Capcom Big Blue Gen 1 Four Slot

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Hello all,

Little more than a year ago I picked up a Gen 1 Big Blue that had started life as a Captain Commando, hence the "4 Slots," that needed a bit of help. It had long since been made into fighter cab.

Unfortunately as you can see here, at some point it was painted entirely black. The seller stripped one side then gave up.

My father had just bought a used Toyota Sequoia and I managed to convince him on his 2nd day of ownership to drive 300 miles roundtrip to help pickup this cab. That car is humongous, luckily it managed to fit the BB, but just barely. This cab is a behemoth. I had sold a small Neo Geo Goldie to make room for this, and I was thinking i had messed up pretty bad.

Just before making the trip, seller said that he was seing faint lines in the image, and the color was off... lines were raster and those went away turning the brightness down. The color was looking yellowish and sickly...

 

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You can see here below, not super vibrant, everything turned down and my green gun in the k7000 didn't have much life.

I reflowed the chassis, did a full cap kit flyback too. No change.

I was despairing a little bit, while I researched this and spent some time redoing the powerplant, and wiring. I think the seller bought the machine for the MvS2 game inside and had made a hasty job of snatching that out of it before selling it off to me so there was a lot of mystery wires everywhere.

I went back to basics, consulted The Real Bob Roberts and built I nice clean power circuit. Didn't help the yellowish color, but made me more confident i was working with a solid foundation and not trying to make sense of years swapped games and platforms and many hasty hack jobs that had come before.

I found a Sanyo 25" tv that would be a good swap candidate, but before attempting that, my buddy had recently bought a BK 470 Tube Rejuvenator..

With nothing to lose, and a donor tube on standby, we laced the Zenith tube into the BK470 and let it rip.

Results were awesome! RGB bright and strong!

 

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Next job was to tackle the remaining black paint..

This was multiple layers of black, and the citristrip took multiple applications and a about 2 evenings and an Easter Sunday of applying Citristrip, scraping, wiping. Again and again and again.

 

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You can see by the side, it's not perfect, but I'm very pleased with it. It actually makes look like it has had some weathering effects applied to it, like you see in scale modeling. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Now the front:

Coun door off and a couple of applications of citristrip:

Finally many hours later and whole audio book down since I started the black paint has been vanquished, at least as far as Im concerned.

 

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That's where the BBG1FS is at for now. There are some gouges and chips on the edges I need to mend. Once that's done I'll replace the t-molding which I'll try to keep grey assuming I can source it.

I also have a pair of red NOS Capcom logo sidearts that I think I'll slap on.

The logo is period correct for when this cab was new and in the wild, I think it would look cool. Curious what you guys think on that.

Also the CPO... Im majorly conflicted. Its a MvC2 one now, and I have no idea if that's been reproduced or scanned, but seems a shame to remove it, but I don't own that game, and even if I did I wouldn't run it on this standard-res cab.

I have a world Warrior CPO that kinda looks low quality. Might go with the Capcom diamond plate down the road. Open to suggestions. I will mostly be playing Super Turbo and Alpha 3 on the cab. Anybody make a cool Alpha 3 BB marquee?

Also unresolved is the swiss cheese that is my converted Captain Commando turn SF2 control panel. I may see if a metal shop can reproduce one for me. Without the old plexi on top you could punch your hand through it. But happy to leave that as is for now.

Thats my Capcom 4 slot as it stands today. Ill post some updates as more things get fixed.

P.s. still black paint in this photos, but I did replace the bulbs lol.

 

[bananaman1525]

Great work! So you didn't get a game with the cab?

 

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Great work! So you didn't get a game with the cab?

No game with the cab. Not the deal of the century, but I have plenty of stuff to throw in there. I was happy to get the Gen 1 style BB, which I like the looks of best.

 

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Found some new old stock Capcom logo sidearts. They weren't cosmetically pristine, which I think makes them look more convincing on this not cosmetically pristine BB.

After I applied these I 2nd guessed placement, but such is life. Felt like I had just gotten a tattoo. I dont see many BB cabs with these sides, but this logo is accurate for the time period of when the cab was made. I could see an operator skinning the Captain Commando off and slapping these on.

 

[DCrosby]

I just got mine, but with no harness and no PSU, I had to "Hot Wire" the monitor... and then hook up one of my MiSters but it worked, and looked amazing on a CRT...

I was wondering where I could get the Vinyl for the pieces I'm replacing at the front, the particle board is all rotten... but please just PM me, as I don't want to de-rail this thread.