I started early by finishing up the new back door. I found that using the Space Duel door as a template made making this one a snap. Since they are basically the same cabinet, I traced the vent cutout with the router and it looked to be near factory quality. I then assembled the parts to block off the view into the vent opening, just like the Atari built door, with a small 2 inch by 14 inch piece. I made a re-printed back door sheet using a new wide carriage printer at work. The door then got a new cam lock and a fresh coat of oil based satin black. While the satin dried a little too glossy for me, It will just have to do for now.
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The front of the cabinet was still orange and all of that surface needed cleaned up and prep for painting black. When I started sanding I noticed that the paint really wasn't sanding down, it was gunking up and peeling. So after a closer inspection, I could see that the underlying surface was laminate. I tried cleaning a little off with acetone and after a few minutes decided to try a gel based paint stripper I had on hand. It worked perfectly, and within about 20-30 minutes I had the orange paint removed and the laminate was in great shape. I had to use a little elbow grease and some Pledge to restore it, but in the end it was much better than painting. In fact it was looking great.
With that problem out of the way, I had plenty of time to focus on sanding down the Bondo from the front corner repairs and prepping the cabinet for painting. The fiber board was somewhat brittle all around the edges of the cabinet, so I tried a new product. It was a wood hardener and it appears to have worked well. I spread it all around the exposed edges and down into the t-molding groove. After letting it dry, the surface seemed to be much harder and more stable. I then sanded the remaining Bondo down and began masking off the side art. This was a bit tedious, and took maybe an hour. I wanted to get it just right, as I was likely too lazy to do it again if there were any mistakes.
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After a few coats of white it was looking pretty nice. I used the new Rustoleum gloss white in the newly designed "any angle" cans. Not sure if that helped but the finish was pretty nice, not perfect but good enough. Had I done this again I would've started with a sandable primer. Now with bright white sides the artwork really jumps out.
I think this is where I called it a day on Sunday. I was actually exhausted by this time. The next day I repaired and painted the lower back section of the cabinet, the day before I had peeled off what appeared to be vinyl. I then Bondoed the bottom edge after using more of that wood hardener. I needed to scrub the top half of the cabinet with a Magic Eraser and Simple Green to remove all of the orange over spray. After that the top was looking good too.
The marquee brackets were rusty and missing bolts, so those got sanded down and cleaned up. I used 60 grit sandpaper to clean up any large spots of rust, then some steel wool to get them smooth. After that, they got a light coat of Rustoleum hammer texture spray followed by a light coat of satin black. There was some weather stripping material on both brackets where they contacted the glass marquee, and I had some on hand, so that got replaced. I cleaned the marquee front and back with Simple Green, seems the backs are always yellow, looks like from cigarette smoke. I had some nice clean black bolts to put it all back together with.
As always, I was impatient to get the t-molding on. I had ordered some red t-molding earlier in the week from Twisted Quarter. I didn't want to go with the original black, seemed a waste, I thought the red would give it a little flash. I had to use a silicon glue on several areas to get the t-molding to hold good. So at the end of the day it was really starting to look nice.
