Black Textured Vinyl (Star Castle, Cinematronics)

SteveJ

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I'm sprucing up my Star Castle this weekend, and need some advice.

The front of the cab (kickplate and interior blacks) is particle board covered in textured black vinyl. It looks pretty beat up, and I have some options:

1) Clean it -- would anything make 30 year old textured black vinyl look new? NuVinyl? I tried magic eraser and was not impressed.

2) Paint it -- I was thinking a satin finish oil based paint, which someone suggested for smooth surface. Does anyone have experience with textured surfaces?

3) Replace it -- really don't want to do this. peeling off vinyl from particle board will destroy the surface underneath. Replacing the whole kick panel is an option, but all the interior surfaces are covered with the stuff.

After this, I have to clean up the Rip Off machine (which is covered all sides with the stuff)

Okay, gurus -- your expertise is appreciated :)
 
I don't see how peeling off the vinyl will damage the particle board, unless the PB is flaking apart. If anything, it could be difficult to get off. Heat gun?

I bought some of the thisoldgame black vinyl, and while it's great and sticks really well, it's very smooth. Another nice option that won't be textured is formica.

There must be a source for the textured stuff, as people were buying it for Dragon's Lair cabinets...
 
melamine is good stuff,it is iron on also if you buy it iron on.dont know what your star castle is like as i have one and just rolled it with black satin paint and it was good.i wouldnt say that this one has vinyl on the front as the one i have might be different to yours as i have one in uk so it might be euro cab.its just straight on the lower front where your american versions have a bent bit there.
:)
 
Saleem --

Thanks for the response -- it sounds like you may have a Rock-ola cabinet, which are more rare. Does your CPO have words like "thrust" and "fire", or do you have little pictograms?
 
it had pics but,i replaced as it was fag burned bad.never mind as there are others out there the same.yes it a rockola version.that beoing sad the only things rockola about i are the cab and the boards after that its not orginal.

someone got it runing of a different tansformer,a different power supply board and a different monitor and for some eason they had to use a video board with sound on it also,although i think its handling more the video than sound.now its not working bar playing blind theres not a lot i can do as i dont know the internals and they dont match any schems out there so i got to trace every schem for every part there but,first i would need an oscilloscope to check the video signal,so thats the starting point,rather than mess to find out there is no signal.
:)
 
Pulling the vinyl from particle board can damage the wood underneath...it did for me when I removed the vinyl from my 720. I used a heat gun to do it. Wade had a similar experience with his 720, too....but it is possible. If you do end up with damaged wood after the vinyl comes off, what seems to work well is to use joint compound/spackle to cover the damaged area, sand well, coat in polyureathane to get it nice and smooth. If the surface underneath is not smooth, you will see it once the vinyl goes on.
 
Follow up

thanks for the responses, guys. Yeah, I did a "test peel" on my Rip Off and was horrified at the results -- like you said, the wood is just falling apart.

For the Star Castle, I took some advice from wysiwyg2, and scrubbed the vinyl with a toothbrush in simple green -- amazing how well that worked ... probably got it 80% as new.

Then I followed up with "Nu Vinyl", a product vastly superior to Armor All -- the Nu Vinyl isn't glossy or sticky like AA. Made the vinyl 95% as new.

It won't fix physical damage, of course, but it completely restored it.

I will post some pics when I get a chance
 
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