I've got an RFM and SWE1 conversion kit that when I got it had the cabinet art already pretty well munched up around the legs. I put on plastic cabinet protectors, which covered up most of it, but there were still large wrinkles plainly visible. The side rails were kind of beat up from the original owner, and I had ordered replacements a long time ago but never got the guts to pull the old ones off. Well, I decided to put them on and when taking the old ones off some of the side decals came off and I decided maybe it was time to fix the cabinet art while I was at it. So far, so good...

I used a heat gun and slowly pulled off the side art, which left a white surface that I originally thought was some sort of laminate over the wood. There was quite a bit of adhesive still on it, so I used some Goo Gone to try to remove it, but it was taking forever and I got impatient. I put Citristrip on it to soften the adhesive so I could remove it, left it for 30 minutes, came back and as I was scraping off the adhesive, the white layer started coming off the wood. Apparently that's the primer layer and not some sort of laminate. Ooops, my bad.

OK, so I'm stripping the rest of the primer layer off on that side, as there's not much I can do about it now. But for the rest of the cabinet, what is the best way to approach this for maximum decal longevity on the replacements? Is it best to leave the primer layer and just elbow-grease the adhesive off with Goo-Gone or similar, or better to strip the primer layer off down to bare wood also?

If I strip it just to the primer, is there any prep that should be done to the primer to help the new decals stick to it after I get the adhesive off?

If I strip it to bare wood, what should be done there? New primer (what kind?), or just sand it smooth, or put a coat of Varathane on it, or what? The primer layer looked pretty good, and the wood below is in good shape as well. The corners are a little rough in spots, but nothing that wood filler shouldn't take care of. Seems like people like Varathane on it, but that seems to me like it wouldn't adhere as good on a smoother surface like that vs directly on the wood. Looking for more input there.

I've never done cabinet work before, so I'm kind of Lost In The Zone with this one. Thanks for any advice!

Nevermind, I found Bryan Kelly’s excellent IJ restoration thread! All questions are answered, including questions I didn't even know I had yet...

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

Looks nice!

I did get mine done, and sanded it all down to bare wood as well. Mine didn't require much touch-up, but the back right corner of the cabinet was in pretty tough shape and took some effort to square up. I did use black primer and paint on the cabinet before using the dry application method with the decals, and it turned out pretty nice. I haven't done the head yet, but suppose I should so that the decal texture matches everywhere.

I filled in the coin door lock bar holes, and the hole for the bolt that goes through the right side decal for the playfield support arm. I've never used that arm for anything, and don't figure I ever will - so left that off. I also put on the Stern leg protector plates so with luck I won't ever have to worry about this again.

Lots of work to do these right!