It feels like Christmas at Skywire Studios as we’ve finally managed to de-crate the newly acquired Defender machine, and with the help of the team we’ve carried it up 2 floors (4 flights) of stairs and into the office kitchen.

The cabinet looks like it has been wrapped by a very large airport suitcase wrapping machine (it probably has!) and they put foam in-front of all the glass to ensure it got here in one piece. Potential overkill, but then I guess they’re not making a lot of 1980 Defender glass panels any more so best to look after the one we have!

First few cuts and we’re into the marquee – which is one of the coolest things about the cabinet and it’s definitely still looking pretty fresh after 30+ years of sitting in smokey arcades and dusty warehouses, although a clean ASAP would make sense as there’s a nice layer of grime over the top 🙂

Definitely not Dead Zombies in this one...

So let’s get the scissors out and start removing the rest…

It's definitely been in a warehouse for the last few years

 

Control panel complete with 30 years of dust, add serious gaming 🙂

Now we need to work out what we need - screen, lock and more!

And the coolest thing is it has an original 1983 Texas Amusement Commission Permit stuck on the side which is nicely authentic – if we can keep that during the restoration that would be cool too.

This sticker is officially older than most of Skywire!

Next steps = What have we got, The Disassembly and Cleaning me thinks!