Dig Dug restoration progress Aug. 20th-Sept. 25th, 2006

I worked on stripping off the black paints from the side of the cabinet. At first I used simple green, a green scrunchy kitchen pad, and elbow grease. It worked ok, I got the artwork back, and the black paint off, but it was very hard work and extremely slow going. Plus, the artwork would fade with the scrubbing, and the rubbing of the black paint left a grey tint in the white of the artwork.

I had been reading on forums for the best possible substance to remove paint from cabinets, and I kept reading about Goof Off. I talked to Justin about it, because it seemed that he had used it when he worked maintenace at the apartment complex in Lansing, and he also swore by the stuff. I got one can and sprayed it generously on one side of the cabinet that hadn’t been worked on yet. The one side I had sccrubbed down half of it with just Simple Green. My nails were black and my fingers tired and raw. But that was all to change.

The Goof Off bubbled up the paint on the untouched side and it just fell off in most places, or just a brush of the hand could take it off in others. I couldn’t believe it, and the artwork shown underneath was vibrant, colorful, and in great condition. I continued to use the Goof Off throughout the rest of the cabinet, I had to buy a second can, but it really made the whole stripping possible. The reaction worked best on areas where the artwork wasn’t damanged and had a smooth surface. If the surface wasn’t smooth, it didn’t come off as easy.

Like anything, of course, there were a lot of areas of touchup. I used the Goof Off and scrubbed, and in a ton of places, I gently used a scraper to get the paint off once loosened. Note: To a new serious collector who is very anal, I wouldn’t recommend this. In a couple of places, I scraped off tiny milimeters of artwork. But for those of you who would die if this happened, then you might just want to rub to get it off. I didn’t care that much since the game wasn’t for me, I just wanted to finish it up.

On September 25th I finished the cabinet, and it felt good. Little did I know that it would sit there for many more months before I would do much of anything else on it.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• May 16th, 2007
• More Xevious Artwork Revealed
• Ms. Pac-man black artwork – Live & in progress
• Food Fight Cabinet Sold
• Scrubbed off some more paint on the Food Fight

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