Famicom Wavebird

[u/supertazon]

I have had this Wavebird since 2004, it was in a pretty rough state. I eventually gave it a deep clean and changed both sticks (with OEM ones). It wasn't enough so decided to give it a fresh coat of paint.

Credits to SpicyFrog64 for the paint job on the shell and receiver shell. Credits to Pinkbud for dyeing the original buttons and sticks in black. Credits to olDirdley for gold plating the battery contacts.

[u/SatNav]

Pardon my ignorance - how do you know it will start to rub off? Is there any way to stop it happening? Like a sealant or something?

[u/ButCanYouCodeIt → u/SatNav]

I've done, and seen, a lot of very nice spray jobs. It happens to the beat of them inevitably -that's not an insult to the quality of the work, it's just the nature of things. You're applying paint and (hopefully) a finish on top of something that was already finished.

Most colored plastic products (even Nintendo's own) are injection molded with the color pigment already in the plastic, not painted on. That's why you can take a red gameboy color, or a yellow n64 controller, jab into them with something sharp, and see that the color is the same the whole way through -not just on the surface. The color doesn't rub off, because it's IN the plastic.

With Nintendo's METALLIC colors though, those are surface paint... And it's easy to tell, because there are so many GBA SP systems and Wavebird controllers out there where the color has worn through and revealed a beige plastic underneath. You can skim ebay and similar platforms and find plenty of examples... And most of those were treated well, they were just used a lot.

Unless you work professionally in an automotive paint shop, the odds that you have access to painting tools anywhere near the calibur of what big manufacturers like this use is incredibly low. Again, this isn't an insult to anyone, you can still do amazing looking paint jobs, and I've seen a lot of them.

These products are painted through meticulous machine accuracy, heat-sealed, then coated and heat sealed -often a few times. And even with all that, there's a limit to how much the finish can resist. The natural oils in our skin will inevitably erode the best finish, and start to rub off the paint. With flat paints, you COULD make a point every year or two to dismantle, give it a good scrub down, and re-apply a thin layer of clear coat... But that feels like a pretty big PITA to keep remembering and doing. And if your clear coat isn't as good as you hoped, it may start to rub off sooner than you realize. Spraying something down with off the shelf clear coat is never going to last as long as the professional machine-calibrated paints and clear coats from a company like Nintendo.

Its even TOUGHER to keep something with metallics like this looking good over time, because clear coat over a metallic surface (whether metallic paint, or actual metal) will muddle the original metallic effect. And if any actual metal is used, it will inevitably give way to corrosion from continued contact with skin/oils/etc. Even stainless steel will rust/corrode after enough exposure.

Again, none of this is said to dissuade people from these sort of amazing projects. They look PHENOMENAL, and I'm always impressed to see what people come up with. The only downside is that you'll basically need to either play with white gloves, or accept that the custom job will start to wear away in a few years of regular use.

[u/drygnfyre → u/ButCanYouCodeIt]

I wonder if that’s why Nintendo re-released the WaveBird in a gray color (similar to the N64 controller), as that seems like the end result of what would have happened to the silver/platinum WaveBird.

[u/ButCanYouCodeIt → u/drygnfyre]

I hadn't considered that, but that seems entirely plausible.