To paint or not to paint.. Rescued Dreamcast!

I went to pick up a slot car set I had won on ebay, and out the front of the house, was a trailer with a couple of original Xbox's and PS2's, and from the corner of my eye.. a dreamcast and 5 GD rom assemblies.

I kindly asked the owner if I could have them, he said the dreamcast and all the other consoles were completely stuffed, but I was welcome to have them.

Well, this is what I have:



MY dreamcast is clearly what they're supposed to look like (mine is the one on the RIGHT before anyone gets smart!!)

But now the question, do I paint this other one and make it look somewhat presentable.. or leave it as vintage "Original" condition?

Ideas on themes, colours?? I'm more a technical person than an arty one, but the faded yellow looks just so bad!!


For those interested, I had to do the following to make it operational:
A Complete overhaul.. Stripped, and cleaned every single part.
Put new (less ruined) thermal pads on the motherboard.
Removed rust from bottom and top motherboard trays/heatsinks.
Dried PSU and WD40'd psu to mobo pins
took Laser assembly from one GD ROM and motor from another broken one to make one work.
Cleaned Major corrosion off the controller port and AV contacts.
Unjammed the fan (it's actually one of the quiet ones when it can spin)
Reassemble And test.
I tested with Crazy Taxi, A Bad Religion CD and a CDR with something that definitely isn't off limits to talk about here.

Took me 3 hours and 20 minutes from Start to finish, the real test will be my first real session of Crazy taxi..

 

I'd try using a magic eraser first (could be smoke stained).

Else - maybe mix up a batch of RetroBrite?

 

I looked up the steps to making retrobrite.

That looks harder, more time consuming, and more costly than completely internally restoring a water damaged dreamcast..

It's not smoke stained.. It's sun, Smoke stains come off if you scrub hard enough.. This is different, and the plastic smells of 19 year old plastic, not an ashtray.

 

Retrobrite doesn't need to be so difficult. I'd suggest getting some peroxide crème 40 vol - it's already in a form you can use without doing anything else.

cheers

 

I wouldn't paint it. Every time I have seen a console that is painted the paint chips off and it just makes a mess. None of the connectors fit right ect.

Your console doesn't even look that bad and if you got it working I would just try the basic cleaning things like the magic eraser and what not instead of painting it.

 

Good job getting it back up and running!

If it's going to sit quietly on a shelf somewhere, then I reckon you should paint it - you've got an original one to treasure and keep out of the sun

 

This sounds interesting........I'd like to try on a pc case.

 

The thing about the UV light puts me off.. Where am I gonna get a UV light?

I did some paint jobs back in the day that with a knock hard enough to take the paint off, you had a lot more series problems on your hands.

And it doesn't look bad, untill it's next to one that's been babied, taken care of and played through countless hours without going crap for some 17 odd years.

That's kind of what I'm thinking... Paint this one some ridiculous colour.. like Sunset orange or Candy lime green, or maybe a blue and white sega theme.

I might give it a go on the old IBM we have floating around here for some reason, as a test, before I try something important!

 

Take it outside in the sun

There are sites that will tell you the UV rating for the day in your area. I suggest picking a day when it's not extremely hot as you need the UV but you don't want to let it dry out.

I paint on the crème and then cover it with glad wrap. You need to keep an eye on it and may need to re-apply if it starting to dry. Warning if you don't take care you may get streaking which is difficult if not impossible to fix.

Cheers

 

I'm all for a paint job! There were a few official colour variants for the Dreamcast around the place. Blue, black and even pink were out there.

Black would probably be the easiest, and you could use a vinyl dye instead of just paint (will resist scratching, as it stains the plastic).

[edit] On second thoughts, needs to be Sega-blue!

[edit2] Or multicoloured?

 

I wouldn't paint it. As said, it only looks horrible next to your new-looking one.

 

Paint or plasti-dip it. I wouldn't magic eraser, it'll leave really smooth shiny spot. The dye may be good too.

 

If you do paint........that's scuff surface, clean wax & grease remover, then pressure pack plastic primer........all before the main colour for a good bond.

 

This. If your going to retrobright, this will do the trick. I've done it myself on a few items and as long as your careful to check up on the progress at regular intervals, you'll get fantastic results. You'll just need to be careful that you don't over do it or you'll start bleeching the plastic. Put some cling wrap over it as well as the sun will dry it out in no time at all.

One thing to note though, retrobrighting is NOT permanent. All you are doing is reversing the damage caused by the bromine (flame retardant) coming to the surface. Left unprotected it will revert back to the yellowed state due to more bromine coming up to the surface. Keeping it out of the sun is not enough as exposure to oxygen and heat will also continue the process. Only way to stop or at least slow down the process after retrobrighting is by using a UV resistant clear coat spray such as this. It will not only block UV light but seal the plastic preventing oxygen from reaching the surface.

If you are going to paint however, vinyl dye in my opinion is the way to go. Don't bother with paint which will just sit on the surface. Vinyl dye like the name suggests will dye the plastic and as a result won't scratch or peel or look like a paint job for that matter. If I could find a perfect match beige for my PC's I'd completely ditch retrobrighting but I would probably have to go to a car detailer to colour match. Most off the shelf sprays are the traditional colours you find on any spray paint.

 

Maybe Sega blue main, with white lid, control ports and buttons?

Yeah.. there's no worries about it being cleaned or prepped properly on my watch.

Or when you open the lid to put a game in

What i'll do is spend 2 hours looking at it on my desk, then decide who cares.. then play it for 20 hours, then go back to step one

The red text is big flags for me..

I want the best looking DC possible. not something I want to expreiment with and potentially fuck up..

Where painting.. even if I screw up, which is not likely becuase I've done it a few times before, it just be stripped or coated again easy..

I will have a look into vinyl die, as that seems something that will look great.

 

Pretty sure I'm going to go the vinyl dyeing route. Checked out some things done with it, and even if I do want to be boring and go with white. I can.

 

This thread is funny. I happen to keep my best looking Dreamcasts in storage. My NTSC-J (PAL PSU) is a bit yellow but more consistent than yours. Looks like water damage to me. I would just give it a good clean.

 

Seconded. Paint scratches, dye doesn't.

 

yeah. any suggestions for brands of dye elvis?

Well with the insides being fairly waterlogged, it wouldn't surprise me.

But the cleaning I did, didn't change a thing about it. I'm guessing it was in a cabinet facing the sun.. front is yellow and it gets whiter.

Blue with white accents I think it is.

 

Could try wrapping it in removable vinyl. After all if you change your mind you can remove it after