As my schedule did not allow for a large block of time to apply laminate to the cabinet and I was still waiting on my new control panel to arrive, I busied myself with a few smaller tasks.
Cleaning up the control panel drawer seemed like a nice easy job.
Right. What was supposed to be an hour of work at best ballooned into a multi week, ongoing chore.
This is the drawer that slides down into the front of cabinet. The circuit boards for the game are screwed into place on the surface of the board, and the wiring is stapled down, as evidenced by the 6000 old staples left behind after I gutted the machine.
The control panel attaches by bolts that run through those 4 oval holes at the top of the board.
The three larger holes are for latching and unlatching the control panel when it is on the machine. The drawer slides down into the cabinet, the control panel, which on a piano hinge, is swung up into place. The operator opens the coin door and reaches up through the three larger holes to secure the latches, fastening down the control panel.
The coin door is closed and locked, and the machine is then secure from arcade hooligans looting the cash box. Supposedly. As seen in earlier posts, some operators go the extra mile and put a massive iron bar across the coin door for extra security.
Even after yanking all of the old staples out, the drawer looked pretty grubby, so I gave it a quick sanding.
Came out much better, as seen here!
This is where I should have left it, but no. I had the bright idea to do a full pass and make it look nice.
This quickly spiraled out of control into a much bigger project.
Though the drawer was now clean and fairly smooth, there were still all of those staple holes in it, which were getting on my nerves.
I filled and sanded those holes, but the bondo stained the particle board.
Looks like I would have to paint.
I had some primer left over from painting the rest of the cabinet, so I rolled that on.
This was the second point at which I should have stopped.
The primer, coupled with the porous nature of the particle board left quite a bit of texture, so I sanded the drawer down again.
I would need some proper paint to finish this off.
I had a tin of gloss black on hand, so I thought I'd use that to complete the drawer.
I know the gloss black paint was going to be shiny, but whoa, this was really shiny. Too shiny.
Now I could have just left it at this state, knowing nobody but I would even see this part of the machine, but after looking at that gleam for a few days, decided I couldn't abide by it as it was really showcasing the texture of the particle board.
Sanded down, again.
Primered, again. This time with a rattle can of grey.
After sanding, yet again.
This is the current state of the drawer, for the past two months.
I should probably just paint it satin black and be done with it, but there are still tens of thousands of tiny pockmarks of the particle board showing. I am now considering doing a skim coat of automotive body filler to get it perfectly smooth, but this will of course require more sanding and priming before painting.
At this point, I have gone way beyond overboard on this part as it is never ever seen by the player. However, having gone this far I might as well see it all the way through.
I have some time to decide while I wait for the weather to provide decent working conditions.
