Atari System 1 Vinyl Removal Tips

[KorbenD]

Trust me. Get some strong paint stripper gel, do about a 1 foot square at a time. The stuff comes up in sheets once it's softened by this.

I tried *everything* on mine before settling for this. Heat gun, sunlight, hair dryer, heated scraper, sanding, scraping, etc.

 

[prOk]

What you're seeing frizz is the difficulty of removing melamine.. why won't anyone believe that its melamine and not vinyl? On occasion, a game that was stored in VERY dry conditions for a long time the melamine fusing will begin to let loose or let loose entirely making it's removal fairly easy but most games that were stored somewhat normally that melamine isn't going to come off without a hell of a fight. In all reality, the melamine is probably a better base to start from than the wood. Fix the dings and holes, feather the edges and you'll have a nice level surface.

The damn stuff is NOT vinyl. Nobody at atari bought sheets of pressboard and applied black vinyl and THEN put the atari sideart on it. It came from the factory as black melamine fused sheets that were machined into cabinets and the artwork was applied last.

 

[edelgiud]

The damn stuff is NOT vinyl. Nobody at atari bought sheets of pressboard and applied black vinyl and THEN put the atari sideart on it. It came from the factory as black melamine fused sheets that were machined into cabinets and the artwork was applied last.

Who says Atari didn't apply Vinyl first? Do we have any production notes on that?

What you have might here may not be vinyl perhaps in a exceptional case. But like others have said, try paint remover, it will most probably come off pretty easily after you make some gel type remover sit on it for 2 mins. Oh and by the way, when I look at my machines, the panel on two of them does not seem to be the same black material as the sides of the cabinet. So there might have been a different process applied there.

Having grown up with an uncle who owned a carpentry (cabinet) maker business, I have seen enough Melamine cabinets (press wood with plastified type coating) to know that panel you are working on sure doesn't look like Melamine. It is usually at least 3 times thicker than that, no guys?

Good luck with the project.