The first step was to disassemble the joystick and grind some of the surface rust off the metal shaft. It cleaned up nicely, then I gave it a zinc primer coat followed by two coats of semi gloss and a clear coat. I reassembled the joystick, bending the mangled cherry switch back into correct shape and soldering some new lead wires in place. No problems. Now when I went to put it back on the game I just couldn’t do it. I knew I had a nice reproduction overlay stashed away and maybe it was time to put that on as well. Why not. So, I stripped off the rest of the cp parts and the cpo.

The old cpo came off pretty easy by scraping with a chisel. Its been real hot here in Chicago land, and the cpo was pliable. Now all I have to do is strip the adhesive and sand it down a little. If it cools off I’ll paint it, if not, maybe just a clear coat. I’m also thinking that I should get to work on reproducing the Gottlieb insert that goes on the joystick. The gorf insert is not original and I know a few people that are looking for them. Stay tuned.

A good friend of mine, Jeff Rothe of rotheblog got hooked on the game during one of his visits. The game is just one of those sleeper hits that once you play, it quickly gets added to your list of favorites. Jeff has taken on the ambitious project of putting together a Mad Planets game and asked me if I could take some scans of the artwork on the front. Since he is interested in reproducing the art for his personal project, there is a good chance this artwork will see the light of day. Good news for any Mad Planet owners with games needing some TLC.

I took as many scans as possible with my HP window scanner and then followed up with some high resolution shots in macro on my digital camera. Hopefully Jeff will be able to piece the stuff together and make it look good. Watch for progress on his work over at coinopspace the arcade forum dedicated to the arcade collecting hobby. None of the BS, just loads of fun. Happy gaming.

I picked up a crappy Galaga panel from Mongo on KLOV and proceeded to strip it bare. When I mentioned my project to Lisa I was threatened with bodily harm if I messed up “Her” Galaga; so a spare panel was necessary in case I ever needed to switch back to the original. I sold off the joystick, cp harness and buttons to re-coupe most of my investment in the cp. Picked up a Gaplus pcb and repro galaga cpo from Troy Akey and was ready to go. Except that Gaplus requires a 4way vs Galaga’s 2way. What to do? Open up the joystick slot to accept the 4way movement. I’m not sure how Galaga will play using the 4way, but I’m going to give it a shot. To cut the hole I chose to use a Greenlee radio punch and die set. Why is it called a radio punch? I have no idea and couldn’t find any info about it. It’s a vintage tool from 1959 and I do know that it’s a very simple tool that allows you to make clean holes in metal. You pre drill the center point slightly larger than the bolt and then assemble the punch set around the metal. After a few turns on the bolt you have a nice clean hole. Here’s a visual:

Everything is in place it’s time to put the punch into the hole, or in this case, the slot. If your panel didn’t have a pre-existing hole, you’d need to drill one appox 1/16″ larger than the bolt diameter. I’m going to do my best to center this on the slot when I make the hole.

I mounted the punch so the cut would go down and away from the surface that the cpo would be applied to. Just in case any divot or lip was created by the cutting. A few turns with the wrench (socket wrench would be easier) and bingo! I think it took about 20 seconds to do.

The hole turned out just fine with no lip at all. Nice smooth, clean cut. I used a 1-1/16″ punch and wish I had used a 1-1/8″ instead. This would have eaten up all of the slot width, but I wanted to get this thing done and powder coated and didn’t have the 1-1/8″ punch on hand.

That’s it for now, I’ll post more after the panel returns from Pro-Tek with a nice new paint job!

We decided to meet about half way as Jeremy is in Michigan and I’m in Illinois.  It was about 160 miles one way for me and we both forgot about the time change, but luckily it all worked out.  Here are a few pictures of the game that Jeremy sent before the deal.  I’ll post more after I add it to the collection page.

Overall I am very happy with the trade. The game is in fantastic shape and working 100%. It has a beautiful, bright picture and fantastic attract mode sounds. At some point I will install the repro cpo that he included in the deal (from Quarterarcade) and I’ll install the correct joystick insert that I picked up online (from videogameparts). The correct insert says Gottlieb in raised letters vs the Gorf insert that’s in there now. Mad Planets is a very fun and challenging game, trying to coordinate the flight stick and spinner can be very tricky! If you get a chance to play this game, you should, it is an underrated classic IMHO.