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Aku Aku - 1960 Stardust Slot machine |
bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 11580
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
|  Posted: 2007-05-08 2:32 pm Permalink
I must say that the tatoo patterns do look like 60s Polynesian Pop graphics. but it seems that the painter did not understand the classic Moai forehead/recessed eyes concept, and painted the eyes left and right of the nose. That missinterpretation is understandable, because the designer totally messed up on the forehead, making it flat and not protruding, like it should be.
I guess there's only so much one can do to alter a slot machine before it becomes unpractical.
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Heath
Grand Member (first year) 
Joined: Dec 31, 2005
Posts: 663
From: Suburban San Diego (The Drawer)
| Posted: 2007-05-08 2:49 pm Permalink
I realize I don't know as much as most about these things, but it looks more like a suffering bastard than a moai, at least to me. It would also be kind of ironic if it were, at least in my opinion.
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 11580
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2007-05-08 3:17 pm Permalink
The Trader Vic "Suffering Bastard" (a Tiki revival term) was based on the Moai design.
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Heath
Grand Member (first year)
Joined: Dec 31, 2005
Posts: 663
From: Suburban San Diego (The Drawer)
| Posted: 2007-05-11 12:54 pm Permalink
Oh.
I guess if I took the time to actually read your book instead of just looking at the pretty pictures, I might have learned that? 
I guess I'll just go sit in the corner and be quiet, maybe some reading? 
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Rattiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: May 03, 2003
Posts: 422
From: Key West, FL
| Posted: 2007-05-11 6:43 pm Permalink
Quote:
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I have come across one image of another Aku Aku machine that was sold at auction in 1989. While it does have a theme to it you can't tell that it's a head, so I don't believe it's right either. It has a random jungle camo background with some stylized shapes next to the nose. I found that photo in a 1989 Loose Change by chance a week before I found the machine 
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That's no random jungle camo background! That's the correct paint job your looking for! It's seems BigBro and others have figured this out but not realized you've missed it.
The stencils are from the top on each side:
Eyes:
and then some tattoos below them along the cheeks,
with the nose stencil in the middle, see the nostrils?
Of course the mouth is where the money comes out.
This is all laid over the stone fleck grey paint, so there's your answer!
[ This Message was edited by: RatTiki 2007-05-11 20:31 ]
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AkuAku
Member
Joined: May 06, 2007
Posts: 6
From: Perth - Australia
| Posted: 2007-05-16 9:38 pm Permalink
The camo paint version is certainly not original to when the machine was manufactured in 1960. For starters there's no wear to the handle or any other parts of the cabinet. And after 10 to 15 years or more of use the paint would be distressed. Also it's clearly been hand painted in a rough fashion and the graphics have been done with a card stencil. And I've never seen a factory made slot machine that didn't have a professional finish from new. I found the time to peel off one side of the new wood veneer from my cabinet and sure enough all that was showing was grey paint. But what I'm not sure about is what if anything was painted onto the castings. The eyes were certainly never supposed to be down on either side of the nose. The eyes look like they're where the award card and reel window are. Also the payout cup isn't the mouth as there's a mouth cast into the cabinet right above it. AkuAku
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AkuAku
Member
Joined: May 06, 2007
Posts: 6
From: Perth - Australia
| Posted: 2008-02-10 07:29 am Permalink
Hey there, been awhile. I'm back in Australia now with this machine safely sitting in my workshop. One of the first things i did on unpacking this piece was to strip back the red and blue paint to see what was going on underneath - well, not even a spot of any other paint there, just a burnished finish to the alloy surface. I'm pretty well certain the castings were left just like this from new, without doing anything it's already a grey stone looking finish. I also stripped off the layer of added oak side veneer, which shows the grey painted finish underneath. I tracked someone down in the US who can make me a perfect set of replacement reel strips using the award glass artwork, though still haven't found the time to organise that......give me a break, I currently own just over 100 other vintage coin-op machines all needing at least this much work or a lot more!!! And after a lot of time spent searching the net I've still not found any photos of these machines inside the AkuAku resataurant. Very frustrating to say the least. There has to be images out there somewhere.....................................................I did find photos from Thor Heyerdahls book, Aku Aku "The Secret of Easter Island" and after seeing images of the complete stone carvings, head and body, it seems to me that the reason my cabinet has shoulders down on the sides is that the missing stand was the matching body! akuaku  
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 11580
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2008-02-10 08:27 am Permalink
Wow, stripped this way, it looks better than ever, the closest to an Easter Island head it's ever been. It's so weird that they put that thin mouth under the nose, while the coin spout in itself would already have provided a perfect mouth.
Here is a recent post that is a great line up of the Aku Aku exterior changing over the years, showing how the A-frame got enveloped by the expansion of the Casino (not that that is gonna help you with finding any machine-in-situ photos):
http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?topic=1845&forum=1&start=15
And you really think there was a body-type stand for those? That would be pretty wild.
Here a pic of a modern, post-Tiki Revival slot machine, not very creative...
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AkuAku
Member
Joined: May 06, 2007
Posts: 6
From: Perth - Australia
| Posted: 2008-02-10 08:52 am Permalink
Hey - one thing I forgot to mention was that I figured out that the payout cup and base wood have been converted on my machine. If you check the other one out with the camo paint it has a super minimalist squared off tray below the mouth that matches the rest of the machine, and then a shorter wooden base sticking out the front. And if you look at the first photos I added of my machine last year you'll see this dorky looking rounded payout cup. I think that whoever re-vamped/modernised my machine at a later date chose to make a new and much larger casting to stop coins flying onto the floor. While I like it when that happens, and it does on most machines I've restored to a small extent, the original payout as shown on the other machine has the lowest lip I've ever seen. So coins would've flown all over the place. I plan to mock up a replacement in wood and bondo so I can have my foundry cast a new one. Once it has the smaller cup in place the cast mouth above makes a lot more sense. akuaku
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MrBaliHai
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 01, 2002
Posts: 855
From: Behind the Cheddar Curtain
| Posted: 2008-04-17 4:20 pm Permalink
Hey, it's been a while since I checked on this thread, and WOW! You've done an incredible job of restoring this vintage mechanism. I think the burnished metal looks terrific.
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sambow
Member
Joined: Feb 09, 2015
Posts: 1 | Posted: 2015-03-24 2:18 pm Permalink
Here is a picture of the Aku Aku slot machine as it looked when on location at the Stardust Casino in Las Vegas.
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ukutiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Feb 25, 2009
Posts: 264
From: Michigan
| Posted: 2015-03-24 3:03 pm Permalink
WOW!
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Tattoo
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 24, 2005
Posts: 294
From: Los Angeles
| Posted: 2015-03-24 7:39 pm Permalink
Awesome!!! Thanks for posting...
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bigbrotiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 25, 2002
Posts: 11580
From: Tiki Island, above the Silverlake
| Posted: 2015-03-29 5:23 pm Permalink
Cool! Still amazes me how the paint job - while in itself not bad - pretty much ignores the sculpture concept (x-ept perhaps for the nose) …the execution of which was pretty cryptic to begin with.  But because of that, it could have used some graphic help to bring out the intended features. Something got lost in translation there.
[ This Message was edited by: bigbrotiki 2015-03-29 17:28 ]
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