couple of rub downs and re-paints), it was time to start the re-assembly of the cabinet. I had been warned previously about the difficulties I may encounter getting the front coin door panel back into the cabinet. There were mentions of using timber to prise the cabinet open…

The painting stage was the one I’d been looking forward to the most! As apprehensive as I was about getting the colour and the finish right, I was ready for a task that actually looked like progress was being made. After all of the final puttying had been done and I’d sanded down the primed…

There’s going to be a common theme all the way through this post, wood glue! Numerous areas of the cabinet had splits in the plywood; either through knocks and scrapes or by forcing lock cams (instead of trying to work out why the rear door lock was a bit stiff!). The first area I attacked…

Now due to the unrelenting British weather, any further tasks had to be undertaken indoors. As you’ll have probably seen from the earlier blogs, the inside of the cabinet was disgusting when it arrived. This included the power supply: I began to strip down the power supply so that I could get rid of all…

I was very eager to start painting, but realised that the first few coats of primer would show up more dings and dents that weren’t visible on the current half filler, half painted surface. Before I started, I thought best to sort everything out (parts wise) to ensure I knew where everything was. Out came…

Now I did mention that this cabinet was filthy didn’t I?:   Out came the vacuum and some Pledge floor cleaner (with added hot water) and I started cleaning up the bottom and insides of the cabinet. I thought it best to get rid of this now before I started repairing the cabinet, mainly for…

So the second vs. Unisystem that came across the pond was in a much worse state than the other. The sides of the cabinet had the usual scuffs and chips, the front speaker panel had had a hole drilled through it for a credit button (and then painted black???) and the t-moulding had been replaced…