Lexan Sides?

ArchonTurtle

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So doing Lexan overlays for CPOs is pretty common, but I was curious if anyone has tried doing lexan overlays for side art?

I was thinking about trying it on my Turtles in Time cab cause all the art is NOS, and I'd love to keep it looking that way.

If anyone has tried it, I'd love to hear about your experience.
 
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I saw one on location a long time ago, where an operator tried to do something like this. It kind of gave me the same feeling as seeing nice comfortable furniture with a plastic cover on it.

I'm not sure how you would go about attaching the plastic to a vertical surface like that without using screws, which would really detract from the appearance.

If you want to protect the side art, you could look for some really thin (10mil) PSA-backed polycarbonate film and laminate the whole side with it. It's not cheap, and if you screw up putting it on, you'll have done to it just what you were trying to protect it from. But it would wear really well if you were successful.
 
It would work pretty well if you got the sideart reverse printed onto thin Lexan and then had it backed with adhesive, the same way that CPOs are made. You'd have the toughest sideart around. Something like that would be especially interesting done as full-coverage sideart. It would take care of the sideart and provide an extremely tough finish for your entire side panels at the same time. I would expect that would be very expensive though.

As far as adding clear Lexan to cover existing sideart, I don't think that would look very good, and I doubt you could find an adhesive that is both strong enough and also perfectly clear.
 
Don't let animals, idiots, drunks, or kids around your games and you should be fine.
 
Recently on a trip to a local collectors to pick up my NBA Jam TE boardset the guy had like 6 machines with black lexan on the sides of them, i thought it was a cool idea to a point but i imagined that it wasn't cheap at all to do. not to mention getting them home from wherever you got the plexi from cut or not.
 
Perhaps a really HUGE 'AFA' box:

Cobra_Commander_Mailer_AFA_85-85-85-85_18645196.jpg
 
The problem is finding someone with a large enough laser cutter... or CNC... the material costs are proably negligable to the labor/machine-time of CNCed sides.

I'm trying to get my Star Trek SOS side CNCed... and wanted to get a new custom canopy plastic... but finding a laser/cnc that can cut the plastic is proving to be a problem.
 
The problem is finding someone with a large enough laser cutter... or CNC... the material costs are proably negligable to the labor/machine-time of CNCed sides.

I'm trying to get my Star Trek SOS side CNCed... and wanted to get a new custom canopy plastic... but finding a laser/cnc that can cut the plastic is proving to be a problem.

That depends on what the OP is talking about (he didn't specify). Is he talking about paper-thin flexible Lexan like typical factory CPOs are made from, or is he talking about thick (~1/8") rigid Lexan like operators put on a lot of control panels when doing conversions? If he's talking about the thin stuff, you could trim it with a utility knife. The thick stuff may be able to be trimmed with a router and a flush trim bit.
 
That depends on what the OP is talking about (he didn't specify). Is he talking about paper-thin flexible Lexan like typical factory CPOs are made from, or is he talking about thick (~1/8") rigid Lexan like operators put on a lot of control panels when doing conversions?

I think he specified. He stated "overlays", and paper-thin stuff doesn't overlay anything meaningfully without adhesive. And that's when it becomes laminate :)
 
I think he specified. He stated "overlays", and paper-thin stuff doesn't overlay anything meaningfully without adhesive. And that's when it becomes laminate :)

The abbreviation "CPO" stands for "control panel overlay", and CPOs are most commonly made from adhesive backed "paper thin" Lexan. Yet despite being adhesive-backed, they are not called "CPL" ("control panel laminate").

"CPO" is a standard term which exists outside of video arcade machines; i.e., CPOs are used on a lot of industrial equipment, and they are made in the same way as typical arcade machine CPOs (adhesive backed "paper thin" Lexan [polycarbonate] that is reverse printed [usually screen printed] on the underside and adhesive-backed).

In other words, industry often uses the word "overlay" to refer to thin material affixed with adhesive. Generally, if it has graphics and/or text incorporated into it, it is called an overlay (like an overlay for ColecoVision or Intellivision controllers, or for some monitors, and of course, CPOs) regardless of whether adhesive is used or not.
 
In other words, industry often uses the word "overlay" to refer to thin material affixed with adhesive.

In stating "doing lexan overlays for CPOs is common" he inferred the creation of another item to be placed atop the CPO. He did not state "overlaying CPOs with lexan was common". In my mind, the latter would be more ambiguous. It may be that he mis-wrote what he intended to ask, but that's probably up to him to state.

BTW, what would you call a 1/8" piece of plastic which sits atop a CPO?
 
In stating "doing lexan overlays for CPOs is common" he inferred the creation of another item to be placed atop the CPO.

Possibly, though substitute the word "using" for "doing" ("doing" being nonstandard grammar in this case at best), and you can clearly see the other legitimate intepretation of that sentence (and if you can't, substitute "as" for "for" instead). For example, if someone said:

"Using garbage bags for raincoats is common."

Would they be talking about using garbage bags on top of raincoats, or using garbage bags as raincoats?

"Using wood for fuel is common."

"Using Avon Skin So Soft for bug spray is common."

And so on.

BTW, what would you call a 1/8" piece of plastic which sits atop a CPO?

I usually refer to the thick stuff as simply "plexi", regardless of what type of transparent plastic it actually is, and that is how it is usually referred to in this hobby as well. If you refer to it as an overlay, that brings standard CPOs (like the factories originally used on most control panels) to mind. If you say "plexi", everyone knows what you're talking about.
 
I usually refer to the thick stuff as simply "plexi", regardless of what type of transparent plastic it actually is, and that is how it is usually referred to in this hobby as well.

Good thing you don't work in a plastics shop.
 
Good thing you don't work in a plastics shop.

That doesn't even makes sense, since I already said:

I usually refer to the thick stuff as simply "plexi", regardless of what type of transparent plastic it actually is, and that is how it is usually referred to in this hobby as well.

Now, what can be gleened from that?

1. I know that there are different types of transparent plastic, not all of which are PMMA ("plexi").

2. I use the word "plexi" when it is sufficient for the communication requirements at hand (which is most of the time). For example, if you are talking about bad conversions from "back in the day" with plexi on the control panels, not only does everyone in the hobby know exactly what you are talking about, but it is irrelevant if not all of them were actually PMMA, or not actually the Plexiglas brand.

There are obviously times when you need to be more specific/accurate, such as perhaps, working in a "plastics shop".
 
The OP probably isn't aware of all your rules and was just using English to convey his question. I think I'll defer to his explanation, should he choose to provide one.

Thanks though! :)
 
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