Control panel surface

[JQ]

I'm using an empty virtual fighter cabinet, and the control panel

[Tailgunner]

I ran into this with my Dynamo cab. When I got it, the CP was covered with vinyl that was printed to resemble astroturf. The vinyl peeled off fairly easily, but the adhesive residue it left behind was a ---smurfette--- to clean off.  I ended up using xylene and razor blades to clean it. I'd soften the stuff by wiping it with a xylene soaked rag, then scrape the residue off before the solvent evaporated and it became sticky again.

Once all that was gone, I bead blasted the CP to remove all the rust, filled a button hole I didn't want, primed it and did a little body work on it. I'm currently in the process of painting it, haven't decided on whether I'll do artwork or just cover it in textured vinyl.

[menace]

On my old berzerk cab--rather than scraping it off I just covered it over with sheet metal (like the kind used in furnace ducts)  This allowed me to create an entirely new button layout as the old holes were covered over and I didn't spend hours scraping glue off.  It was a breeze to do but measurements are very important.i.e you don't want sharp bits of metal extruding on the sides or top.

[telengard]

I use Happ's pica vinyl and it sticks *very* well and looks somewhat OK.  No ability to use artwork though.  

[mclaught]

Here's what I did. Figure out where you want your buttons/joysticks. Make sure. Then, strip all the old vinyl overlay off, fill the holes you don't need. You can either weld metal slugs in place and file it down, or do what I did, use cloth fiberglass and resin. Sand it all down nice and smoothlike, then go on ebay and do a search for control panel overlay. You'll find numerous game specific overlays, but every now and then there will be a cool generic overlay. I found a namco flame overlay for less than 10 bucks. The real thing looks so much better than that crappy contact paper from home depot, imo.

Here's a generic sega overlay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3250867649&category=13718

here's another. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3250879256&category=13718