Possible to sand down to wood on nintendo cab?

[barrysfarm]

If anyone is interested, here is the results after i applied the orange vinyl kit from this old game.

Excuse the mess of my garage. This project was done in the process of just getting settled into a new place, and there's a bunch of random stuff in our garage, not to mention a layer of blue bondo dust.

When I got the machine, it was converted to a superman. One side had side art, and the other was poorly spray painted blue. While disassembling it, I realized it had been converted at least 2 times prior. According to a sticker inside, it had been a Hogan's Alley at some point, along with another playchoice. It was originally a DK. Also, someone down the line replaced the white t-molding with white wood filler.

I decided to make this cabinet a Mario Bros instead of a DK Jr, primarily because I like Mario better, and I've already got a DK. I would have gone with a widebody version if (a) I had enough room in my game room (in my case, those extra few inches means the difference between 4 and 5 games on one wall) and (2) ever had anyone than just me play games. 2 player is kind of mute when only 1 person plays anything.

Here's all the steps I went thru:

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Removed Side Art & Spray Paint

-- repeated these 2 steps 3-5 times
Bondo'd (lots of little dents, part of a corner was missing)
Sanded Bondo (150 grit)

Sanded (220)

Primed with BIN Primer - 3 coats (works great, smells horrible)*
Sanded (220, 350)

Painted Orange (using the Home Depot paint color i referenced earlier in the thread)
Left sit for about a week

Applied vinyl following the tutorial at this old game
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* I wasn't going to originally prime this one, but in some spots I sanded a bit to deep into the enamel and went thru to the wood, which caused a bit of woodgrain texture to be seen in the primer. Once I put the orange paint on, it faded away.

I also polished some scratches out of the marquee and bezel.

I'm super happy with the way it turned out. It's not 100% perfect, but the vinyl makes it feel perfect. The vinyl wasn't difficult to apply. Like others have said, it's 90% preparation, 10% application.

 

[qbass187]

Whoops. I could have easily found the paint code info if I looked 3 threads down.

Looks good. Is this oil based paint?

 

[barrysfarm]

I wish. I can't get oil based paint in illinois.

The cabinet was painted with the orange latex paint, then covered in This Old Game's vinyl.

 

[Phetishboy]

Nice job, but 2 things:

1. If you have left over orange vinyl, cover those cp latch panels with 2 layers of it, that way you wouldn't have to paint them. Leaving them blue makes the cab seem unfinished.

2. If you woulda let us know you were going Mario Bros, I woulda suggested doing a black speaker grill and kickplate, to at least match the Widebody color scheme. I think it looks better, and not just like a Mario kit thrown in a Jr. Cab.

As I said, good job and the above 2 observations are merely opinions, aka: what I woulda done had I been you.

 

[barrysfarm]

Nice job, but 2 things:

1. If you have left over orange vinyl, cover those cp latch panels with 2 layers of it, that way you wouldn't have to paint them. Leaving them blue makes the cab seem unfinished.

2. If you woulda let us know you were going Mario Bros, I woulda suggested doing a black speaker grill and kickplate, to at least match the Widebody color scheme. I think it looks better, and not just like a Mario kit thrown in a Jr. Cab.

As I said, good job and the above 2 observations are merely opinions, aka: what I woulda done had I been you.

Thanks!

1.I think i have enough vinyl left to cover the CP latch panels. I'll have to check. It's something I had planned on doing, but just forgot until I put it all together.

2.I thought of that, but I kind of like the look of the all orange over the black front, especially since it'll be sitting next to my DK.

Thanks for you input though. I appreciate the feedback.