Button Restoration (Nintendo)

JamBurglar

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This is pretty boring compared to a lot of the stuff you see on this site but I didn't see anything on this specific topic after a search so I thought I'd add this to the site in case somebody else was interested.

Original Nintendo buttons are really hard to come by, especially the dark blue ones used in Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. and Popeye. The shortage of buttons stems from abuse in arcades and the brittle plastic Nintendo used. Smokers used the blue buttons as cigarette rests, which utterly destroys them. I've also heard stories of buttons shattering, although this is probably a bigger problem with the orange jump button. I'm sure a lot of people share my experience of looking for months or years and finding nothing. Some people buy fully populated control panels just for the buttons. Moreover, there are no accurate reproductions on the market. Apparently its difficult to get the color right. Nintendo buttons are also smaller than the standard size so the repros sometimes get modified so they'll fit on a Nintendo control panel.

Anyway, after months of looking, a fellow KLOVER (Bungy) helped me out and traded me some original blue buttons for a restrictor plate. Thanks Bungy! Anyway, the buttons were not burnt. They did have some pretty good scratches and one had a gouge. They had some slight, but even, discoloration. I wanted to see how far Novus plastic polish would go in fixing them up.

This first pic is a comparrison. The left button is unpolished. I had already polished the right button the night before. You can still see the scratch in the right button's outer ring that Novus did not fully remove. If you look close you can also see a little chip in the center part of the button. Keep in mind though, I took these pictures in bright light and positioned the right button to emphasise the damage. If I would have turned the right button 180 degrees it would look nearly flawless.
DK%20Button%20Pre%20Restore%20Comparrison.jpg


I dissassembled the buttons to polish them. Here's the left button unrestored and dissassembled. You can see the gouge pretty good in this photo.
DK%20Button%20Pre%20Restore%20Dissassembled.jpg


I probably spent a good 1.5 to 2 hours polishing each button. I cleaned the buttons using Novus #1 (the cleaner). Because of some of the deep/sharp scratches I used Novus #3 (most abbraisive) to start. Most of my time was spent with Novus #3. I then moved on to Novus #2 (less abbrasive) for a while, and then recleaned with Novus #1. I only polished the parts that would sit above the control panel. I didn't see the use in polishing the threads. It takes a ton of elbow grease to do this sort of thing and I didn't want to spend another couple hours trying to polish the threads. Anyway, here's the left button after I polished it. As you can see, the gouge is still visable under bright light but not nearly as visible as before. Polishing helped the discoloration some but did not remove it. In most cases, however, discoloration is not going to be very noticable when you reassemble the button because all of the exposed parts tend to discolor evenly.
DK%20Button%20Polished.jpg


Here's the comparrison with both buttons restored. As you can see, the Novus will polish the buttons pretty good, but it won't entirely remove deep scratches or gouges and will only lessen the effect of discoloration. That gouge on the left button is at about 5 o'clock so the play in light hides it pretty well in this picture. The point being, unless you put direct light on the flaw, you won't even see it.
DK%20Buttons%20Post%20Restore%20Comparrison.jpg


Here's the buttons installed. I put the scratches facing the back, so they don't really pick up in the flash. This picture is in very bright light and in normal light the buttons look new and shiney. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the results.
DK%20Buttons%20Restored%20and%20Installed.jpg


To sum up, the Novus smooths out the scratches and makes everything shiney, and therefore does a great job at hiding even decent sized gouges and chips. Its the rough edges on the scratches and gouges that catch the light and make them visable so when you polish them, the defects get hidden. As long as the buttons aren't burnt, or seriously gouged up, I think they can be restored with nice results. Frankly, I don't think anyone would notice any of the imperfections on the ones I did without a flashlight and close inspection.

So that's my pathetic review for the week. Join me next week when I delve into the interesting topic of attempting to hide the scratches on the back of a marquee (and failing misserably.)
 
awesome work, I was thinking of trying to do the same thing on a dark blue one as well that has cig burns and try and lightly sand it to try and sand out the cig burn and then the elbow grease with novus
 
I've done something similar chucking the part in my drill/driver. For deep scratches you can start by using something like 800 grit and then going to 1500 and finally 2000 before moving to Novus 3, then Novus 2.

For parts that are too large to fit in the drill chuck, run a carriage bolt through the center and use a pair of washers and a nut to fixture the part, then tighten the chuck on the carriage bolt.

In fact you can even re-profile carriage bolts that have markings stamped on their heads using a metal file and then sand paper. It's also a great method to get the rust off carriage bolt heads prior to painting.

The key is to work slowly and be prepared for your polishing cloth to occasionally get caught and pulled from your hands. You'll get great results while saving a lot of elbow grease :)
 
awesome work, I was thinking of trying to do the same thing on a dark blue one as well that has cig burns and try and lightly sand it to try and sand out the cig burn and then the elbow grease with novus

It's worth a try, especially with a button that's burned up anyway. Bungy mentioned that he tried to buff one using a dremel but it just scratched things up. I would think sanding/buffing would work to a degree if you use the right combination of tools and solution. At some point you're going to end up with a weirdly shaped button if you sand too much. If I had a way to do wet sanding I would have tried that with novus 3 but my tool situation is lacking. I saw a post somewhere where a guy took a wet sander and novus to DK Jr. CP with pretty sweet results. I'm way out of my element with anything other than my hands and elbow grease.
 
i am using a novus kit on my space zap side plexis,now thats a task and a half!i have already gone through the full bottle of novus3 and i am now well started on the novus2,i am using the full bottles,just a dusting cloth and i am just putting plenty on a side and polishing till its rubbed in and nigh on gone.

will take me a while but,i will remember this thread and post pics of the finished plexis,they was pretty bad but,well worth the work.i just hope they come out nice and i hope my hard work polishing away will pay off.

i will post some pics when i am done.

i can see that it is making a difference already but,i am not rushing.unfortunately i have no before pics but,i will certainly show the after ones when done.
:)
 
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