This was one of the “better” areas of the cabinet.The cabinet had the “normal” route machine dings and such, but also the large vertical gouge running down it on the right side.On the front of the cabinet was a “credit” button, that is what the hole in the right side horse’s shoulder was for… just drilled a hole right into the cabinet because… ????
I masked off the inside of the back box as shown. Looking back on this, I wish I would of just gutted, cleaned up the boards and such and painted the inside. I suspect I’ll go back and do that at some point in the future.
So we started off with sanding the cabinet and back box down, getting things scuffed up and then started to use “bondo” to fill in the low spots and such.To fix that extra hole, we used a large reamer to tapper out the hole, then took a wooden dowel and gave it a matching tapper. Then applied wood glue to the hole and dowel, hammer dowel into place. Let glue dry and then flush cut the dowel off, sand and fill… and sand… fill… sand… profit.Once we thought we had the “bondo” work done, a polyurethane sealer was applied. Then we followed up with a primer filler.And of course more small dings were found… so filled and sanded. But we finally got to the point were we felt the outside of the cabinet and back box were smooth.My friend had some left over black paint from some car he painted a while back, it turned out way better than any rattle can could of done… but at the same time, a lot of prep work up to this point so even a rattle can would of been a major improvement over the factory paint.So the back box was the first to get color paint… The instructions that come with the stencil kit say to line up 2 edges and apply. Fairly basic stuff, but keep in mind you may not have “sharp edges” to line up with. Odds are an old cabinet will have rounded over edges. Keep this in mind for later. I’m using a 20″ Yard Sale Tool by bigsqueegee.com to apply the vinyl stencils.So here is the first color, yellow, applied. Nothing difficult about this so far.We masked off the rest of the back box and I went to town with a rattle can of yellow. There are a lot of coats on by the time this photo was taken and you can still see the black through the yellow…..And now there this was one full can of yellow spray (for both sides) to get to where the black wasn’t showing through. As per the instructions with the stencil kit, remove the stencil while the paint is still wet…So here was a major lesson learned. It took soo much yellow paint, that it was on thick, and it didn’t stick to the black paint very well…. so when the stencil was removed, the yellow painted peeled off with it in some areas.So remember how I noted the cabinet won’t have sharp edges, but rather rounded over edges… this makes getting the second stencil lines up very difficult. IMHO, this kit has a major design flaw, where the red paint goes, there is no yellow paint. This means that if you don’t line it up 100% perfect, you get black lines/gaps between the red and yellow colors. It didn’t take much red paint to cover over the black, or yellow. When the stencil for the red was removed, there were no issues with the red peeling away like the yellow did.
So now to paint the main cabinet…. this time I didn’t worry too much about aligning up the first stencil for the yellow color, just made sure it was “centered” up on the cabinet as a whole. I used dead weight to hold the stencil in place (bucket full of old bolts and a tool box). Then I peeled part of the backing off the stencil and cut away as shown here. From that, the squeegee tool was used to apply the stencil sticker down for a smooth flat application.So yeah, some one didn’t 100% weed the stencil, I found 5 or 6 of these between the red and yellow for the main cabinet. For the price I paid for this, not acceptable. Take a very close look after you apply the stencil because it would be beyond a PITA to go back and fix this after the fact and have things line up correctly.All of the yellow stencils applied to the main cabinet. So before we start applying yellow….A scotch brite pad was used to scuff up the black paint that was exposed. Then a light coat of a white primer was applied.It took less than 1 rattle can to do all of the yellow for the main cabinet.If you think you would get the red stencil applied in a single shot and line up, you are smoking crack. It just will NEVER happen. So I cut it down into smaller pieces and applied in sections. Even then it was kind of difficult… and I have experience in doing vinyl graphics.Several coats of red built up until it looked pretty solid, then peel off the stencils.Looking pretty good. The colors really pop on that black.I had a bit of a time trying to hammer in the new nails for the rails and ended up using some pliers to “press” the nails. This worked out pretty good. The GRC guys use screws and I didn’t notice that on their pins until they pointed it out to me. Nice screws would be a lot easier to install.I took the time and effort to clean up the coin door, well worth the effort and it wasn’t that difficult to take apart and clean.And the finished project. New legs were installed as well. So is the stencil kit worth it? Well, yes, but the stencil kit could be improved.
To the guy who makes these stencil kits, I offer this free advice to improve the product:
The idea of aligning 2 separate stencils using rounded over edges isn’t going to happen over an area this large. Instead, use alignment marks. The first stencil needs to have alignment points, round dots with “+” marks in them. Center up the first stencil and apply, then cover up up the alignment points with tape before painting. The second stencil will have “+” marks on them that will line up with the round dots. This will be much easier to help line things up.
I don’t know about all color combos, but painting red over yellow wasn’t an issue. So why have the yellow “masked off” where red is going to go? For example, in the crest, the lion is masked off with the yellow stencil and so you have to get the red stencil lined up just right to fit into that masked off area. If you don’t line up that second stencil up just right, the black paint show right up. Why not just have the crest 100% filled in yellow, and then the red paint of the lion right on top of it. This way if the red stencil is off a little, no one will ever know.
Why is the “mustache” above the coin door cut short? As delivered, it stops short above the coin door instead of disappearing behind the coin door. If I move the design down, the the “Black Knight” fall off the bottom edge of the cabinet. Please address this for future kits.
I used the Westward 26W967 belt from Zoro.com in my Harbor Freight belt sander to refinish the rails, lock down bar and coin door. Check out this video for details:
