The control panel is stripped to the bare wood, and the conversion damage undone. It's now ready to rebuild.
The original, trashed control panel has metal plates screwed into the wood around each joystick. They create guide slots for round plastic guards that rest beneath the plate and go around the joystick shafts.
The stripped control panel with joystick plates. These were taken from the like-new Robotron and are nailed-on. Apparently, Williams made different kinds during Robotron's production run.
Time to apply an overlay. Unused original overlays are almost non-existent; used ones are usually marred by cigarette burns and tearing, my original Robotron being no exception.
Fortunately, distributors offer after-market reproductions. They look good and are close, though not exact, replicas of the real thing. Having already ordered one, I apply it to the panel.
The reproduction's layout and coloring match the original almost perfectly, but the lines are a bit thicker and fuzzier, probably a by-product of the imaging process used to create it. The effect is most noticeable in the exploding Robotron, 2084 logo and copyright information.
Comparing the reproduction control panel overlay (bottom) to the original (top).
