It took me 40hrs plus for my first one (IJ). I didn't have much spare time either and did it over a period of several weeks. The Bryan Kelly thread on here is a great guide.

The first time around, you are potentially looking at 30+ hours, likely more if you are picky. It can get messy too. For many, it is the most difficult part of a restoration - short of playfield work.

Yep, I concur. lb1 is on the money. The first time tends to be a pursuit of perfection. Consequently, one tends to work rather inefficiently.

Here are tips that will shave off a lot of time.

1) get glue remover (the type that applies with a brush) high strength
2) wait 5 minutes after applying the solution and hit it with your wife's / girlfriend's hair dryer by going over it but not staying at the same spot. The reaction will go faster. Make sure you buy 3 pair of gloves that shit eats through glove in no time and make sure you wear protective eye-wear.

3) Take the drywall throwel (or whatever you call it) and scrap off the vinyl. This should be really easy now that the solution as had the time to eat through the glue.

4)Rinse and repeat in the harder areas....the solution might have a harder time going through darker colors.

5) hit the bare side with a splash of more glue remover and then use the wood scraper and take off as much glue as you can. I cannot stress this enough because it's a lot easier to remove the remaining glue now then to try and sand it out later. The glue will get into the pores of the sandpaper quickly and you will find yourself change sheets every 2 minutes.

6)Once the cab is all sanded down, run your fingers across the panels. They will detect a lot faster all the imperfections. Your eyes can miss a lot of them. Take a pencil and circle the imperfections. That way once you get to the bondo stage you will have a clear indication of where to apply it.

7)The painting part is the hardest and most time consuming. If you have the intention of doing more cabs in the future then I suggest you get a compressor and a paint gun. Those will save you alot more time and create a more professional finish. I usually put light coats of primer until the surface is fully covered. Sand down imperfections and check once more for holes.

8)to do a real good job you will need at least 4 coats of paint. and then you sand down the imperfections and do compound sanding (400, then 600, then 800, up to 2000 if you want to), depending on the paint you used you might not even have to do this but one thing for sure the surface must be 100% flat. even a small grain of dust will make a mountain the size of the grand canyon on the panels.

in a nut shell this is it.

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https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/ij-restoration-started

To remove the old decals, some use an orbital sander. Though it is a bit messier, it might go much faster than going chemical. As long as you have plenty of sanding disks, you should be ok. Make sure you start with the coarser grain you can find.

See for instance https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-boob-tube-another-not-an-hep-afm-restoration#post-3033074. Boob's got an expensive sander but even without it, you should be able to remove the existing decals with 40 or 50 grit sanding discs.

I've remove decals 3 times. The sander way takes more time I think.

I use a $9 heat gun from Harbor Freight with a 2" scraper. It takes off the vinyl and the glue quite well. When the glue is mostly scraped off - THEN I sand with 60 grit to finish removal.

That works too. What I found was that the glue remover and wood scraper really made glue removal easier and faster but perhaps the heat gun and then a touch of remover with the scraper followed by the sander would be even quicker