Battlezone CPOs

Ok. Before I go into this let me say I know that Battlezone control panels
are painted on.

My Battlezone project is coming along quite nicely, especially because of a
surpise, recent aquisition of a complete set of NOS joysticks (Thanks
Mike!) . My control panel sucks. All rusted, paint flaking, but it has no
dings.

So several weeks ago I scanned in my control panel and have been carefully
reproducing it. I'm not touching up the scan, I'm completely redrawing the
whole thing at 600 DPI, and it's coming out really nice.

So I AM going to have one of them produced at a local sign shop. They've got
some great equipment which I will describe below. I know printing on vinyl
is not the ultimate medium, but I highly doubt there would be enough of a
demand to have a decal made or to have it screened onto Lexan. So vinyl will
have to do.

I have two options to choose from. The first option is ink-jet printed and
laminated. My local sign-shop has a 600DPI HP printer that can print on
vinyl. The colors are, of course, dithered but at 600DPI it's not too bad -
fairly solid when chosen carefully. The blacks are solid and there are no
visible streak-lines within a color. The problem with this one is the local
shop may not laminate, and non-laminated it would get destroyed easily. If
they do laminate, great. If not, I'll find someone else with similar
equipment who does or I could use the shop that the Appollos use, although
he only prints at 300DPI.

Another problem with an ink-jet is that it can't print silver. I would have
to use some shade of gray, instead.

The second option is the local sign has a "Roland" machine. I'm not quite
sure of the technology behind this machine, but it is a printer, not a
cutter. This machine is used for printing signs to put on automobiles or
trucks. The colors are sharp and bright. I'm not sure if the colors are
dithered, but the demo's look solid and clean, actually a bit glossy. Very
nice.

This printer can print silver, and it looks great. The cool thing is that it
can also print chrome.

The output of this machince is very durable, but not great. I couldn't
scratch it with a key, but it came off easily with 400 grit sand paper. I
know I probaly won't go down to my gameroom and sand paper the control panel
very often. My concern is more with long-term scrubbing with scouring pads.
I don't believe this can be laminated. It's suppose to stand up to car
washes, but damage to a sign on a car is less critical in appearance than a
CPO is on a restored game.

The real problem with this machine is that it is expensive. The off-the-cuff
quote without them seeing finished art was about $75. Ouch. This is compared
to $35 for ink-jet printed vinyl.

I have seen many Q's about reproducing CPOs and I question how many are
actually done. Unless someone comes forward with an awsome BZ control panel
for sale for a reasonable price, I am going to print this.

My question to you is, if I go with the Roland machine, should I stick with
silver as in the original or should I go with the chrome? I think the chrome
is really cool looking, but it is making a major deviation from the
original.

Also, of course, would anybody else be interested in one? If so, which one?
It doesn't matter if some want one style and some want the other. Once the
artwork is done it can be sent easily to either machine.

What do you think? Thanks.
-roy-
Received on Sat May 22 22:52:52 1999