After wanting to pick up an MVS cab for quite some time, one finally came across Craigslist for a good price, listed at 250 OBO with a possible motherboard issue, I set off to to check it out with an offer of $200 in mind. I checked it out, and it was in pretty good condition, and it had Metal Slug 5 included. After he accepted my $200 offer, I was the proud owner of my own MVS cab!
Here it is the night I got it. Not too bad of shape, but still needed some love.
It was 100% complete, straight from an arcade, there were still quarters scattered everywhere in the cab! After checking out the motherboard issue, it ended up with a Backup ram error due to a leaking battery. After a few days of attempting to fix it, I gave up and decided to get a replacement. Even though the cab is a 4 slot, the board was a 2 slot. I ended up getting a mv-1b from ebay for a good price, and got the jamma adapter to fix the sound.
During the time of trying to fix the board, and waiting for stuff to come in the mail, I decided to strip the cab and fix/repaint everything.
First thing was the control panel. I removed everything, and washed all the buttons and joysticks. I then got the metal panel ready for paint, and used Rustoleum Hammered black, and it came out great!
After trying to sand it down, I realized it was a vinyl wrap, so I went on removing it all. It took hours of time, over like 3 days to get it all off. What a pain!
For paint, I searched around about the color, and found that the Behr Grenadine red was the best match, so I got some of that in eggshell enamel from Home Depot, and proceeded to roll it on.
I was pretty happy with the results, not the smoothest, but it looked pretty good. Around this time I got a little ahead of myself, and decided to try to get the cab inside with no help from anyone, and long story short, these cabs are very top heavy... Disaster struck, and it was back to square one of prepping for paint again.
The damage doesnt look too bad, but it was enough to require me to do everything over. Nothing broke thankfully, the monitor and board were all ok.
This time, I decided to do the paint even more legit than last time, and I finally bought a spray gun for painting. I spent days re-prepping everything for paint, sanding and filling in damage. I sanded the whole thing to redo the entire paint. After playing with the gun, I got some amazing results. Smooth, flat color that is very close to the original.
I did the black with a random can of Rustoleum Semi Gloss Enamel I had left over from something, and it turned out well, I didnt get any pics of that process though. Today I finally felt it ready to move into the house, I played it safe and borrowed a dolly, and a helping hand to move it. It safely made it into the house, and I got it all set up!
All that is left is to order the t molding, get the vinyl side graphics, and oh yeah, get some games! If you have any questions about the process feel free to ask, I kind of really shortened the process, and skipped some minor parts.
Here it is the night I got it. Not too bad of shape, but still needed some love.
It was 100% complete, straight from an arcade, there were still quarters scattered everywhere in the cab! After checking out the motherboard issue, it ended up with a Backup ram error due to a leaking battery. After a few days of attempting to fix it, I gave up and decided to get a replacement. Even though the cab is a 4 slot, the board was a 2 slot. I ended up getting a mv-1b from ebay for a good price, and got the jamma adapter to fix the sound.
During the time of trying to fix the board, and waiting for stuff to come in the mail, I decided to strip the cab and fix/repaint everything.
First thing was the control panel. I removed everything, and washed all the buttons and joysticks. I then got the metal panel ready for paint, and used Rustoleum Hammered black, and it came out great!
After trying to sand it down, I realized it was a vinyl wrap, so I went on removing it all. It took hours of time, over like 3 days to get it all off. What a pain!
For paint, I searched around about the color, and found that the Behr Grenadine red was the best match, so I got some of that in eggshell enamel from Home Depot, and proceeded to roll it on.
I was pretty happy with the results, not the smoothest, but it looked pretty good. Around this time I got a little ahead of myself, and decided to try to get the cab inside with no help from anyone, and long story short, these cabs are very top heavy... Disaster struck, and it was back to square one of prepping for paint again.
The damage doesnt look too bad, but it was enough to require me to do everything over. Nothing broke thankfully, the monitor and board were all ok.
This time, I decided to do the paint even more legit than last time, and I finally bought a spray gun for painting. I spent days re-prepping everything for paint, sanding and filling in damage. I sanded the whole thing to redo the entire paint. After playing with the gun, I got some amazing results. Smooth, flat color that is very close to the original.
I did the black with a random can of Rustoleum Semi Gloss Enamel I had left over from something, and it turned out well, I didnt get any pics of that process though. Today I finally felt it ready to move into the house, I played it safe and borrowed a dolly, and a helping hand to move it. It safely made it into the house, and I got it all set up!
All that is left is to order the t molding, get the vinyl side graphics, and oh yeah, get some games! If you have any questions about the process feel free to ask, I kind of really shortened the process, and skipped some minor parts.