Welcome back to Make Do. I'm David. And I'm James.
So we're finally getting around to customizing our Gamecube controllers. We've had them for
a few years... and it's time. I guess after 20 years they might need a fresh coat of paint.
And some cleaning. I don't know what you mean. As always we'll have a list
of all the supplies we're using for this project in the description below. Because they couldn't make this easy you will need
a special screwdriver to get the shells apart. All right, let's take this thing apart. So there are six screws on the back, you'll
need a Y-shaped screwdriver to take these out. We're using this really nice ifixit kit, we'll have the link in the description below
but you can easily go with something cheaper. Once the screws are out, you can take the
shell apart. Be careful taking it apart, you don't want to knock things out of place.
There is a rumble pack in here that is loose so make sure to hold that whenever you're handling
the inside. We do not want to have to re-solder anything. Then you want to pull the membranes
and buttons out and you can put them aside until later. Be sure to keep the membranes, most
button replacement kits do not come with those. There is a tiny membrane behind the start
button make sure you grab that as well. Next take off the C-stick and analog stick.
This does take more force than you would think, just be careful. You can wiggle it
back and forth until it comes off. To take the triggers out you'll
first have to remove this back plate. These plates are held in place by phillips head
screws so make sure you switch out your driver. So it's only these 10 screws that
are holding the controller together. Pull these out and leave them assembled
for now, we'll deal with that later. Since we're doing both of our controllers
we're going to repeat this process. Next up we gotta wash these things
because uh yeah they're pretty gross. All you need is some hot water and some dish soap. But not too hot. Yeah I just sort of want to wash everything off that maybe has accumulated
since i was 11 years old. This will also make sure that it's nice and
clean before we go into the painting stage. Rinse and repeat. And if you didn't want to paint this
you could just go back to reassembling, it's still kind of nice to get your controllers
nice and clean every once in a while. Now that 20 years of snacking has been rinsed
off, it's time to get them ready for paint. The final step before painting is to
hit everything with a scotch brite pad. This final buffing removes the protective coating on the plastic and any grease or grime that
might have been left over from the washing. It's important that you don't skip
this step. You want to make sure you have a nice surface for the primer to
bond to so your finish comes out super nice. Most projects are just spent waiting...
You missed a spot. What? No i didn't, **** Now that everything's ready for paint, we're
gonna hit it with a coat of our favorite primer. Now you know I love the color of
primer, but we should probably make them a little more interesting.
Uh yeah probably, uh I have an idea. I hope it's gray. I'm not playing smash with joy cons. No, I was
thinking we could make them match our Animal Crossing joy cons. I found some montana gold spray
paint that's pretty close. Awesome, let's do it. Wow I really like how this finish came out. Yeah the colors are great. And we'll finish everything off
with a coat of satin varnish. So the joy cons have black buttons but... Yeah these aren't gonna work. Much better. All right let's get this thing back together.
Something we didn't do was make sure that our paint was very very dry before we reassembled
so make sure you do that but more on that later. So we're going to start with the triggers. So
if you're swapping the triggers you're gonna need to pull this part off of the old trigger.
The metal bar snaps into a little divot there. And we're good to go. These take a
little maneuvering to get into place once you get it in there just
make sure it works properly. Now we're going to screw these plates back on. All right, now we can add the analog and C-stick. It has a key to make sure
that it's registered correctly. The buttons only fit in their respective spots, so
you can't really mess that up. Thank you Nintendo. Then put the membranes back
in. There are little pegs on the inside that show where it should line up. To change the Z button you're going to need
to take this spring out of the old one. You can do this with a set of
pliers, just pull directly up. As you put the board in you're going to want
to put this wire right around the peg here. It's a nice little design feature that
keeps the stress off the connection point. Thanks Nintendo, again. Now we're just gonna get
these screws back in there. And we're good to go. All right, so we're gonna do all this
again. Oh, I see you practice on mine. So get the triggers set in there, add the c-stick and the analog stick, add the buttons, add the membranes, get the z button in there, put the board back in then close it up. So they look great, but we do have a confession
to make. We kind of messed the paint up. We didn't listen to our own advice
and we didn't let the paint dry. We ended up marking up the paint job as
we were assembling it. So we came back in, we sanded everything back down, repainted it,
let it dry for over 24 hours and then we put it back together. Yeah, we didn't use these for a
good two or three weeks after we painted them. Just be patient and let things dry. Also a minor
design change you'll see is that we ended up going back to the purple z buttons. The ones from
the kits that we bought just didn't fit right. You could sand these down
but it'd be a lot of effort. It actually looks kind of cool anyway.
This project came out really nice and I'm super happy with the results. It's a great way to
refresh a controller you might have lying around. And if you don't have one you can pick
one up from your local game store. And you can really customize this any way you
want, there are a ton of people making custom buttons online. There's actually a lot of really
cool ones on Etsy that people are doing, resin casts with glitter, insets, all kinds of crazy
stuff. There are also some metal ones on there. We actually ended up making a third
controller which if you head on over to our Instagram or Facebook account so you can
check that out. Be sure to like, subscribe, and hit the bell to stay up to date on all of our
future projects. If you do end up making your own be sure to tag us because we'd love to see them.
Thanks for watching. And see you in the next one. What if we painted like an entire Gamecube? We are
not painting my gamecube. I'm sure it's just as simple as a controller. I- we are not painting my
gamecube. What if I already started? Where is it?
