stringbean
Enthusiast
Today, my speakers came in. And I ordered some new wheels for the Blast. Initially, I had planned on using something purple, but I found these red wheels that looked really nice and I couldn't pass them up.
Blast City Cleanup/Restore - Stringbean
- Thread starter stringbean
- Start date
Anselmo
Champion
yo! where did you get those speakers? They drop in replacements?
stringbean
Enthusiast
@Anselmo, I don't think so. I just copied @mR_CaESaR and got some of the oversized speakers from this post:
https://www.parts-express.com/aurasound-ns2x3-184-4a-2-x-3-extended-range-driver-4-ohm--296-256
I'll see how they work out. I've seen people put entire sets of PC speakers including the housing in blasts that use their own amp, but they look pretty bad from the inside. Although I'm guessing the sound is muuuch better then these little guys.
https://www.parts-express.com/aurasound-ns2x3-184-4a-2-x-3-extended-range-driver-4-ohm--296-256
I'll see how they work out. I've seen people put entire sets of PC speakers including the housing in blasts that use their own amp, but they look pretty bad from the inside. Although I'm guessing the sound is muuuch better then these little guys.
RandomRetro
Professional
@Softdrink is right, that is definitely the part. HOT-1204 is missing on a lot of cabs and you can just use a single tang, but the 3-lock mech with the HOT-1204 is ideal since you have it.
mR_CaESaR
Champion
Let me know how you go, I haven't installed mine in the cab just yet as I'm still painting my shell.
MoppelTheWhale
Grand Master
i put these in as well - they barely fit in the original housing (once finished it looks pretty painful) but they work - getting the speakers removed from the cab and reinstalling them is a major pita if you try to do it without taking the complete cab apart.
also most people put a little bit of foam in front of the tweeters to dampen the high frequencies a bit.
stringbean
Enthusiast
@MoppelTheWhale, thanks for the tip. I've bought some foam and plan to do the same. Also have some caulk laying around to clean up any air gaps. My guess is these speakers won't sound amazing. I mean, looking at them they are really quite small. But, I'm never blasting my arcade speakers anyway so it is okay. I do plan to completely disassemble the arcade because that's the only way it will make it through my doorway but also for a deep and thorough cleaning.
MoppelTheWhale
Grand Master
you shouldn't compare the speakers to a 5000$ stereo, but they are really sufficient for the blast 
stringbean
Enthusiast
I didn't manage to do much on the arcade yesterday, but I'll show the progress. I oiled the control panel latch using the typical 3-in-1 oil and made certain it was rotating freely.
I also went ahead and removed the old foam and adhesive since I ordered new foam to replace it. I already had some foam from when I had done my Astro City, but it was too wide (1/2" wide) so I bought some that was 1/4" wide and 1/8" thick. This will be nice when it arrives.
Next, I pulled out the monitor bezel which was still in pretty decent shape. Not really any deep scratches thankfully but it did have quite a bit of dirt on the back side. I cleaned it with some simple green which worked nicely.
As you can see, it was a nice rainy day in Seattle. Go figure.
Once the bezel was clean I retreated indoors where it was warmer and applied some White Lithium Grease that @hoagtech recommended in the past. For the application, I used some of my wifes makeup removal pads which have one side that is a soft cotton ball consistency.
I'm not sure if it was intended to be used over paint, but It definitely gave the bezel a nice new luster.
I ordered some fiberglass polish + wax today as well as a silent Noctua NF-8 ULN fan for the PSU. Specifically, the same one that @MoppelTheWhale also used in the past. Next up I'll remove the marquee plastic and start getting into the main parts of the arcade.
Just curious, does anyone have any recommendations on who does PSU recaps and monitor recaps for Blast City's? I've been reading about the monitor and it looks like some people stay away from servicing this particular model, but there are a few places I saw from back in '19 that still do. And I'm also not certain if my 750 A1 component has started pooping all over my monitor PCB yet, but I assume that's part of the reason why people avoid servicing this monitor.
I also went ahead and removed the old foam and adhesive since I ordered new foam to replace it. I already had some foam from when I had done my Astro City, but it was too wide (1/2" wide) so I bought some that was 1/4" wide and 1/8" thick. This will be nice when it arrives.
Next, I pulled out the monitor bezel which was still in pretty decent shape. Not really any deep scratches thankfully but it did have quite a bit of dirt on the back side. I cleaned it with some simple green which worked nicely.
As you can see, it was a nice rainy day in Seattle. Go figure.
Once the bezel was clean I retreated indoors where it was warmer and applied some White Lithium Grease that @hoagtech recommended in the past. For the application, I used some of my wifes makeup removal pads which have one side that is a soft cotton ball consistency.
I'm not sure if it was intended to be used over paint, but It definitely gave the bezel a nice new luster.
I ordered some fiberglass polish + wax today as well as a silent Noctua NF-8 ULN fan for the PSU. Specifically, the same one that @MoppelTheWhale also used in the past. Next up I'll remove the marquee plastic and start getting into the main parts of the arcade.
Just curious, does anyone have any recommendations on who does PSU recaps and monitor recaps for Blast City's? I've been reading about the monitor and it looks like some people stay away from servicing this particular model, but there are a few places I saw from back in '19 that still do. And I'm also not certain if my 750 A1 component has started pooping all over my monitor PCB yet, but I assume that's part of the reason why people avoid servicing this monitor.
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RandomRetro
Professional
The PSU and Amp recap isn't a bad one to DYI, but if you are looking for someone I know @rewrite has posted in the past about doing them. I would check with him. Not sure if he would take the chassis project, but I know sharpimagerepair.com will do the recap on the chassis.
nassekova
Champion
I re-capped my friends Nanao chassis from Blast City month ago. It had 60ish caps but you can get capkit from Console 5 (it lacked few of the larger ones, those he got from Mauser) and they even have a capmap ready made! Chassis needs to be removed from the side and monitor needs to be removed, but since you have everything on pieces anyway that should not be a problem. Other than that, it wasn't particularly hard (if you have re-capped anything else before).
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stringbean
Enthusiast
I might pick up a Hakko iron and desoldering iron if I can justify the cost. I've always held off buying such luxury tools as overpriced since I can mostly get along with this cheap temp controlled one I've had for years. But, that would encourage me to recap a bunch of vintage electronics I have laying around.
stringbean
Enthusiast
Today, the plan was to remove and clean the various stuff around the marquee. First off was the plastic display on the front.
It's actually in fairly decent shape, but you can see some yellowing around the edges that is bound to happen from years of sunlight reacting with the plastic.
There are actually quite a few spots where scotch tape (or other types of tape) had been stuck to the plastic over the years and was practically glued on. I'll get to that later. With the marquee plastic off, I removed the display card and you can see there is some serious nicotine and tobaccy build up in here. Yuck.
First, I gave the plastic display a vinegar bath for 20 min because I read that can help removing the stained colored plastic.
While that sat, I removed the marquee back plate after disconnecting the lamp cables. You can see there is some old foam around the edge that crumbles into dust when I touch it. I'm not entirely certain why the foam is here other then maybe to prevent vibrations because it doesn't appear that it would rest against anything. I scraped it all off.
Please forgive my messy shop.
I also removed this bottom plate that separates the marquee area from the rest of the arcade. I've only restored one arcade before this, but it wasn't nearly this filthy inside. Utterly disgusting to be honest.
Now that 20-30 minutes had passed, I went out and scrubbed the plastic marquee front and the vinegar did help some with the yellowing plastic. Afterwards, I hit all the tape spots with the Goo Gone which took much longer then I anticipated. Afterwards, the plastic was looking pretty nice.
But, I wanted to take it a step further so I used the same White Lithium Grease as I used on the monitor facade except this time I buffed it in. It managed to really clean up some of the scratches and when I wiped it off I was left with something that made me very happy.
Look at her shine!
Next up I gave the separator panel a bath in the vinegar hoping that would loosen some of the built up grime. It did not. I ended up spraying that with Simple Green which turned out to be the trick. Simple Green really is the silver bullet when it comes to this built up grime. But, it was caked on so badly I ended up using this abrasive scrub daddy sponge I had from the kitchen. The scrub part of the pad is only plastic so it's nowhere near as bad as an SOS pad. Using this, I was able to break down some of the dirt, but the result I had at the end still showed a lot of baked in brown color.
I had much better luck with the back panel.
But, still I'm not really happy since I wasn't able to fully remove the brown stains. I have some more stuff that I'll be trying tomorrow because I think one of the compounds I have has a chance to clean this up better. It's exciting to finally get into the actual body of the arcade. I'm thinking after these parts are cleaned up I'll most likely go for the doors next. And then, the monitor will come out and I can take a closer look at the condition of that.
mR_CaESaR
Champion
Mate you're doing an awesome job on this!
I might copy what you've done with the monitor bezel and marquee cover
I might copy what you've done with the monitor bezel and marquee cover
Nicotine stains (the brown stuff) come off well with Krud Kutter. Then Simple Green gets the krud kutter residue off 
stringbean
Enthusiast
Oooo, interesting. I’ll buy a bottle and give it a shot. Thanks for the advice.Nicotine stains (the brown stuff) come off well with Krud Kutter. Then Simple Green gets the krud kutter residue off
stringbean
Enthusiast
I think it depends on what the stain is from. People used to think plastics would yellow because of smoke when in fact it is now believed to be a chemical reaction to UV rays on plastic. The issue I was having was actually smoke/nicotine/tobacco/tar stains which @ekorz was correct about easily being cleaned up with a degreaser which I'll show in my update today.