Space Wars Cabinet Restoration
Space Wars was my first attempt at cabinet restoration...and it went pretty well.
The two problems with the game were that someone had cut ugly notches in the cabinet next to the control panel on either side--presumably to give the players some extra elbow room--and that it was missing its side art on one side.
I bough some white particle board that was the same thickness as the cabinet, and traced the two notches to make templates. Then, to repair the cabinet, I simply cut the pieces and glued them into place. After that, I painted the cabinet to hide the repair.
Note the notches cut beside the control panel. Definitely not part of the original cabinet design.
Close-up of one of the notches after my repair job (before painting).
Then, with lots of careful measuring, I used my templates to paint the letters, one at a time. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself!
Note the notches cut beside the control panel. Definitely not part of the original cabinet design.
As for the side art, the left side was mostly intact. I went to a hobby shop and bought some blank plastic material that can be used to make custom painting templates and I painstakingly traced the left-side art until I had a series of stencils that I could use to paint the art onto the other side. There was a loose piece of side art on the side that was intact, and I used that to match the blue paint color at Lowes.
Pretty simple stuff...but I was really happy with the way it turned out. Too bad I never got the game to work.