Arcade Stuff > Centipede
Centipede
During one of his visits, my Dad decided to try out my Aqua Jack cabinet. He really enjoyed it, which was kind of surprising to me, as he is not much of a gamer. I think I got him to play with my Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) back in the mid 80's for a grand total of about 20 minutes, and that's about all I've seen him do gaming-wise. Anyway, he really liked the arcade cabinet because it was "the way games are supposed to be played." Plus, I think he liked that I actually did something that required some of this skills that he has and I really don't, namely painting, woodworking, electrical work, etc. And it didn't hurt that my Mom is a closet Pac-Man addict...
Shortly before my Dad's birthday last year, during one of my weekly visits to the local arcade/pinball dealer, this beat up old cabinet caught my eye.
Even though it was all painted black and had some cheesy generic green CPO on it, I could tell that it was once a Centipede cabinet. Upon closer inspection, I could see some of the Centipede sideart poking through the bad paint job. Sonny, the arcade guy, gave me a good deal on the cabinet and I hauled it home with the help of a friend who was also getting a cabinet to start a similar project.
Once I got it there, I broke out the leftover 3M Safest Stripper from my last project, a few rags, and started scrubbing. Look at what I found under all that black paint:
Success! Hours of cleaning and dozens of rags later, and I had uncovered the whole thing. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad either.
I emailed my Dad some pictures of what I had gotten for him, and he was thrilled. He started having me order all kinds of parts for it. I found an original bezel and marquee for it, both in great shape. I also picked up a nice monitor like the one I used in the Xevious cabinet. I picked up a nice green ball-top joystick, some green and yellow buttons, and finally, I found an old Centipede trackball on eBay. A $20 roller/bearing kit later and it was ready to go.
Over the course of a few weekends, my Dad and I put the whole thing together. It's been sitting 95% finished for quite a while now, but gets played a fair amount. All we have left to do is put a nice power button on it and stick on a fresh control panel overlay and it will be complete.