What's new
Pinball info

Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

In Progress Rocky & Bullwinkle Shop Log

Thanks for the tips guys.

It's been a few hours since I applied the first coat now and i've only got a single can of spray left. I'll hang fire for now until i've got some more paint and then flat the coat i've done before applying two or three more coats with a shorter drying time between them.
 
Priming is going to have to wait it would seem - local price for primer is £4.50 a can. I can get 6 off eBay for £20 so i'm going to be a skinflint and save myself the £1.27 per can. I figured i'd need to save every penny as the price for the actual colour paint seems pretty high, at least it does when you're buying smaller spray cans.

Order placed for primer so hopefully I can get back to it at the weekend.
 
Thanks for the offer deathrow. :)

This is just for the backbox though, so hopefully not too much of a big job to do with cans. To be fair the primer isn't too badly priced, but the cost of RAL spray cans is really making me have second thoughts about going that route.

Cheapest i've found is £12 per can. And how many cans do we think i'll need to do the whole lot? I'd have thought at least 10 if not more - so that's £120 straight away just on the paint cans. I can get 5 litres of RAL blue to be applied via spray gun for < £50.

We have an MOT bay here at work. I'm tempted to ask the guys over there if any of them are able to spray it for me.
 
Paul said:
NO!!!

Never use a belt sander on a cab. Ever. I fell foul of that one...

@replicas will agree with me... since I did that on my TAF cabinet.... It carves channels in it unless you are VERY careful.... and took a LOT of work to even start to put right...

Cue Daz...... :(
Click to expand...
Agree. Belt sanders are evil. Great for knocking the **** out of rough stuff quickly but way too heavy-handed for a cabinet. It'd chamfer all the edges in the blink of an eye and leave runs up and down. Stick with the random orbital. Take your time...
 
I realise that but on the backbox the benefit from doing so is negligable.

The main cabinet I can probably save more on as I won't have to do both sides, but the rear and interior still needs to be done, at least as far down as the playfield. I was actually contemplating doing the entire interior but that plan might not go ahead now that i'm realising just how expensive the paints going to be.

I guess we'll see. If my mate in the MOT bay has the equipment to do the spraying then I might well invest £50 in the needed paint and get him to do the lot.

Next question - can he spray clearcoat too? ;-)
 
If your MOT bay guys spray stuff they should be able to do clear coat also.

Of course if what they spray is always the same colour then they might not clean the bottles etc overly well, might need to but a bottle and possibly a nozzle or two.
 
I do work in IT.

I work for a Shipping and Logistics Company. We have a lot of our own vehicles so somehow we ended up with an MOT station that also does MOT work for external companies.

I didn't realise they did spraying work until I mentioned about me spraying the pinball cab when one of the fitters was in our office. :-D

I'm just not sure if it's actually spraying they do here or if he does it at home or elsewhere. Need to ask and find out what they can and can't do - and how much it's going to cost me to get it done.
 
What type of paint are you looking to use?
I can get you 5ltr of acrylic in any ral code you want for around £25
Is it Mr Horsfall that's on about painting it for you?
It does work out loads cheaper than using rattle cans. Better coverage too
 
So far as i'm aware Dave it's acrylic that I need - so that price sounds awesome.

I need to tap up the right person over at the MOT station. It was Simon Bartram that was in talking about it the other day. It sounds like he does a fair bit of work in that area but i've not discussed it with him as yet. To be fair i've not rushed it as I know it's going to take some serious time to sand the main cabinet down and get it primed.

I'm on holiday for a few days now but will hopefully catch up with him once i'm back. In the meantime i'm going to get the backbox primed and ready. When that's done i've got some serious woodwork to do on the main cabinet.
 
Last edited:
Slow progress here - but I finally got another 6 cans of primer and the 400 grit I need to flat it before applying more coats of primer to the backbox.

Hopefully I might get that done tomorrow before I have to head away with work for the majority of next week. Real life is getting right in the way of sorting this out at the moment. ;-)

I've also dragged the main cab downstairs ready for me to start sanding that back too. The back end of the top still needs making right but I figure that'll be easier to do once i've removed the existing artwork.
 
Ww - You shouldnt need more than a few coats really.... I hasten to add that a few weeks ago i tried that primer/filler stuff - waste of time :)
 
Thanks Paul. It's had a single coat for now so i'll flat that back and then maybe try another 3 coats with 15 minutes drying time between each.

Will post pictures once i'm happy with it.

Does it need flatting back again before applying the actual coloured paint too? I presume so.....
 
I'm only flattening the last primer coat because it's been days since I applied it. Once i've done that i'll be limiting the drying time to 15 minutes between coats which I understand means it doesn't need flattening.

Once it's all done i'll give it a final flatten before getting it painted blue. I need to speak to the guys in the MOT bay about that one though..... ;-)
 
I presume that flatting is really just a quick rub round with 400 grit?

I just returned to the back box and before flatting you could feel a rough texture when running your hand over the primer. Literally just a dozen strokes with a sanding block on each side and it's much smoother to the touch.

Do I need to wipe it down to remove the dust before the next coat of primer? And if so is it just a damp cloth and then wait for it to dry before going ahead?

I can hopefully get 3 more coats in this afternoon and then that's the back box ready for its main colour coats.
 
Thanks Paul.

Progress has been a bit slow lately. Our foster daughter has been away on respite which meant me and the wife had time on our own so we've been out and about making the most of the freedom. I also turned 40 last week so we've been out celebrating and then on Friday night we had a party. All of this has limited time for working on the pinball and I head out to Copenhagen on Monday which means works going to be at a standstill until I get back.

However, I did manage to get a few hours today and made a bit more progress.

For starters I dragged the main cabinet outside. I took a few photos of it whilst I had it there as in normal light you can more clearly see the old artwork and the damage to the cab. The damage will be fixed up once i've sanded it back.

2014-08-31 15.12.15.jpg

2014-08-31 15.12.22.jpg

2014-08-31 15.26.56.jpg

Mmmm, the lovely damage. This is going to need some filling out and there's another 18mm of timber I somehow have to reinstate. Not quite sure what i'm going to do as yet. One option is to refit the support gussets for the back and get the back reinstated first. Then the missing would could simply be replaced with filler. Alternatively I could take a suitable piece of strip wood and bond it back in place with adhesive. No clue what i'm going to do yet. To be honest i'm more likely going to sort out the bit that sits below the head first.

2014-08-31 15.26.56.jpg

2014-08-31 15.27.14.jpg

So after taking a deep breath I took the plunge and set to work with the sander. I guess there was no turning back anyway as the backbox has already been stripped and sanded, but this just felt a bigger step as it's the main cab.

GOING.....

2014-08-31 15.31.22.jpg

GONE!!

2014-08-31 17.28.59.jpg

It needs going over a bit more but that's the first pass done. It took a while as there was still a load of the foam tape on the top edge which had originally fitted the side rails in place. I ended up using a hair drier to remove the majority of this before using some white spirit and a blade to get the adhesive stripped away. I figured this was better than trying to use a sander on it and have it clogging the disks.

I also did the front.

2014-08-31 17.28.41.jpg

And one of the inner edges......

2014-08-31 17.29.04.jpg

Still lots more to do but a start has been made.....
 

Attachments

  • 2014-08-31 15.27.05.jpg
    2014-08-31 15.27.05.jpg
    197.7 KB · Views: 2
In addition to sanding the cabinet back I also dragged the backbox downstairs to apply some more coats of primer.

It's gone on relatively well. I think it's had 5 coats in total but the back is a bit patchy. I'm not overly bothered about this as it won't be seen once the metal backing plate is put back in place (in fact Paul did say in his tutorial that this bit doesn't really need spraying).

2014-08-31 19.33.32.jpg

Right side. Still feels lovely and smooth to the touch.

2014-08-31 19.33.43.jpg


Left side, also lovely and smooth. Strangely the top left corner looks to have a 'ding' back in it, but when you run your finger or thumb across it it feels perfectly smooth.

2014-08-31 19.33.54.jpg

The back which is also a little patchy despite having 5 coats. I presume this is because the back is made from MDF and not ply. Hopefully it'll look OK when we have the blue applied, but again it's not going to be really visible once done.

2014-08-31 19.34.01.jpg

And finally the top.

2014-08-31 19.34.22.jpg

Given that this is my first attempt at painting using rattle cans I have to say i'm reasonably happy with the finish. The backbox will stay like this now until i've worked out how to get the colour coat applied. When I get back to the office i'll talk to the guys at the MOT bay and see if they can help out; if so then I might as well get this and the main cabinet painted up at the same time and in that case this will have to be hidden away somewhere safe until the time comes for spraying. That could be a few weeks away yet.
 
Looking forward to seeing this with its new cab art. It's going to look great. Awesome to see a Data East getting the full treatment. Nice work so far. :thumbs:
 
Thanks Dean. I just really really hope I can do it justice.

The cabinet decals were the missing link for me so when Doug over at Pinside hooked me up with a set of his decals then I was so pleased. I wanna make this thing gleam.
 
I spotted today that Manny is selling an old R&B cabinet for a pretty good price. Unfortunately it's too far away for me to go and collect (best part of 4 hours drive each way) and the cost for shipping would mean around £150 for the cab.

I'm not sure I can justify that. Looks like i'll be taking my time and rebuilding this one.
 
And the playfield Manny had was way too expensive! (although i did buy the backboard, since I needed one of the coils, the hand mount and the finger bolt)

Also, on the plus side, i did get a batman apron at the uk pinball show yesterday - didn't need the apron as such, but I did need the two recessed bolts that you fit it with (and hadn't been able to find them anywhere) - So, Steve, thanks and I hope you enjoyed the fish and chips!

so if anyone needs a data east batman apron, I know where you can get one ...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom