This marks day two of working on the control panel. Progress was slow because it was in such bad shape. I had to take more then a few approaches to cleaning off some of the grime before finding something that would work but I'm happy where it ended up at the end of the day. The first thing I did was give the entire body of the arcade a thorough look over to see if I could locate all the missing/incorrect screws which I'm hoping
@alberto1225 can supply me with when I get some panels from him. He has been able to source screws I thought I would have to find alternatives to in the past and even been kind enough to send me some free of charge when I didn't even order anything.
A quick look at the control panel today shows that I was able to get some of the surface dirt off on Friday but not the dirt that was deeper engrained in the plastic or the corrosion built up on the metal parts.
Look at that metal. It feels rough to the touch and I can make out all the little pits caused by corrosion over the years.
I removed as many metal parts/screws from the control panel as I could find and left most of the other stuff on the arcade so as not to get things confused. Then, I filled a tub I have with a mix of white cleaning vinegar (very cheap stuff) and water. Time to give everything a vinegar bath!
The effects were pretty amazing. This pic is unfortunately after everything had been in the bin for about 20-30 min, but you can see the vinegar had already started breaking down the rust and corrosion. One by one, I pulled things out and took a plastic scrub brush and gave them a nice scrubbin which pulled the remaining rust off.
Check out the before and after on the control panel hinge.
Another part that looked exponentially better (but of course I forgot to photo it individually) was the latch that locks the control panel shut.
It also looks like KC somehow left what I believe is a New Net City part in the coin bucket on accident so I cleaned that up too.
Next, I pulled that nasty old 100 yen sticker off and cleaned up the spot. I thought I might need to use some Goo Gone, but just slowly picking at it and peeling it back by rubbing with my finger did the trick.
I took all the metal parts to the sink and rinsed the vinegar off them next.
The vinegar was a little aggressive on the bolts and washers painted black and actually removed some paint unfortunately. And I also noticed the chrome brackets that hold the glass piece in place for the control panel had a thick layer of adhesive on the backside which I later removed using a small plastic razor blade and Goo Gone.
The two L shaped brackets are actually for an Astro City, but included on this cab so I'll have to acquire some of the appropriate Blast city brackets. They are used to hold the control panel shut and the Blast City brackets are actually supposed to be slightly narrower.
Now, I have to back up a little because I forgot to mention cleaning the panel itself.
You can see in the above pic the panel has some serious leftover dirt to be reckoned with. The stuff on the 1 player side near where someones wrist would rest was particularly deep in the plastic. The plastic itself has deep cuts and gashes from watches or knives or who knows what rubbing against it for years probably. Then, the dirt was nestled in those crevices. At first, I sprayed the rust stains with vinegar as well as the other stains and let it sit for 20 min before trying to scrub/rub it off. This didn't seem to do anything. So, I took my Simple Green and sprayed it and then took a scrub daddy plastic scrub pad and aggressively scrubbed this area. This helped a little but still didn't get rid of the worst stuff. So finally, I took out my electric buffer and used a rubbing compound on the plastic. This helped the most so far.
You can see this helped quite a bit but there was still a bunch of leftover dirt embedded in there. Next, I wiped the plastic clean and pulled out some of my
Meguiar's Oxidation Remover to see if that would have any better results. It did. Even though it's technically meant for fiberglass it did a fine job on the plastic here. Using that, I cleaned the remaining dirt stains out, but couldn't really buff out the deep scratches in the plastic. Maybe someday I will sand the plastic or something to smooth this out and do a repaint.
As for the rust, I wasn't able to clean that very well. Anyone have any tried and true ways to clean rust off plastic other then vinegar? Maybe I'll give the vinegar another shot at some point, but to be honest after cleaning it up as much as I did I felt it would be okay since those stains will sit below the metal control panel insert and won't be visible.
The Meguiar's also did a fine job of polishing up the bottom of the panel and removed some stains that were still there.
Once I finished buffing I put the panel back together, but I will probably do some more stuff to it. The back of the glass insert has missing black paint from scratches so I would like to find something I can fill those in with. Also, I may at a later point buff out the wrist spot some more on the control panel. but, aside from that, I figured I would throw it back together and call it good for now. I had a repro blast panel laying around that is not from Albert so I threw it on top. I'll still be getting some panels from Albert for both 1p and 2p since I like his so much though.
with some of the Marine Polish you recommended
