Joust restoration continued - part 2
My current marquee could be better. It’s just a piece of mylar behind plexiglass but looks good. The speaker and light fixture behind it are original. The marquee should have a black border on it, too much of the graphic is obscured by the cabinet. Original ones do pop up on eBay sometimes so I’m still hoping.
The glass bezel that came with my cabinet I was hoping was the original one covered with the Aliens decal. It turned out to be just a plain black bezel under the decal. I had a few options but I went with a discounted plexiglass bezel with a reverse-printed decal applied to it. Someone had purchased it for their project but then abandoned it. I’ve seen original ones for sale, this one suits me just fine.
The monitor is the original Wells Gardner 19K4901 CRT with which it was manufactured. It looks great. The colors are bright and there is minimal burn-in from Aliens, a bit more from whatever came before it, and even a faint bit of Joust.
I replaced the JAMMA wiring harness and some of the original copper ribbon used to ground everything. I bought replica Williams-style color-matched 2-way joysticks. And buttons. A new control panel overlay decal. Added lights in the coin slots. Cleaned it all inside and out. Gently vacuumed the monitor. Put new arcade feet on it. Cleaned the original transformer.
Lastly for the game itself I went with a 19-in-1 horizontal version of a JAMMA multicade card from eBay. It can be set to play Joust only and it behaves exactly like a real Joust that way, no game selection menu to go through. I did not set it to free play so it uses quarters but I removed all the locks too. I just like the sound/feel of putting in an actual quarter. I may set it up to accept tokens too, plenty to be found on eBay.
Last updated 3/16/25 9:28am
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