Asteroids Restoration
by Archer Maclean

Here is a new set of restoration pics of an early Asteroids that I partially restored at Christmas for a friend of mine who commissioned it.

His Asteroids was sitting in a dry garage for years and looking a bit rough round the edges, but wasn’t too bad as I've seen basket cases much worse than this. Main problem was some deep wood gouges on the lower left side, right in the middle of the side art and plenty of scratches. But I didn’t want to apply full side art as the first set I got through would have looked worse in my opinion ( I am now doing my own with far better colours and sharper edges and in UV inks etc). I did some very selective filling and repainting by hand of various areas using paints that were closely matched to original. I had to disguise the scratched areas with new rocks and so on - check the images for subtle 'mods' !

The lamination on the first CPO came up real bad on the bends, and on the CP carriage bolt holes. It basically separated really easily and I had to use another one (which I also do . . ). The electronics was fairly straightforward to fix, with a blown sound amp, knackered 566 which makes some of the noises, and a cracked crystal. The monitor had a few fuses gone, and I replaced some of the bigger electrolytics, and hey it worked too ! Turns out the ROM set is a Mk1 original complete with the hiding behind the Atari bug :)

I wouldn’t say this was as 'extreme' as my Black Widow restoration, but none the less it was a good few days of mucking about and I am pleased with the outcome.

01 asteroids control panel before 128.41 Kb	02 Asteroids back before 168.54 Kb	03 asteroids screen before 105.73 Kb	04 asteroids top before 75.18 Kb
05 upper left side not tooo bad before 188.41 Kb	06 lower front complete with mold before 159.02 Kb	07 asteroids strip begin right mess 256.15 Kb	08 back partially stripped messy 212.48 Kb
09 sanded hoovered 227.99 Kb	10 lower right side before 165.87 Kb	11 rounded steel strips take corner weight 149.62 Kb	12 lower right side restored 143.58 Kb
13 big gouges and scratches lower left 284.87 Kb	14 lower left side in prep 105.99 Kb	15 B left side 75% there 164.94 Kb	15 C left side result 192.31 Kb
15 D left side result 2 188.75 Kb	15 E left side scratch result 1 212.59 Kb	15 F asteroids outside for paint reasons 154.12 Kb	15 F painting outside as fumes too much 168.39 Kb
15 lower left side Repaired 203.43 Kb	15a result of back n top spray 141.62 Kb	16 Ast CP wiring before 252.76 Kb	16A bent coin door no mechs 134.22 Kb
17 new sets of buttons and switches 212.31 Kb	18 final control panel surface 198.02 Kb	19 lamination problems with USA CPO 148.47 Kb	22 old and new surrounds 166.78 Kb
23 reverse patch to cover scratched letters 87.56 Kb	24 patched area ON REENTRY looking better 75.21 Kb	25 first finished front 221.51 Kb	27 finished front and coin door new locks 49.29 Kb
28 left side finished 200.92 Kb	31 right side lower finished 275.29 Kb	32 back after 173.12 Kb	34 insides after total strip clean 202.52 Kb
35 its all a blur 223.17 Kb	36 mk 1 rom set no copyright msg 23.24 Kb	37 more blurry sights 163.98 Kb	38 Asteroids by night 1 224.44 Kb

Completed
·After electronics were proven to work, everything was removed..
· Removed all ancient locks and hasp bars
· Removed screen bezel and rear A3 instruction card on reverse of rear door
· Stripped cab completely, all parts out, down to just a bare wood shell
· Removed all plastics, t-molding, all metal screws and staples etc
· Removed all metal coin door assembly, stripped down to bare components
· Removed all moveable wood panels, back door etc.
· Removed all metal brackets for CP and Marquee mounting
· Removed the rusted control panel, removed all buttons and CP loom
· Sanded all exposed wood areas, including underneath the base
· Shot blasted all big external metal - CP, brackets, coin door, door surrounds - all done professionally by local metal fabrication shop.
· Powder coated all metal in satin black - same place.
· Removed the original broken rusting feet and mounts, sanded underside to look near new.
· Fitted 4 new heavy duty skids with 24 wood screws into internal wooden support brackets, this makes it much more stable and movable, they are positioned carefully so that if the machine is tilted the wood corners no longer crumble under the weight.
· Made up wood replacement parts where needed
· Hoovered thoroughly !
· Cleaned off sides to expose all colour fading, and all damaged side art areas
· Spend 2 days on the side art repair. This started with filling very selectively, then fine careful sanding, very careful blending in of stained sanded areas, then re-drew a hell of a lot of the scratched and filled areas using special inks, disguising the 25 yrs of damage and aging - where possible. Some types of scratches are so difficult to fix that its beyond the remit/costing of this particular restoration. This all avoided the need to fit new side art - as this looks good but the edges never do ! And its costs loads, and isn't then original looking.
· Did both sides to varying degrees.
· Both final side art repairs were coated in fine clear varnish to reduce the chances of all the art being further scratched up or even washed off with any strong cleaning chemicals in the future. This stuff is evil though and cannot be breathed, touched, smelt, looked at - nothing ! and it has to be done outdoors, so getting the weather right was a bit of a delaying factor.
· Cleaned up rear wood areas, base, rear sides, top of cab and slanted bit.
· Removed damaged stickers and decals
· Masked off the alloy SN sticker (non replaceable)
· Sprayed all of rear in 2 layers of satin black.
· Trimmed edges of all the main sides
· Applied black paint to all t-molding edges to reduce wood chip edges, imported from USA
· Applied two sets of 18mm black curved t-molding, clipped appropriately for fitting around all the convex and concave bends - not as easy as it sounds until you know the simple tricks of the trade
· Reshaped the back door as it was bent.
· Sprayed rear door satin black

· Cleaned PSU, replaced fuses, applied new copper banding to transformer
· Converted PSU to run on 240 v not 110v
· Main logic board needed 12 hrs of fixing, fault tracing and half a dozen new chips.
· Fitted Hi score chip daughter board to processor area, imported from USA
· Cleaned AR2 board, and loom.
· Replaced the fluorescent lighting system with new tube, ballast, and starter
· Rewired inlet mains cable holder, fitted new mains plug and 15 ft of cable.
· Applied new control panel overlay to the clean restored control panel, imported from USA - but had problems with laminate and had to fit a second one.
· Fitted all new wico white buttons and replaced one of the start button assemblies
· Cleaned front of cab avoiding a difficult repaint
· Removed all cardboard bezel and discarded as its beyond reasonable repair
· Constructed new screen bezel using cardboard kit imported from USA
· On examining the screen with the back printed instructions, a lot of flaking of the instructions was found meaning it was all falling off. So it was scanned and a section reprinted so as to apply to the rear making the instructions readable once more.
· Main Screen had 25 yrs of angry looser scratches all over it, which luckily weren't too bad, and were removed with some serious rubbing down using very fine polish/remover.
· Scanned instruction sheet and edited all missing areas. Converted back to clean image on white background, reprinted on large format printer, and attached a final one to back door.

To do:
· Strip and rebuild entire deflection and EHT assembly of the vector monitor.
· Redo the AR CPO as the laminate is still not perfect. Fit my own print.
· Refit new same-code locks and keys to the coin door assembly and rear access door