Re: Vectrex controller overlay hacking

Well, it's tricky, it's expensive, but IT WORKS! :-)

I have made a near perfect replacement control panel overlay for my Vectrex.

I will be writing it up in detail on a web page this weekend, but
here's the gist of it:

1) Burlington "photo silk" paper

2) Photo shop!

3) a particular small hole punch from a crafts shop

4) a different hole stencil and a 360-degree swivel-blade exacto knife

5) regular exacto knife and a 'self-healing cutting board'

6) guillotine

7) surface fixative to stop smudging from being touched during manufacture

8) solvent for removing old glue from the control panel top after the
   old overlay is removed, that doesn't also dissolve the plastic!

Add it all together and be very careful and you get a VERY VERY nice
replacement control panel overlay that looks as good or better than the
original.

----
By the way, I worked out why my screen overlays didn't look very good - it's
because printers don't print opaque colours and can't print in white.
The borders of the overlays and all the text really need an opaque white
backing to make them visible from the front.  I suspect the real ones
must have something like this - maybe stuck to the back of the film?
(You can tell I've still never seen a real one to know what it is I'm
supposed to be cloning...)
I contemplated getting white ink (if such a thing exists) and printing
an opaque background on the other side in white, but I'm not even going
to try because I don't know any way I can align a piece of paper through
a printer well enough to have the two printings match up exactly.
Graham
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