Hello all, I recently acquired a completely empty RGB Data East 3-player cabinet that I’m going to restore to its former GB glory. I haven’t gotten much further than completely stripping the cabinet down to wood… but I’ll continually add to this post as I make some considerable progress…or whenever I feel like it.
Here is the cabinet as I received it, minus the monitor. As you can see, it was converted into a Simpsons at some point during its life, which is odd as the Simpsons is generally a 4-player game.
After removing the leaf spring buttons, I peeled off some sort of vinyl control panel overlay and discovered remnants of the original artwork underneath! I don’t know if it’s salvageable or not, but I’m going to attempt to work on this in the near future.
A closer look at the no-ghost. I’m not sure if it’s just what’s left, or if the art is truly still under the paint they used. Guess I’ll find out.
I can make out the text for “BEAM” “SHOOT” and “START” as well as the silhouettes of the 'busters. If I can’t restore the art, I know the font used for the text is Serif Gothic Heavy, and I’ll use a vinyl cutter to reproduce all of this. I’ll probably use one of the GB stickers that were recently available in stores as the center no-ghost if I cannot save what’s there.
Data East only used that particular cabinet on two games that I know of, RBG and a game called Vigilante. It’s not a Vigilante though because that control panel is unique to RGB as far as I know. It’s three player (Vigilante is two) and you can see the old GB logo on there and the words “Beam” and “Shoot”.
There are very few three player arcade games. RGB is one of them. You can tell from the control panel and the coin mechs that this was originally a three player game. I believe Simpsons was only a four player game. The two player version was a kit. They’d send you the artwork, the game board, some controls, and you’d slap it inside a game that’s not earning any more which is exactly what this operator did. RGB stopped earning so he put Simpsons in it’s place via a game kit instead of buying the whole cabinet.
Well, I had to completely strip the control panel overlay. The art proved to be non-salvageable. That’s okay! I have a friend helping out with reproducing it!
I actually got it from a GBfans member. I’ll let them come forward if they choose to… but I’m grateful to them for sending me the art. It really ties the whole thing together, y’know?
I provided the art that I had custom made a few years ago when I was doing a restoration. The side art has never been reproduced so I hired a graphic designer to recreate it from photos on the web and dimensions from another GBFans member. I ended up getting another RGB machine that has art that’s in great shape so I’m going to scan that in eventually for a true 1:1 version.
The arcade is looking great sirphobos! Can’t wait to see the rest!
^---- Yup, then I sent the files to my dad, who happens to work at a print shop. He got it printed on what’s called PSV and then laminated for durability. Another fellow GB is re-drawing the control panel art for me, and then I’ll have that printed as well.
Looking REALLY good! I don’t think it was OEM, but one of my favorite RGB cabinets had the Ikari Warrior-style joysticks. For some reason, that’s always stuck in my head. Can’t wait to see this all up and running!
