Working on a Sega Blast City

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Great write up. You’re dedication and adhering to a process is admirable. Have you put them on the cabinet yet? I find I have to be quite firm getting them on to the cab. Where the the clips sit there’s a slight rise in the plastic on the front - so I’d be carefully not to crack the paint there if you haven’t clipped them back in yet. Thanks again for the details.

 

[Thomas]

Yes they’re both installed in the cabinets. I’ll take pictures later. Check post #26 for my troubles fitting the bezel in vertical position.

 

[tiff_lee]

Those spray max cans are good, give a great 'fan' spray pattern probably as close as you'll get to the real deal (HVLP spray setup). With the 2K clear that should be a very durable finish which also looks great, like glass!

Regarding the comment on fibreglass these cabinets do have a gel coat finish so you'd have to sand/cut/grind pretty deep to hit any fibres.

 

[mR_CaESaR]

Man that's an amazing paint job you've done there.

 

[Thomas]

Regarding the comment on fibreglass these cabinets do have a gel coat finish so you'd have to sand/cut/grind pretty deep to hit any fibres.

Maybe. I had cracks that went all the way through on both cabinets. Looked like resin only to me.

But I have no experience with fiberglass or resin materials so I can't say for sure what it is. I thought if it was fiberglass I would see some of the strands within the resin like I've seen in damaged fiberglass boats, car bumpers etc.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

The stories I’ve heard from operator owners is that they were not very tough - hence them going to steel later on with Lindberghs. Whereas an Exceleena is true fibreglass and noticeably more rigid.

 

[tiff_lee]

Maybe. I had cracks that went all the way through on both cabinets. Looked like resin only to me.

But I have no experience with fiberglass or resin materials so I can't say for sure what it is. I thought if it was fiberglass I would see some of the strands within the resin like I've seen in damaged fiberglass boats, car bumpers etc.

Yeah ok, actually it does look like the whole thing was cast in a mould minus the 'fiber' part

 

[Megalocade]

Nice work, old arcades have got to be the most disgusting things ever, my Dynamo cab was just the same, layers and layers of filth everwhere that even my hoover said turn it in.

Just out of interest are these blast and astro cabs all metal including the control panel, I've thought about buying a wrecker but if their plastic it would put me off.

 

[Thomas]

Just out of interest are these blast and astro cabs all metal including the control panel, I've thought about buying a wrecker but if their plastic it would put me off.

The bodies are some type of synthetic resin that may or may not include fiberglass or some other material. Not exactly sure. The control panel bases are plastic. Doors in front and back are metal.

 

[Thomas]

I did some additional cosmetic improvements that weren't part of the original plan. In the beginning, I considered leaving the cabinet looking rough and yellow. But that's no fun. And it doesn't make sense to make the monitor bezel pretty and ignore the rest.

First was repainting the black area around the instruction glass.

Ideally the old paint should be stripped off completely but I took a risk and just scuffed it with a grey scuff pad. Then sprayed with Rust-Oleum flat enamel, hoping that the color would match the original paint closely enough to blend and look like a single layer of paint.

And it worked. Better than expected. I must have not masked well enough or maybe pulled the tape off too soon because my tape line isn't perfectly even. Other than that it looks good. I hope it stays on. So far it's fine.

Next, I tried to revive the control panel box (or base) by sanding it. I needed to go all the way down to 320 grit paper to get all the yellow out. Then I sanded with finer and finer grits.

Here it is compared to the yellow control panel box lower part:

It looked white again but there were two problems. First, it still didn't match the rest of the cabinet (too white). Second, this isn't the type of plastic that can be sanded and then polished to make it glossy again. Sanding it causes a weird uneven texture and buffing makes no difference. So unfortunately I needed to repaint this.

 

[snake_eyes_ex]

Good stuff. I ended up masking off the instruction glass and used a paint pen freehand and got pretty good results. But I need to do my Astro instruction glass so I might try your method.

I also tried to sand down a Blast CP box and got pretty horrible results. Also the stains on mine were so deep it didn't really help. I ended up getting a replacement, but eventually I'll repaint it. Looking forward to seeing yours.

 

[PASTBLASTER]

VERY clean lines on that. You just made me look at mine and get sad about how rough mine is......Thanks.

 

[Thomas]

Good stuff. I ended up masking off the instruction glass and used a paint pen freehand and got pretty good results. But I need to do my Astro instruction glass so I might try your method.

I also tried to sand down a Blast CP box and got pretty horrible results. Also the stains on mine were so deep it didn't really help. I ended up getting a replacement, but eventually I'll repaint it. Looking forward to seeing yours.

Spraying the glass worked well and was fairly easy to do. I hope it doesn't flake off later. That enamel paint should stay on I think. I have seen examples of plastics being sanded and polished back to a shiny finish but that definitely doesn't work on a CP box. It seems there was some other layer on the outside of the plastic and all I did was sand that off and make a mess of it.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Spraying the glass worked well and was fairly easy to do. I hope it doesn't flake off later. That enamel paint should stay on I think. I have seen examples of plastics being sanded and polished back to a shiny finish but that definitely doesn't work on a CP box. It seems there was some other layer on the outside of the plastic and all I did was sand that off and make a mess of it.

I think it’s injection moulded and like say a cake in a cake tin, the edge is all smooth where it touches the metal but inside it’s a bit more textured and aerated. Good on you for having a go though. Will give others pause for thought if they’re considering this.

 

[Thomas]

I think it’s injection moulded and like say a cake in a cake tin, the edge is all smooth where it touches the metal but inside it’s a bit more textured and aerated. Good on you for having a go though. Will give others pause for thought if they’re considering this.

That could be it. I don't know much about plastic manufacturing. I did some quick research before I sanded but maybe the examples I saw were people sanding painted plastic. If someone wants to sand their arcade plastics to get rid of the yellow and they don't care about losing the gloss then the sandpaper method works.

 

[Thomas]

Before painting the control panel base, I first wanted to see if I could revive the metal doors without painting them. They were each a different color of yellowish white and still had stains despite being cleaned with undiluted Krud Kutter.

I first used a clay bar but I don't think this did anything. Then I applied compound by hand and that made an improvement. The paint on the coin box door and frame was already thin and chipped and got worse after applying compound, so this door was added to my list of things to paint.

The original coin entry was in extra bad condition so I bought another from Yaton. That one was pretty bad too.

Then I saw that Tops/Sophia Corp sells new ones for the low price of 550 yen. Oddly, they are grey. Not sure why Sega would distribute them like that. But since I already had things to paint, painting the coin entry wasn't a problem for me.

Bought a second one for the Net City.

The next step was color matching. The Honda Frost White that I used on the Astro City looks good on the Astro but the Blast City color is a little different so I didn't want to use that. It's too light. I took the photo below before polishing the front so it's not the best comparison but you can still see how the Frost White is definitely not a good choice. RAL 9002 looks okay in the photo but it's actually too dark and creamy when compared to other areas of the cabinet. Not a good option either. Maybe the original person who recommended RAL 9002 for Sega cabinets was trying to match the stained, yellowed paint on the metal doors?

I wanted to get a better color match, but the problem was I didn't have anything I could take to a paint store to compare against color samples. All the metal doors in the front and back are too dark, even after polishing (the doors in the back are super yellowed too). The control panel base was yellow (and too white after sanding). So the only part I had to use for color matching was the cabinet body itself. And since I didn't want to disassemble it and haul one half of the cabinet body to a paint store, I had to try something else.

My solution was to buy some acrylic glossy paint at a craft store and mix my own color to match the cabinet body as best as I could. This was tough, partially because this paint changes color as it dries and partially because I'm unable to determine the difference in value between two hues and make the appropriate adjustment. An additional problem was the paint on some areas of the cabinet appears darker because it is so thin that the black coat underneath is showing through. Or some areas are darker because the paint is old and was exposed to sunlight, smoke, etc. (a good example is the area between the bottom of the monitor bezel and the control panel base).

I brushed the paint on strips of paper, then applied heat so that it would dry quickly to its final color, then compared against different areas of the cabinet. I did this over and over until I finally settled on something that seemed to resemble the color of the cabinet.

 

[Thomas]

Now that I had my color, I took it to an automotive paint store, looked through their color samples... and picked a color that isn't a great match. It's okay, but I would have liked it to be better after all that trouble.

For spraying the control panel base and coin entry, I first scuffed the surfaces with a maroon scuff pad, then cleaned with wax and grease remover. I then sprayed two coats of SEM plastic adhesion promoter. For the control panel base I then sprayed two coats of Transtar 2 in 1 primer. I probably could have used either the adhesion promoter or the primer instead of both. But with the adhesion promoter I don't need to worry about the paint flaking off later. And the primer helps to fill in some dents and scrapes in the plastic a little and I can sand it to get a smoother finish. I really like this Transtar primer. It has a strong spray and good coverage. It lays down nice and smooth and feels durable.

I sanded the control panel base with 400 grit and 600 after it dried for a day. Then sprayed three coats of color on the control panel base and coin entry. The top of the base was looking a little rough so I sanded with 800, then sprayed one more color coat.

Lastly, I sprayed three coats of clear. Everything looked good when I was done so I didn't do any sanding or buffing on the clear. There is an orange peel texture but not any worse than the original paint on the cabinet.

For the coin box door and frame, I sanded off all the old paint, cleaned, then sprayed three coats of primer, then block sanded with 400 and 600, then cleaned again.

I sprayed three coats of color and two coats of clear. I sprayed way too heavy with the clear and had a huge sag that needed to be scraped off with a razor, sanded, and buffed.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

Nice progress. One thing that may be encouraging is that these cabs were not a true white to begin with. They were always that slightly warmer colour towards cream. A guy who operated cabs back when they were new once said how he thought they looked a bit dirty when they arrived. I have a VW that is candy white and it’s definitely whiter than my Blast cabinet. I buffed it’s doors as best I could be bothered but it still had fine scratches in it. I think because it was originally a satin finish and not a gloss. Keep up the great work.

 

[Ziggy Cheetos Dust]

This picture of yours is the actual colour of the paint when they were new. I don’t believe they’re actually smoke stained. At least that’s exactly how mine looked - even on the areas that were protected from external elements - smoke and light etc.

 

[Thomas]

Nice progress. One thing that may be encouraging is that these cabs were not a true white to begin with. They were always that slightly warmer colour towards cream. A guy who operated cabs back when they were new once said how he thought they looked a bit dirty when they arrived. I have a VW that is candy white and it’s definitely whiter than my Blast cabinet. I buffed it’s doors as best I could be bothered but it still had fine scratches in it. I think because it was originally a satin finish and not a gloss. Keep up the great work.

Yes, you can see how much darker the color is compared to white in my picture above where I have my white paper strips with paint brushed on the end, comparing to the cabinet color. The original color is a light grey.

This is the color I sprayed:

As for your scratches, you won't see them unless you shine a light directly on the door so it's good.

I don't know how the level of gloss relates to the fine scratches you have but yes, the Sega Cities are not full gloss. Especially the Net City. It is definitely satin/semi-matte. Eventually I will paint a few parts on my Net City and will use satin clear.

This picture of yours is the actual colour of the paint when they were new. I don’t believe they’re actually smoke stained. At least that’s exactly how mine looked - even on the areas that were protected from external elements - smoke and light etc.

In all the photos I've seen online, the metal doors on both the Astro City and Blast City become darker and yellow compared to the resin body of the cabinet. Some worse than others. There are a few possible causes for this. The doors, control panel base, and cabinet body should all be the same color. Except the doors in the flyer for the Blast do appear to be a shade darker. Not as dark as mine were, and not yellow.