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Galaxian Mame Conversion
csa3d:
Priming is "Done"
Well, here's the result of 2.5 full weekends of priming. This part was pretty much not fun at all, and I'm quite glad to move onto other things. I say "done" because I know I have at least 3 more hours cleaning up the bondo lines from where I filled the original monitor mount, which i apparently sanded a bit too much out of. I also have a few spots in the cab, that no matter how many coats of primer they receive, a brown tint keeps coming back. This has me worried that I have mold or moisture in the wood somewhere... which is crazy.. this cab has been baking in my Texas Kiln (garadge) bare.. for weeks now. Let me know if you have any ideas on that. For the record, I've been priming with Kilts white latex stain blocker primer. Yes, I'm going to cover the sides and front with vinyl, but given the original smell and no desire to bring any mold into my home, I decided to give this a good coat.
enough.. time for pics:
Right side of cab. Excited yet?
Front of cab. Speaker grills in place to give you an idea. Oh yeah.. it was "fun" painting that interior marque area. Can't wait to do it again in black. ::)
Speaker close-up. I'm likely going to chop 1/4" off of their height before permanently affixing them.
Interior painted. This.. sucked.. to.. do! UGH! Flipping the cab upside down helped some. I'm well over the joy of painting.
Suggestions on this..
Ok.. this next pic is the area that doesn't seem to want to be white. It's been coated about 10 times I'd estimate. Suggestions?
Notice the tan.. the unholy area that seems to stay brown. Can I paint over this black and not worry or should I address this before?
There you go. Until next weekend..
-csa
Level42:
After all that work I hope not to discourage you but AFAIK, primer never needs to totally cover the wood. After all, it's a primer. It's just offering a layer that makes the actual paint set much better to the wood.The covering is done by the finishing paint layers....
And using a white primer for a dark (black) paint is not a clever idea......you should at least have used red for the parts that need to become black again....This is going to take you another dreadful weekend of putting on LOTS of layers of black paint. I'd suggest still putting some dark tinted primer on the places where the black will come.
csa3d:
Level,
Hmm.. well, the good news is that what the pictures show isn't really a great solid cover of white primer anyways. Close up there are spots which could use a third or forth coat. I was aware that this layer didn't have to completely cover, but what I also thought I remember hearing is that primer is cheaper then paint... so I thought I'd give it two so that the wood would suck up my primer layer instead of my paint layer. ::dunno
As for the black.. sigh.. I thought of this halfway through the 2nd coat when remembering back to painting my house a dark color. I plan to wet-sand the visible exterior parts to bring back the shine. We'll see how I feel about the inside. Sounds like that process involves 5 or so layers of paint anyways. I'm hoping that process also fills some minor lows and highs as well.
Thanks for your input. I'm not discouraged. I just keep hoping it gets cooler outside soon if I'm going to be living in the garage for many more consecutive weekends! :laugh: It's probably best I the work week has arrived so I can "recover".
-csa
Kaytrim:
The product you need is called "KILLZ" one or two 'L' not sure on the spelling. This is supposed to be the best stain blocking paint on the market. I use it myself on all my priming jobs be it MDF, bondo, plaster. It comes in two varieties, oil and latex. I use the latex because of the easy clean up. It usually takes two to three coats for MDF and Bondo. Plaster will take one coat.
Keep up the progress. That priming seems to take the longest but with Killz you can add coats rather quickly usually the next day after a light sanding. The keyword is light, I use a foam sanding block and just scuff the previous coat. Then use a tack cloth or wet rag to clean off the sanding residue and add the next coat. I was able to get Dad's Bartop painted in a week, 3 coats primer, 3 coats color with a little touch up after the fact. Then I waited a week until I stuck on the artwork with a final 2 coats of clear paint to seal in the artwork.
TTFN and Good luck.
Kaytrim
csa3d:
So believe it or not, lots of work is being done on the cab. The inside is mostly painted black, and you don't get to see pics of that yet cuz frankly, it's not ready yet. However, this weekend I've made quite some progress on the control panel.
I've rebuilt the control panel pictured previously because I quickly realized that in order to route the bottom holes for the trackball and joys, I was going to need a flat piece of wood.. not a permanently assembled "l-shape". Live and learn. The second time around was faster with my new router skills anyways.
I decided to try the route out the bottom technique I read about in another thread (which I'll reference when I find it again). What I ended up doing was taking the unit apart, tracing the teardrop pattern onto the wood. Next, 2.25" hole saw to remove enough to completely surround and hug the plastic lip. Then, I took a 3/8" strait bit and carved out all but 1/16" inside the teardrop shape, so that from the top it appears to be seamless. We'll go over the mount more in detail in a few. I also decided to bottom mount my u360's, dust washer on the bottom.
The bottom and top lips have been routed out to fit snugly as the exactly how the original metal cp did. The unit is mounted via the same European hinges I used on the back door, so the entire control panel swings up, exposing the innards for easy access (pics of that later).
The MDF was primed with gray killzs primer, then I hit it with 5 or so layers of Krylon spraypaint for plastic sufaces.. wetsanding with 400 grit paper in between. I spent more time on the top then the bottom, and ultimately, I'll be covering the entire cp with artwork.. but this should make it feel complete until I get around to that stage. I hand rounded all corners on this unit to soften the feel a bit.
Pics as follows:
Top view. Top row (p1,coin1,turbotwist,coin2,p2). Middle row (joy1, p1fighter layout, 2.25 betson trackball, joy2)
bottom view
Front view
Top angle
trackball detail
Bottom angle