Arcade Collecting > Pinball
Changing side art on Pinball 2000: Do I need to paint!??!
jasonbar:
I decided to go with adhesive vinyl instead of painting because: a) I had a very pregnant wife in the house, and b) I now have a very young son in the house. I don't like the idea of paint fumes, which are not recommended.
1 - I first tried some relatively thin black vinyl that a friend gave me. It was too thin to handle easilyly & creased too easily & I couldn't squeegee out the bubbles, even using a bit of adhesive-backed vinyl solution. I tried this about 3x, cursed, & gave up.
2 - I browsed the internet & eBay for porous vinyl to see if there was an option that would let an amateur like me get bubbles out more easily. I came across auto wraps that supposedly have air channels in them. I settled on this one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/160866910681
I bought 1 sheet in & applied it to the right side of the cabinet head. I used *lots* of water with a little dish soap. I removed the entire backing paper, laid the vinyl adhesive side-up on the floor, put a thin film of soapy water on its entire surface, wetted the cabinet too (after cleaning the primered surface with ethyl alcohol & a clean rag, keeping the surface in question vertical--no room to lay the machine down), and placed it by hand relatively carefully.
This material is pretty durable & I was able to yank off & apply tension & squeegee back & forth (with a wetted baby burp cloth) a few times until it looked quite good.
To get the last few bubbles out, I wrapped the wet burp cloth twice around a CD jewel case & used the case's rounded edge to squeegee. Out spurted little sprays of soapy water here & there from underneath the vinyl. Not bad!
I then trimmed the excess vinyl around the panel, leaving a little extra. I folded the extra material over & slit it at corners. It didn't stay down very well.
I added the SWEPI decal & with the same process described above. It was a bit thinner & brittle & more fragile relative to the new vinyl auto wrap.
The next day, I added red T-molding, cutting "V"s out at the corners & bonking it in w/ a rubber mallet, & I made sure to capture the extra folded-over vinyl material under the T-molding.
I think it looks pretty good. Granted, it could better, but this sort of work isn't my forte (painting, sanding, molding, smoothing, etc. etc.). The vinyl is a very close match to the original sticker, in terms of shade of black & gloss level.
The stickers for the cabinet sides will be quite a challenge--tons more surface area to make smooth, need to remove the head (heavy w/ monitor!) & lots of hardware. Maybe I'll flip it on its side for this part...I've already bought 2 more auctions of that vinyl to which I linked above. 1 auction is enough to cover both sides of the head, & 2 more auctions will cover the 2 cabinet body sides.
I've got the left head decal removed & am in the tedious process of removing all of the adhesive left behind. I could really use some tips on adhesive removal. I've tried peanut butter, alcohol, Goo-Gone, rags, paper towels, razor blades, excessive rubbing with my thumb until I get blisters, etc. Nothing works quite well--it's such a pain. ANY TIPS!??!?
Thanks,
-Jason
MaineEvent:
RFM is a much better game
ChadTower:
Try a heat gun when removing the decal.
That looks like good work. I would have left it RFM, though. My SWE1 has RFM art on it. :)
jasonbar:
I fiiiiinally found time to attack side 2 of the head. I'd stripped off the old art 2 months ago, but then I moved last month & didn't find time to apply the art. I kept the machine disassembled after the move so that I could apply the art horizontally instead of vertically (soooo much easier!).
Last night, I cleaned & sanded the primered wood & laid down the black auto vinyl wrap on the left side of the head. Looks swell. Tonight, if I find time, I'll trim the black vinyl overhangs & lay down the SWEP1 art. I've found that a baby burpy cloth wrapped over a DVD case makes a fine squeegee, & that the advertised air channels in the auto vinyl wrap do seem to help purge air bubbles rather well.
I chose to switch my cab art from RFM->SWEP1 b/c my RFM art was a bit beat up (around the borders mostly, unfortunately, so I couldn't just slap a set of kit stickers on...), the RFM translite had a tear & tape repair (so I sold it), & I came across an NOS SWEP1 translite (packaged w/ my NOS SWEP1 playfield!) & a good deal on SWEP1 stickers (that had a couple of very very small tears).
Now that I have a big garage in which to work, perhaps I'll take the above advice & use paint instead of big vinyl for the lower cabinet sides, since I can keep the paint fumes away from my baby boy. We'll see how that plays out.
Thanks,
-Jason
jasonbar:
Trimmed black vinyl auto wrap, tapped on red t-molding, added SWEP1 Darth Maul art.
-Jason
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