Nintendo Cabinet Painting

[Gumby]

Have any of you ever had to repaint/wanted to repaint your Nintendo cabs? I've recently picked up an orange donkey kong cab that has a fair number of scars and such in it. It got converted to Neo Geo a long time ago, and since I have very little interest in DK I plan to leave it that way.   I've also got a blue mario cabinet that I'd like to MAME, but its also pretty scarred up, would like to repaint.

Was thinking about repainting the cab after filling in the scars with putty, but was wondering if anyone had done it. I'd like to paint it red (or at the very least paint over the scars with orange/blue to match) but the material of the cab seems to not be very responsive to paint...

any suggestions/ideas/experiences?

-Gumby

[flampoo]

It would behoove you to sand the cabinet first. If you're using an interior latex it won't adhere very well to wood that already has a finish. A belt sander should do the trick... You can get a nice one for about $40.

[Gideon]

Blasphemy.

[flampoo]

What's wrong with repainting? I don't see what's blasphemous about wanting to restore artwork. Consider it like the Sistine Chapel.

[Gideon]

No, no.  That's not it; nevermind.  Sorry I mentioned it.

[Ken Layton]

Nintendo cabinets are made with a formica surface. Paint will just scratch right off and look crappy.

[Gumby]

I do agree somewhat Gideon...however, these cabinets aren't in good enough shape to restore to their former glory...no matter what I do, its going to have to not be origional.

I've got 3 other orig nintendo cabs that I restored, so I don't feel TOO bad...

but.  The Formica surface...I'm not sure what to do about it.  There are pits and holes and scrapes and such throughout the cabinet (even a 4" circle cut out of the bottom left side, have no idea why)...even if I putty the bad areas, I'm not sure they make paint that will stick.  Wondering if I have to rough sand the surface until I get down to its wood underlay (thats a project I'm really not looking forward to)...

-G

[paigeoliver]

Search google a bit, Donkey Kong (AKA, Nintendo cabinets), is the single most common "total restoration" around. You should end up finding some homepages with details of what people did to them.