MaximRecoil
Well-known member
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) ...
... 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:
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:
And here's some really shiny stuff:
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.
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) ...
... 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:
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:
And here's some really shiny stuff:
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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