I might know what the finish on a Punch-Out cabinet is

MaximRecoil

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I might know what the finish on a Punch-Out cabinet is

The Punch-Out finish has always been a mystery. It is very smooth, to the point of looking shiny under the right light (even with lots of wear and tear like mine) ...

L7ZbsH1.jpg


... yet, if you look closely, you can see the grain structure of the wood beneath it. Normally, to get such a smooth finish on plywood, you would fill and sand it perfectly smooth, spray on paint, do lots of sanding between coats, and then buff/rub/polish it out. That obviously wasn't done here (and what manufacturer would go through such effort for an arcade cabinet anyway?), yet there's no sign of roughness or "orange peel" in the finish.

I think it is "film-faced plywood", also known as "phenolic plywood". If you do a Google image search, you'll see a lot of examples that look very similar to the Punch-Out finish. For example:

V7ApVs6.jpg


That made-in-Vietnam stuff appears to be more crude than what was used for Punch-Out, but it really illustrates how the film face can be applied to rough plywood yet still come out smooth.

Here's some higher grade stuff, brown, made in China:

fUiMscL.jpg


And here's some really shiny stuff:

ohlC8Sf.jpg


Most, if not all of the pictures I've found of it come from Asia. I don't know if it's readily available in the U.S. or not.

The thicknesses vary. For the side panels they used ~9/16"/14mm. For some of the other panels they used 19/32" (which is the actual finished size of 5/8"), and for some other things (such as the back door) they used 15/32" (finished size of 1/2"). The different thicknesses they used each have a different number of plies too.
 
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This is pretty cool. I need to track down my punch out and see if it has the same finish..

If it hasn't been refinished then it will. In some cases operators have spray painted over the original finish without sanding it first, in which case, the spray paint can easily be removed with something like Goof Off Graffiti Remover without affecting the original finish at all.

I'll bet Punch-Out machines looked beautiful when they were fresh out of the crate. The one I first played as a 9-year-old in 1984 was quite new, but I didn't pay any attention to the finish. I was, however, impressed with its height, dual monitors, "futuristic" grid layout on the control panel overlay and wire-frame playable character, and it's graphics consisting of huge sprites which could zoom in and out. It was nothing like anything I'd seen before.
 
I have heard that originally those were Gel Coated like you would paint a boat

Gelcoat is part of the fiberglass process. Applying it to plywood would be very nonstandard and not a good idea, because when it isn't integrated into the fiberglass process, it is rather brittle and doesn't stick well to wood.

Phenolic plywood has the same characteristics as the Punch-Out cabinet finish:

OQYmnv4.jpg


The way the grain structure of the wood shows through, yet the finish is so smooth, is very distinctive.

7. In the final stage, a very thin film of phenolic resin is applied over the surface of the plywood. This film is made by soaking and saturating a paper in phenolic resin. Once the resin cures, the paper becomes hard and the film is ready. The film is then hot-pressed and melted over the surface of the plywood, to get a smooth hard finish.

8. The shiny plywood is now ready for quality testing and dispatch.

That explains why it's so smooth in spite of the plywood being relatively rough.

Also, it's said to be much tougher than melamine:

Melamine does not compare to phenolic. Phenolic is a much tougher surface. Melamine will scratch if you walk past it too fast.
 
One thing that is a bit odd at least on PO is the inner part of the cab. IIRC, the black part is thinner then the material on the outside and goes about a third of the way back. It has a distinct edge which seems like something you wouldn't really get with something like gel coat or paint.
 
One thing that is a bit odd at least on PO is the inner part of the cab. IIRC, the black part is thinner then the material on the outside and goes about a third of the way back. It has a distinct edge which seems like something you wouldn't really get with something like gel coat or paint.

Yes, the inside is very odd. There are two things going on. The first is black paint on the top halves of the side panels, which looks exactly like you'd expect paint to look like on bare, construction-grade plywood, complete with runs and overspray. The second is the film-like finish that covers the front third of the side panels, and stops with a sharply defined edge; it was applied after that crude paint was:

E02cEkD.jpg


It is the same stuff that's on the outside of the cabinet, but as you noted, it isn't as thick, so it isn't as nice of a finish. You can very much see the grain structure of the wood through it ...

78OPmMo.jpg


... far more so than with the outside finish, yet it still feels very smooth to the touch.

I get why they did that, i.e., it is so that the outwardly visible inside edges of the cabinet have a decent finish, but I don't get what the crude paint on the top halves of the side panels is all about.

In any case, the outside finish and the finish for the outwardly visible inside edges has all of the characteristics of being applied in the form of a film/sheet with a heat press, which is what makes it impossible (for all intents and purposes) to replicate at home when refinishing. But I think it could be replicated with a scratch-built cabinet, provided you could find some phenolic plywood to use, at least with regard to the outside finish (you'd end up with a better quality, and full-coverage, finish on the inside though).
 
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Wow, an amazing amount of info here. Awesome.

If I leave the sides as is on mine, I would like to replace the decals, at least, since they were applied very haphazardly. Do I need to worry about doing anything special to remove the adhesive once I get the old decals off? (I'm guessing no, since it was commented that goof-off would remove old spray paint without affecting the original finish..)
 
This makes more sense to me than a gel coat.

The way the gel coat came up was in a restoration thread about an DK cab. The OP was saying how his friend (who worked in boat manufacturing) was helping him with the sanding and that the finish smelled exactly like the gel coat they use on boats.

I wish one day somebody here could interview someone who worked at the factory in Japan about all of this.
 
Wow, really great restoration sleuthing here. Nice work.

I love when people document stuff like this. It will become even more valuable as the years go on, for future generations of restorers.
 
Wow, an amazing amount of info here. Awesome.

If I leave the sides as is on mine, I would like to replace the decals, at least, since they were applied very haphazardly. Do I need to worry about doing anything special to remove the adhesive once I get the old decals off? (I'm guessing no, since it was commented that goof-off would remove old spray paint without affecting the original finish..)

I can confirm that the Punch-Out finish is impervious to Goof Off Graffiti Remover ...

https://www.amazon.com/Goof-Off-FG672-Graffiti-18-Ounce/dp/B0028AVP2M

... but I don't know about regular Goof Off, which is a very different thing. To remove adhesive residue on most anything, I use mineral spirits (sometimes called "paint thinner"). It removes adhesive residue quickly and easily, and it is readily available at any hardware store. I've never had any reason to try it on the Punch-Out finish, but I would be very surprised if it affected it. Whatever you decide to use, you can always test it first on the inside of the cabinet toward the front (the part shown in the first picture I posted in post #7).
 
This makes more sense to me than a gel coat.

The way the gel coat came up was in a restoration thread about an DK cab. The OP was saying how his friend (who worked in boat manufacturing) was helping him with the sanding and that the finish smelled exactly like the gel coat they use on boats.

Yeah, gelcoat and phenolic resin are both polymers, so it wouldn't surprise me if they smelled similar to each other when sanding:

Phenol formaldehyde resins (PF) or phenolic resins are synthetic polymers obtained by the reaction of phenol or substituted phenol with formaldehyde.

-------------------------

Gelcoat or "'Gel Coat'" is a material used to provide a high-quality finish on the visible surface of a fibre-reinforced composite. The most common gelcoats are thermosetting polymers based on epoxy or unsaturated polyester resin chemistry.

I wish one day somebody here could interview someone who worked at the factory in Japan about all of this.

I do too. I would also like to know who did the voice of the Punch-Out and Super Punch-Out ring announcer.
 
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