Day 28 - The Writing's on the Wall

Today me and Bri used the vinyl cutter to cut out the lettering that the handsome Pierre had designed. Click to zoom. I decided to tarnish this excellent modern retro simplistic styling he's done and garnished the kickplate with some vinyl prints (it's a Space Invader, Blinky and Miner Willy if you didn't know.)

I know the words are upside down to each other, but it took a bit of thinking and looking before I believe Pierre that it was the right way to do it.

It's not all plain sailing though (forgetting whether I mentioned this or not in a previous entry). When spraying some black got onto the yellow when the paper blew off, so we masked the bit that was wrong (the top front corner of the sides - on both) and sprayed the yellow. Sadly, when peeling off the fine line tape it pulled the orange from the corner (we're sure it had dried fully) leaving a big mess and an orange peel effect.

I've touch it up best as can and from a slight distance you can't really see it. Hopefully if/when it's varnished you won't notice.

Day 27 - Side Done

The sides were painted today and look really nice. They need touching up where the masking tape failed. First the black stripe was added (from the other day) and left to dry. Then the orange was added. They each took about 3 to 4 coats.

My mate Pierre did some art samples. The one on the right was another friend who modified the invader.

 After a bit more trialing the following were the contenders:

This isn't the finished article, but Pierre worked his magic and superimposed the image onto the photo. 

Day 26 - More Paint

Tonight, the yellow from the previous spraying had dried so we masked off a border of 18mm (3/4 inch) from the outside edge with the nice blue fine line tape followed by masking tape and paper, then sprayed it black. Very nice it looks too (forgot to take photos).

When it's dry we'll sand/white spirit where the black came through (the air was too strong for the crap masking tape and went through in a few places), repeat the process so the yellow shows and spray the middle.

Given the red is more orange now, I've been playing with colours and layout and found three possible fonts. I'm taking ideas (click to enlarge).....

Day 25 - Don't Call Me Yellow

Tonight me and my mate Brian sprayed the middle section yellow. When I say me and my mate, I mean Brian sprayed and I watched and gave advice ;)

It didn't exactly start great when I never thought my black finger prints on the cabinet (from painting the other side) may show through when the thinned out light yellow was sprayed on. But it worked out ok in the end as there was some white primer lying around.

Click to zoom the pictures as usual. Bri did an absolutely spot-on job, but it might take until Monday to dry ready for me to spaz it up with the fine-line so we Brian can spray the outside black strip.

The outside black and yellow stripes, btw, will be about three quarters of an inch (20mm or so) in thickness each and below is something like what the design is/was. The font will be different, there'll be no white stripe (too much like hard work) and the bottom will look more like the picture on the right (thanks to Dennis at Allegro.cc), which gives a more retro looking fade using black stripes and avoids the need for having a crap gradual fade effect like in the big picture on the left.

If you're near the north-east of England and need the best motorcycle training money can buy, Brian is your man: http://www.2wheelsmotorcycletraining.co.uk/ , and he trains even better than he sprays.


Reminiscing slightly. This is what the cabinet looks like now (and the picture above).

Years ago when I had hair and I first started wanting to do a cabinet, this was my design (to the right), which I later decided was both too hard to cut and looked too much like Elvis.

After redesigning I came up with this, which then got a few more curves and became what I have now.

Day 24 - One Out

I bought the wrong colour for the cabinet. It was cheap enough so I could just get it again, but I'll just leave it. It'll be fine.

Day 23 - Curvulicious

Not really a days work, or even an hours work, as I can't do much until I get some art.

So, I sanded down the cabinet sides to smooth away all the black paint fingerprints. I ordered some fine line tape (32m of 3mm width from 3M) for about £4. This is the stuff they use for lining out shapes on cars for spraying, like flames and such. It's thin, doesn't leave a residue and is very bendy (wish my wife was like that).

So I sized up the stripes and 1.5 inches seems a good width for the two stripes (0.75 inches each). Seems the best way of getting the curves to match was to stick my finger on the edge and run my finger round at a fixed distance.

After that I had a go at the fine-lining. The first curve (bigger curve at the bottom) looks a bit wobbly but the second tighter curve looks a lot nicer. I've a feeling I'll have to do a full side at a time.

The plan of action is to first spray the yellow (it's the inner stripe, i.e. not the edge), then when dry fine-line round it and mask with paper the inside of the cabinet and spray the outside black. Then remove the tape while wet and when the paint is dry tape again on the outside of the yellow to spray the inside the vermillion (orange/red).

Day 22 - My Stools are Black

Not really any new progress. Just waiting on artwork, as without it I cannot get the controls due to not knowing the colours, and without the controls I can't get the control panel cut or the acrylic sheets ordered, etc.

I have been setting up Mala, Virtual Pinball and a few other bits of software to run the cabinet though. The problem now is my computer broke so I'll be needing to find something new to put in the cabinet....

What has arrived though are two bar stools. I was looking at second hand, but as normal with eBay they all wanted far too much money.

Being the cautious buyer, at first what I thought was a bit of scam, turned out perfectly fine - I saw some bar stools that looked nice, were a good price and had £30 discount if I bought two. The 'catch' being I had to bid for a voucher costing 1p that was then posted to me to redeem.

It turns out it's because eBay don't allow electronic vouchers, and the company selling the chairs is just trying to drum up business.

So, I got the voucher, ordered the stools (free delivery) and they arrived the next day for about £25 each. Total turnaround of two days.

Took a while to decide which ones to get, but I chose these as it went really low (so I could ensure they wouldn't be too high for the control panel) and they had a straight high back for monster sessions on Metal Slug.

This is the website http://www.tradepricehomestore.co.uk/, to get the voucher off just go to eBay and search for it. Really helpful people.

The base of the stools could do with being a bit heavier, but then that would mean the stools would be costing three times the price easily and you don't really get that kind of weight unless you buy shop fit quality.

This isn't a problem though as the base is quite wide to stop wobbling and I doubt any weight would really help as the centre of balance is quite high.