Locked Up

Got 20 doors of the lockers from Hollywood Bowl installed in their new home and cleaned up a bit.

The ‘Entrance’ sign from the parking garage fits nicely up on top too.

I need to rewire it at some point since it still has the original crumbling cloth insulated wiring inside. Once it’s safely functional I’d like to hang it somewhere the layers of stickers and tags on the back can be shown off too.

Old dot matrix printed info card gives an idea of how long it’s been since some of these had been rented.

Lovely chrome, and painted logo.

The banks of lockers I bought are all probably all from when the place opened as Timber Lanes in 1962, based on their original color scheme. They started life a pale brownish color, with alternating rows painted the orange seen on the back of this door. At some point they were all painted over with the current color to match the newer Brunswick 2000 style lockers that were added to the space. I think I’d like to pick out a period appropriate palette and do a scatter of different colors on the doors eventually.

The objects in their natural habitat, prior to removal for preservation. I was a little surprised at the absence of certain prolific taggers’ work from the back of the entrance sign.

I also made some progress on another project. The new CNC cut control panel and Lexan top plate for my Konami Simpsons cab came in a little while ago. I got a chance to install it last week! Here’s the old…

…and the new…

So much better. The control panel art is a used original piece I picked up off someone on the KLOV forums, up close you can see an insane difference in the print quality and sharpness compared to the reproduction piece on the old control panel.

Ay caramba!

Brought to fruition a deal that’s been on the back burner for a couple months now. The same guy I got the Hydra and Golden Axe conversions from a while back had a Simpsons that he offered me in trade for some work on a few pinball machines. We shook on it and I ordered the parts, which arrived and then spent weeks on my workbench. The games were out in Salem and life did its thing and cut off any opportunity to take a trip down there…

Eventually things eased up, and I made arrangements for the 7th. This date neatly coincided with Portland’s annual Snowpocalypse, so I pushed the date forward yet another week. Booked an E-350 from Zipcar and finally made the trip for real this afternoon.

After several hours spent troubleshooting and doing some repairs to a Lethal Weapon 3 and rebuilding the flippers of a Tee’d Off, I made off into the foggy night with my prize. Bezel and monitor glass aren’t pictured but I got those too.

These four player Konami cabinets are fucking huge, and Heavy. I made things easier for myself by pulling the monitor for the move but it was still a chore.

While futzing around with that I found some identifying labels…

I’m not sure what this was originally… Based on the color coming through the painted sides from some shredded old side art I’m thinking originally Sunset Riders, but the official Konami sticker says Simpsons. Either way, doesn’t make too much of a difference. They both use the same cabinet, sharing the platform with a sea of beat ’em ups from the era.

Cabinet is very clean inside and the wiring all looks original. Will be nice not to have to clean up a half dozen conversions worth of hackery for once. Definitely gotta recover the control panel, or swap on a cleaner one. It’ll also neat a paint job at the very least for the sides, and maybe new art if I can avoid cringing whenever I look at the price for reproduction printings. All in all still a fine deal though, the game board alone would have been worth the time I spent.