• home
• projects
• page 2
• faq
• contact

projects / arcade / painting

PAINTING

I went to home depot to find some cheap paint. They have the mistake paint section which sells a gallon of paint for about $5 because they made it the wrong color. I did find out that they will not add color to this paint unless they charge me full price for it. I got a few colors and took them to my friend who said he could add his own paint to make them the colors we need.


When we tried to color the paint, it did not go as planed. I had a light color (the paint can said "egg shell") that we were going to make black. The more black we added the more black it did not become. We added a whole bottle of black and it only changed shades of the same color. There was also a light brown we tried to change to a nice red. The color you see in the picture is what we ended up with. More brown than red.


I did three coats of the red(brown) on the outside, top, shelves, and anywhere I though would be visible.


My friend who did the painting kept asking me what colors normal arcade cabinets use. He did not want to paint it at first because he was afraid he would not be able to make it look like an arcade machine. I tried, unsuccessfully at first, to explain that I wanted this to look like something he would paint. Since this was a present from us to our friend, I wanted it to be from us. I wanted to make it different from the other designs I had seen in the arcade. I Told him I don't want a normal arcade, I want an original design.


I told him the name I had in mind for the arcade and he thought of a theme to go with that. Since it is named "SHANE STATION" he had a great idea to put pictures of Shane on sides. He wanted to put a picture on every side of the machine, about 6 pictures in total. We ran out of time to do what we wanted so he did two large pictures on each side.


The farther away you get from the machine the better the pictures look. I am still amazed at how my friend could take four colors and make them look like a person. He has some great talent. He has a website of some of his work at www.chrispurdie.com.


A normal arcade has T-molding to cover the edge of the wood and keep it from breaking and chipping. I looked on line and at home depot and lowes for the stuff but was unable to find it. Since I don't want something normal, I tried to think of what would work instead of the T-molding. I thought of using the corner molding you put in your house (metal or plastic), I thought of using some kind of wood treatment but settled on  truck bed liner. The liner worked great for what I wanted: something strong, will protect the wood and not normal T-molding. The worst thing about the truck bed liner is working with it. It is etremely messy. I wish I would have used rubber gloves.