Need advice on painting curves

[steambc]

Hi Guys,

New kid on the block here. I'm currently restoring a 1950s vintage coin-op cabinet, and I could use some advice. I know you guys are mostly dedicated to Mame stuff, but I hope you won't mind helping me out. I plan to make a cabinet for a Mame system next.

The cabinet I'm working on is Peppy the Clown. These are not the colors I'm using (This is not my cabinet), but this photo gives you an idea of the curves I have to create.



Back in the 1950s this cabinet had a beautiful two-tone stone-textured paint job. Over the years the amusement park painted over the whole thing with gold paint, which is flaking. I want to restore it to its former glory. I've had a ridiculously hard time finding the paint (Fleck Stone is almost non-existent here in the States because Valspar has no distributor for it), but I finally procured it.

My plan is to strip the cabinet down to the bare wood, fill in the imperfections with Wunderfil, and then repaint it.

Can you guys steer me in the right direction in terms of re-creating those curves? I would think that one good way would be to make some kind of mylar template, but I can't even find a good 90 degree side-shot from which I could create the artwork.

Thanks for any ideas on this.

[EvilNuff]

If you're only talking about painting them then I would strip the whole thing down, sand and smooth it and just general prep it for painting.  Paint the whole thing one color and then tape down a paper template for the curves and let you paint that way.  You probably will have to cut the tape to get a nice clean curve.