Friends, I have a very happy problem: I have a new game in the garage, and no room left in the house for another cabinet. The solution? Put it somewhere else. long story short: I recently decided to put some of my cabs up in a local game shop for the local fighting game scene to enjoy, and have been prepping up a few things for their debut. 
We decided to start with just one for now, so I'm doing some touch ups to my Blast since it's the first I'd like to send out.
Admittedly, I've been slacking for a minute on fixing the corner convergence. Common problem with these, you see it talked about all the time, but it's just been a matter of getting off my behind and fixing it up. Since I don't know how often I'll be there for repairs + generally wanting to give my local players a nice experience, it's time to put this to bed (at least as much as I can).
I've seen way worse, but, could be way better too, right?
Anyways, here's the thing: I've seen tons of videos and read tons of forum posts about using strips, where to get strips, etc. Tons of places will throw the "they're kinda hard to find" or "there's this one guy on ebay" etc etc, and really not get you any closer to actually having them in your hands. Every now and again though, I'll find someone describing making their own, but never showing any photos or the before and after's. It's a super simple and cheap thing to put together, so I figured, let's give it a shot and actually do a little documenting so there's some proof in the pudding out there.
Just for comparison, right now the best "deal" on eBay is a seller out in Canada that will sell me a pack of 5 for $10....or 25 for $130 (woah). I think I can do a little better that if this works out
The recipe is:
- $0.99 flexible plastic yard sign
- ~$3 Snap-off Blades
- A little kaptons tape (price varies on width and amount, but you can still keep this >$10)
- Some double sided tape or glue to tac into place
At first, I wasn't sure how thin I wanted to make the strips, so I got two different sizes of blades. I only ended up using the "L series" blades though (the larger of the two, meant to fit most 18mm snap-off knives). The process is super simple: Just cut a few trips of the plastic sign that's roughly a little wider then the blade, and long enough to let you keep your fingers away from the edge of the yoke. Snap off one blade per strip, and wrap with tape. Not as "picturesque" as the ones you'll find already jammed in your tube or over on the bay, but after hearing my picture would improve by shoving it full of knives, I figured it was going to look a little strange regardless
Every pack comes with three strips of blades and 7 (usable) blades per pack, so all-in-all, 21 blades for roughly less then it would have costed me to order 5 through ebay (and even then, I've heard the quality of those are "meh" as far as results go). Just for transparency, I decided to load one one of these strips with two blades, just to see if it might make any difference. I'll touch on that more in a bit. For now, I do want to point out though: yeah it's probably a liiiiitle overload on the kapton, but I was admittedly a little nervous about the blade slicing through the tape during the placement, and also I wanted to make sure it had no chance of slipping out or shifting around. Happy to say they definitely pass the "Rough Flop Test ™ ". So, how WERE the results? I was a little doubtful some teeny tiny knife blades would be strong enough make much of a difference, but, I took the monitor out, hooked it back up outside of the cab...
Gently shoved the strips in blade-side-down and
Well I'll be damned. These guys really work! I've read so many posts and seen so many videos about folks buying actual legitimate magnets and seeing little to no effects...but sure enough, these really get the job done! The six I made were pretty much the perfect amount for me to get me an image I was happy with. About that strip with two blades though: If it had any more effect then the single blade strips, it was really, really hard to tell the difference. It truly seemed almost random as to which spots and directions seemed to have the most/best effects. If anything, I would say making the end of the strip thicker only made it a little more difficult to fit between the tube and the yoke, so if I were to do this again (and my advice to you if you attempt this yourself): don't bother and just stick with the single blades.
As for the results:
Pretty darn happy! Aside from some nagging pincushion inconsistencies I've had with this monitor for forever: a little tweaking there and a little tweaking at the trapezoid and I'm really happy with the results! Went ahead and glued these guys down into place and called it a day. I didn't try the double-sided tape or 3M strips like some descriptions recommended, but honestly, the movements and placements of the blades would effect the screen pretty drastically with even the most gentle twitches in the wrong direction sometimes...I think it would have been pretty frustrating to have to fiddle with removing the cover of a 3M strip or placing tape on the underside of the strip while ALSO making sure it doesn't leave it's perfect spot. It can eat up a good chunk of time to get it right and find the right spots, so once you do find that perfect spot for a strip, personally, I'm not trying to do anything that's going to risk making me do it all over again lol.
We decided to start with just one for now, so I'm doing some touch ups to my Blast since it's the first I'd like to send out.Admittedly, I've been slacking for a minute on fixing the corner convergence. Common problem with these, you see it talked about all the time, but it's just been a matter of getting off my behind and fixing it up. Since I don't know how often I'll be there for repairs + generally wanting to give my local players a nice experience, it's time to put this to bed (at least as much as I can).
I've seen way worse, but, could be way better too, right?
Anyways, here's the thing: I've seen tons of videos and read tons of forum posts about using strips, where to get strips, etc. Tons of places will throw the "they're kinda hard to find" or "there's this one guy on ebay" etc etc, and really not get you any closer to actually having them in your hands. Every now and again though, I'll find someone describing making their own, but never showing any photos or the before and after's. It's a super simple and cheap thing to put together, so I figured, let's give it a shot and actually do a little documenting so there's some proof in the pudding out there.
Just for comparison, right now the best "deal" on eBay is a seller out in Canada that will sell me a pack of 5 for $10....or 25 for $130 (woah). I think I can do a little better that if this works out
The recipe is:
- $0.99 flexible plastic yard sign
- ~$3 Snap-off Blades
- A little kaptons tape (price varies on width and amount, but you can still keep this >$10)
- Some double sided tape or glue to tac into place
At first, I wasn't sure how thin I wanted to make the strips, so I got two different sizes of blades. I only ended up using the "L series" blades though (the larger of the two, meant to fit most 18mm snap-off knives). The process is super simple: Just cut a few trips of the plastic sign that's roughly a little wider then the blade, and long enough to let you keep your fingers away from the edge of the yoke. Snap off one blade per strip, and wrap with tape. Not as "picturesque" as the ones you'll find already jammed in your tube or over on the bay, but after hearing my picture would improve by shoving it full of knives, I figured it was going to look a little strange regardless
Every pack comes with three strips of blades and 7 (usable) blades per pack, so all-in-all, 21 blades for roughly less then it would have costed me to order 5 through ebay (and even then, I've heard the quality of those are "meh" as far as results go). Just for transparency, I decided to load one one of these strips with two blades, just to see if it might make any difference. I'll touch on that more in a bit. For now, I do want to point out though: yeah it's probably a liiiiitle overload on the kapton, but I was admittedly a little nervous about the blade slicing through the tape during the placement, and also I wanted to make sure it had no chance of slipping out or shifting around. Happy to say they definitely pass the "Rough Flop Test ™ ". So, how WERE the results? I was a little doubtful some teeny tiny knife blades would be strong enough make much of a difference, but, I took the monitor out, hooked it back up outside of the cab...
Gently shoved the strips in blade-side-down and
Well I'll be damned. These guys really work! I've read so many posts and seen so many videos about folks buying actual legitimate magnets and seeing little to no effects...but sure enough, these really get the job done! The six I made were pretty much the perfect amount for me to get me an image I was happy with. About that strip with two blades though: If it had any more effect then the single blade strips, it was really, really hard to tell the difference. It truly seemed almost random as to which spots and directions seemed to have the most/best effects. If anything, I would say making the end of the strip thicker only made it a little more difficult to fit between the tube and the yoke, so if I were to do this again (and my advice to you if you attempt this yourself): don't bother and just stick with the single blades.
As for the results:
Pretty darn happy! Aside from some nagging pincushion inconsistencies I've had with this monitor for forever: a little tweaking there and a little tweaking at the trapezoid and I'm really happy with the results! Went ahead and glued these guys down into place and called it a day. I didn't try the double-sided tape or 3M strips like some descriptions recommended, but honestly, the movements and placements of the blades would effect the screen pretty drastically with even the most gentle twitches in the wrong direction sometimes...I think it would have been pretty frustrating to have to fiddle with removing the cover of a 3M strip or placing tape on the underside of the strip while ALSO making sure it doesn't leave it's perfect spot. It can eat up a good chunk of time to get it right and find the right spots, so once you do find that perfect spot for a strip, personally, I'm not trying to do anything that's going to risk making me do it all over again lol.
