Robotron Restored!

Sounds like you put some real effort into matching the paint with the existing color on your cabinet. From the comparison pic, it looks good to me! Good job going the extra mile.

None of mine have ever come out perfect, if such a thing is even possible, with fading, yellowing, aging etc. involved. The two that I did (Moon Patrol and Joust), I tried hard to match the base color, and used approximate colors from spray cans for the stencils. Wasn't 100% happy with either.
 
Thanks, Wade, you're right, it is really hard to blend and get a decent match.

The silver worked all right, but when you are doing this, and the new paint is looking so nice, it is hard to not keep going and painting over the old paint.

The blue was unsalvageable—it wasn't great to begin with and became lighter during the process of getting black latex and black spray paint removed. So I painted over it, and the new blue is not nearly as good of a match (too dark) compared to the silver. Although to be honest, I like the blue a bit darker, so the inaccuracy bothers me less.

I have gotten away with unorthodox painting and finishing techniques on non-arcade projects quite a few times over the years. Luckily, this was one of the times it didn't blow up on me. I left all of the old paint in this case. It is complicated and time-consuming, but I treated the different areas differently for prep, taping, painting, and smoothing over the transition areas. Lots of cleaning and degreasing and rage over cheap Amazon 1/4" tape that leaves residue. Now I am close to having a decent final finish and will gladly move on to other things.

Per the final clear finish, it will probably end up being a gloss that I polish a bit of the sheen out of. I have not really liked the matte clear I tried on it, and generally don't like matte clears in solvent paint or polyurethane or whatever. They are less durable as well. But I think I am about to get it right with a relatively cheap automotive gloss clear.

By the way, on a budget, the ultimate cheat code for protective clear—in my opinion—is water-based polyurethane for floors or Crystalac poly (they used to sell something called PolyOxide that I used for years) top coat products. I have seen these stay clear for many years, and they are very easy to work with, sand, polish, redo, etc.

I have another Robotron deconversion to do, but its sides are so bad that it will have to be a sand and stencil job. Looking forward to something a little easier!
 
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