Does anyone print on the material that Fathead.com uses?

Tighe

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Does anyone print on the material that Fathead.com uses?

I want to have some side art made that can be removed and replaced easily.
 
I was thinking of the exact same thing for my Dynamo cab that I swap kits in and out of. Interested to see if you get a response to this.
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Has anyone used this. Did you Tighe?

I am looking to do this for Mario Bros side art. I was planning on trying to work with Phoenix Arcade since they seem to have the best MB side art.

 
I had the company send Rich a sample of the material. It looks awesome, it has a fabric texture. I never installed that version as he couldn't cut it with his plotter.
 
Photos. On the cabinet is removable vinyl that Rich had, and the other is the removable replaceable fabric that I didn't use because it wasn't cut.
 

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Was working on this for my Jaleco cabinet, adding some Point Blank artwork that way. Still working on the artwork part first though.
 
OK, I ended up getting removable side art from Rich at ThisOldGame. I have a Mario Bros conversion in a Donkey Kong cab. My goal was to put removable art on the cabinet so that if I ever want to make it a DK Jr I can do that "easily".

So I bought the side art. It costs $75 and takes about 3 weeks to come. No problems so far. A little slow to me, but it is custom. It looks great and is packed very well. Good service overall.

There is always one obstacle between me and my games and that obstacle is me. In this cases, I said "oh, this side art is removable. Therefore I will put it OVER the bolts. This art will be so easy and I will just remove it and replace it. It will live forever and be the best thing since sliced bread".

Long story short, a couple things:

1. Placing over the bolts makes bubbles (duh). The issue is not really the bubbles but really the fact that this throws the whole geometry off. This leads to wrinkles. In the end you have a mess on your hands.

2. The side art can be removed easily. It CANNOT really be reused easily. This is due to two reasons. First, it stretches. Secondly, it begins to lose it adhesive qualities as it is removed and removed and accumulates fingerprints/dirt/etc.

At the end of this process I had ruined my sideart and had to order it all over again. The second time around, I did it correctly and it came out great. However, I realize that this is a one time thing. I had hoped that if I converted this back and found a widebody, I would be able to use this art. That will NOT be the case. Oh, well. It is still pretty cool.

Here is a link to general pics of my MB restore effort: https://www.dropbox.com/sc/qdul8xggromhia4/8xe5SzSw1o (looking for a bezel...hint hint).

These pics show the wrinkles and what the side art looks when I pulled it off (i.e. it is unusable).

Here is a short video (note that I say GameOnGrafx but I mean ThisOldGame): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGzYP-MbJ1U

Hope this saves someone from being stupid like me.
 
Hey, thanks for posting your experiences, I'm sure this will help some others down the road. The idea of easily removable sideart is a good one, but the re-usability aspect needed to be clear.

Wade
 
Also, I just wanted to say that your game looks great now! I have a Mario Bros widebody and I love it, but I also LOVE the standard size versions too. I've thought about trading my WB or selling it and picking up a standard sized version.

The twisting around the heads is tough to avoid. It happens to some degree on all types of applied artwork and I even leave the bolts a little loose sometimes. I think the trick is to trim around the head as soon as it's installed, so the head can spin but it doesn't pull the rest of the sticker.

My VR had these plastic washers under all the bolt heads. They kept the sticker from twisting. Wish I had those for all my games!

Wade
 
When I put this in my cabaret I used a j roller and any bubbles I poked with an exacto and rolled the air out.

The fabric material version doesn't stretch like the vinyl version.
 
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