The good news is I just secured another Donkey Kong cabinet that I will be restoring   Boy I need to make up my mind!

I have now fully sanded both sides of the cabinet.   I pulled the base off since it was reinforced by many screws all over the place.  I was going to refinish the wood but opted instead to replace the base.  I have changed the design a little bit to make it more stable.  It is made out of solid oak and I have cut pieces of angled aluminum to join the four corners.   I will get using carriage bolts and more angled aluminum to attach it to the bottom of the cabinet.  This works good because I can take the base off to paint it and re-attach it easily once I am done.

The new base is temporarily held onto the cabinet with clamps

The new base

Angled Aluminum Used to Secure Corners

The previous owner painted it red and they used latex.  That came off great, but underneath was a primer that my stripper didn’t work well on.  Whatever primer the previous owner used that stuff is tough!!  I had to apply two coats of my stripper to remove the majority of the paint and primer.

It’s crazy cold outside but I started to sand down the cabinet.  I got the majority of one side removed but I will have to go back and sand some more.

Donkey Kong - One Side Partially Sanded

There is a frequent debate with owners of Nintendo games; whether or not all plywood cabs are laminate or paint.  I used to think that all plywood cabs were laminated.  Not this cab!! It was definitely painted.  I use a Dewalt Random Orbit sander with 80 grit to remove the surface.  I plan on getting this down to bare wood.  The great part about sanding down to wood is a lot of the imperfections front being bashed around over the years sand out.  It will make it much easier to Bondo the sides with it all the way down to wood.  Then I will use  a good primer before actually painting the cab.

I haven’t decided if I am going to spray or roll this cab.  I asked for a compressor for Xmas so if I get that maybe I will spray