Particle board cabinet repair? Holes and black laminate issues.

[Billy]

My god what have I got myself into? This arcade machine cab is made of nothing but particle board. It has no side art of any kind and black plastic / laminate (please insert correct material here) cover's the whole darn thing.

So how do you repair / restore particle board? lol
Don't they make real wood cabs?

[Billy]

Hum more info might help...

The black stuff has peeled away from the sides and is torn off in spots. The rest of it looks fine. How do I replace the black plastic that covers the whole machine or just repair the bad spots?

What is the correct name of this covering my 1990 atari pit-fighter. I have not put up all my snaps of the machine yet but will try to add them tomorrow.

[Chadwick]

It could be a number of things... Vinyl, Melamine, Laminate to name a few.  Get some pics up and we'll nail it down.

[Billy]

Okay I did get a few up tonight. No since in wasting Ac's bandwidth/room on their server. I posted them up on my site.

http://www.mrcade.com/modules/extgallery/public-album.php?id=3

Thanks for your time.

Regards
Billy

[Chadwick]

It looks like melamine or something similar.  It will be very difficult to repair that and make it look good.  If it were me, I'd get a heat gun and remove it all, then sand and paint or laminate.  Which you choose will depend on your skills and budget (laminating will be more expensive and require more skill).

[Billy]

It looks like melamine or something similar.  It will be very difficult to repair that and make it look good.  If it were me, I'd get a heat gun and remove it all, then sand and paint or laminate.  Which you choose will depend on your skills and budget (laminating will be more expensive and require more skill).

Hum I will check into new laminate for the cab from home depot or lowes. Maybe they have something decent. Do you know of any pictures on the net of someone trying to restore particle board? Before and after shots? I really would like to see what it would look like with paint? Wouldn't the particle board just suck the paint down? I guess I could just primer the heck out of it first.

Thanks for your post.

[ItchyD]

Apparently it takes many coats.  There are alot of guys on here who do amazing things with paint.  My mind is a blank as far as which projects right now but some guys are getting close to a piano like finish. 

[evitagen]

Get a grey primer if you're going to paint it black.  Won't take as many primer coats.

I'm actually in the process of building a cabinet and I have similiar issues... except the paint was horrible on the old cabinet, so I sanded it all away.  Now I'm working on re-painting it.

Good luck.