The Agent X/Cloak & Dagger Countdown

 My longest running project is about to finally about to come to close. With almost all 9 pieces of the art printed.

(SideArt being prepped for production now) Its time to start getting this restoration resurrected.

 Ill be updating this blog weekly and covering both the restoration and final updates of the remaining pieces to

The long overdue Agent X Art Package. To include installation Tutorials and Artwork updates.

These installation tutorials can also be useful with Crystal Castles, Star Wars, and many others.

Since I started this project back in I think 2006 or 2007 many other projects have come and gone. Friends have been made and friends have been lost over the years. 

While the "Cloak & Dagger curse" will continue to haunt me untill the day I die or even better untill I finally finish the project. Also released earlier this year for the first time the original soundtrack to Cloak & Dagger, coiendence? I think not

So A BIG Thanks to all that have hung in there and waited patiently for this project.

It will be worth the wait in more ways than one. Which Ill be explaing along the way.  

I decided to post this restoration and project exclusivly here on CoinOpSpace as our very own Jeff Rothe has helped with this project since day1 and thought it was only apropriate to show its full and final restoration glory.

 

 

Ive noticed Atari sideart removal to be hit or miss. Sometimes just heat and peel while other times its tough as nails like my Food Fight. (more on that later).

 

But this was pretty easy heat and peel

 just like a monkey and his bannana.

 

and the front kickplate was just as easy.

FYI-I did scan the Crystal Castles kickplate before peeling. 

 

 

 

The plan is to start shipping the first  part of the art package VERY soon. Which will include everything but the sideart which will be shipped seperatly roll along with the kickplate. So funds will be collected and you can get started. Theres alot of work to do on these pieces which brings us to the first piece I completed....

 

 

 There are 2 marquees in the Agent X art package. The first version is Agent X and the 2nd is Cloak & Dagger.

Its up to you which one to choose for your installation both are designed for the Crystal Castles marquee holder. Which also is the same as the Atari Star Wars upright.

 

 

 Brett/DPwitz offered up some wooden reproductions on this and I opted to use one instead of stripping and repairing my orginal one.

 either way youll need a piece of glass

6 -1/4" x 23- 5/8" 3/16" thick

you could go 6 5/16" for a snugger fit these are from orginal glass dimensions I pulled from my Crystal Castle and also Bretts repro has about a 1/16" more in the open window. So either dimension will work for the glass.

 Rick Ford also reported his at 1/4" definatly not room for that in this wood repro so if using an original you might want to double check that incase there were some variants.

 

 

 

I would also recomend painting the wood to give the adhesive something better to stick to than the raw wood.

Once Painted I used some very thin double sided mounting tape to help hold the glass in place.

***IMPORTANT****FYI****

With any project PATIENCE is a virtue and you should always take great time and care whenever applying artwork.

Im going to be installing the Agent X version marquee. 2 reasons I like it better and its also screenprinted on a thicker piece of polycarbonate .015 as opposed to the Cloak & Dagger which is on .010 so Agent X is a little more ridgid. Im hoping this prevents cracking but only time will tell. But it is a challenge to install so please be advised.

 

 So with the glass in place its alignment time.

Leave the premask on this one for installation

I started by drawing a straight line ontop the premask Aprox. 2 1/2" from the bottom of the overlay 

you can use this as a guide the line will follow the glass cut or the gap between.

once in place use a couple of clamps to hold in place

and properlay center up the image in the glass.

Both the art and the glass opening is aprox 4 3/4"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once in place continue to add clamps on both sides of the frame and overlay keeping it in place.

The trick once its place and this goes for just about ANY overlay its very imporatnt to "form" the poly to the shape its going on and if done correctly it really dosnt matter how thick or thin the material is.

Simply heat it and shape it.

Now that youve got the piece in place cut off about 5" of the adhesive backing. You could draw/mark this on the backing before starting the above steps to make it a little eaiser and to keep it straighter when cutting.

 

 

 

 

 

wrap over the top and clamp down in place. While continuing to Heat and form.

 

Like I said done right you wont even need the clamps.

 but recomend leaving them in place.

Orginally Atari stapled these on the insde top and bottom proably making it quicker and easier as they were applied.

 

 

 

 

 

Peel back some more of the backing just about enough to roll over the top round and onto the glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Heat and form pushing down firmly. NOTE: The overlay is already laying at its proper angle with no help from clamps and before its even stuck.

 

Peel the backing down about an inch at a time Once youve hit the glass its on and theres no turning back now. DO NOT at any point try to lift this back off. The adhesive is a stronger bond then the inks to the overlay and will seperate just like a cpo. 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Once youve reached the bottom roll, rinse and repeat. Then grab some old marquee brackets and place them on the front and back side both top and bottom and clamp again. Note if your overlay is poping up heat and form some more -these brackets are NOT to force it into place but justt to help hold its shape while it cools and sets.

 

 

And Apropriately in Level 3 of our decent into this project Atari made 3 revisions of this piece of artwork. Considering they only made 25 orginal dedicated cabinets it seems someone just couldnt make up their mind-LOL

But we thought it would be cool to run all 3 of these piece and let you choose for yourself.

 

So these are a little tricky and wouldve been incredibly time consuming had it not been for the latest Repro Hero on the Block Troy Akey AKA TakeMan, whos been doing some brilliant metal arcade part reproductions so when he annouced a new Crystal Castles/Agentx X speaker Grill oh yeah I was in. and believe for the price versus having to strip off the old Cystal CAsltes overlay strip all the glue out of all the F^&*^&* holes sand paint and or powdercoat

I was a happy agent.

You will need a piece of tempred glass 3/16" thick 6 1/2"x 6 3/4"

 

 

 

 

 

IMPOTANT FYI:THIS IS THE BOTTOM OF THE SPEAKER GRILL.

 

I used some thin double sided mounting tape again to hold the glass in place cut into 1/4" strips.

WARNING:WIPE DOWN THE ENTIRE SURFACE OF THE GRILL AND GLASS WITH NAPTHA OR ALCOHOL.

The overlay dosnt have much to stick to with all these holes and belive me theres a MAJOR difference in the stick if you dont do this. Also 3m also recomends a surface mount temp of at least 64 degress IIRC so heat the metal with aheat gun front and back prior to application.

Ok lets get started. There are a couple of ways to go hear frist let me say the design application of these are just wrong IMO which have lead to cracking and delamination so I recomend cutting some of these excess flaps off rather than folding and wrapping them.

 

These are cut to the orginal size and shape from the orginal Agent X films and are identical to the cut to Crystal Castles.

So in this case I cut all 4 flaps above and below the speaker cut out.

 

This also will make it much easier to align and apply as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the piece now aligns perfect flush along the top and bottom of the speaker grill. Beacuse these pieces dont come premasked use some nice cotton pads with your clamps to hold in place.

 

 

You can check your center alignment from the back before proceding.

 

You'll also notice not all of the border fits within the glass frame.

which could be one of the reasons Atari opted for another art revision. Never the less I likes this one the best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So with the art clamped in place where ready to get started on application. Start by heating the piece up again.

this will both continue to keep your metal warm and help the polycarbonate relax into its new shape.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

As you heat up the pieces and it relaxes into shape you will proably need to reposistion and tighten the clmaped areas to keep it flat and inplace. but this will reduce shifting and bubbling big time. 

 

Pick a side left or right dosnt matter which ever you are more comfortable with and peel back the backing to about center of the speaker cut out and cut it off.

 

 

 

Roll it on down into the first fold of the metal

 

Heat er up a little and it should conform and hold that shape without any clamping. Now unclamp the other side and lift back and peel the backing back to about the glass opening and press and roll up to the glass.remove a little more backing and continue across the glass pressing FIRMING and evenly.

REMEBER espcially once it hits the glas DO NOT pull this back up in any way as you will most certainly destory the overlay.

 

 

 

 

Continuing removing backing a little at a time and working your way all the way down the grill into the bottom fold on the other end. Then heat fold and clamp the lips in the center.

 

 

 

Last but not least trim off the flaps on the end. I didnt do this intially because it was too hard to know where to cut them but the edgeing of the grill makes a pretty good guide to give you a nice clean cut.

 

Another helpful ToG Tip:

ALWAYS use a new blade when starting a project or application.

 

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