Bartop Arcade Machine

[Acott]

I think it looks great.
v2 will be perfection.
I'll give you eur100 for the the dodgy one

Cheers John 

[johnrm]

Btw, was the film you used that 'wrap' they use? If doing it again  what material would you use?

[Acott]

Yeah it's supposed to be the same stuff they use on cars.

The black vinyl I used first was much better, it was a little thicker, more forgiving and you could easily push bubbles and lift to fix creases. If there was an option to print on this I would do it in a heart beat!

I used a website called pixartprinting they were really quick with the order ( 2 days from Italy ) and cheap, €15 delivered and the print was 103x103cm. I'm going to mail them to see if they do something similar to the vinyl, could be my next option.

[lordstilton]

Looks great. .. The secret with the car adhesive is to mist the back of it with water.. It allows you a bit of play when aligning it up

[DEMPSEY]

Looks great. .. The secret with the car adhesive is to mist the back of it with water.. It allows you a bit of play when aligning it up

And also to vacuum the timber to be covered and then use a damp cloth to wipe it down. I used to do the stain glass once and micro dust under the sticky sheet was a bitch.

[Acott]

It was a hard fought battle! I was talking to the local printer, he's charging €80 for fitting 
Too steep for me, even though I know it would be perfect!

[Will_D]

I seem to recall somewhere that to position "sticky" vinyl you spray water on the base (substrate) first. Then lay on the vinyl and it will move about. Next squeegy the water out and the adhesive will eventually grab.

Another trick I used when laminating Formica with Evostick is to use silicon kitchen parchment which you slide off to one side as the laminate starts to grab!

HTH:  WIll

[Acott]

Since the side art was really playing on my mind, I ordered it again but this time on a thicker laminated sheet. It was easier to manoeuvre and push the bubbles out, so I spent last night doing it all over again. Thankfully I had no problems and I'm over the moon with it, also got the bezel and the control panel art on.

I've loaded it up with over 4000 games between Nintendo, SNES, Mega drive, PS1, MAME and Pinball. I didn't go ahead with the other consoles as I'll never be done playing what's already on it.

It has been a great project from start to finish. The total spend on this was €445.68 ( €97.56 of which was all postage costs ) I was hoping to come in under €500 so I'm chuffed. If anyone is thinking of doing this I can't recommend it enough, the nostalgia is immense.

These pics were taken quite late, sorry for the poor quality, I'll get some pics of it in action up later 

This has taken up all my evenings, finally, I can now go back to making beer 

[johnrm]

Really cool.
The offer still stands