Hi, I have a Royal Vending Merlin IV machine that I bought off craigslist, and was going to set it up for my co-workers as a way-overkill soda/beer fridge.

the front graphic is for a supermarket self-brand soda, in what appears to be 3-color (+white) silkscreen printing on the inside surface of a clear Lexan sheet, which is backlit by two fluorescent tubes in the door. I'd really love to change this to either a more 'typical' graphic, like Coke/Pepsi, or ideally to a custom image with my company logo etc.

The only way I know to do this would be to first source new Lexan from a local plastics wholesaler, then have it custom-cut to fit, then finally locate a print shop able to apply my image to it, either silkscreen or vinyl wrap. My preliminary research suggests this would cost me around $400 Cdn, which makes sense if I charged to vend product, but not if it's a break-even or company-sponsored fridge.

I was hoping that you folks, with your venerable wisdom in the Vending world, would know of a better (read: cheaper) way? Some ideas I had, but don't know if they would work are:

• Contact someone at Coke/Pepsi, and ask them for one, since it's "free" advertising... (but who? a bottler? head office?)
• Get a replacement direct from Royal, but shipping would probably kill me,
• Use some kind of solvent to wash off the old silkscreening, and reuse the old lexan
• use a cheaper plastic, maybe translucent-white, and paint/sticker the outside
• Find a local vending operator with a stable of similar machines, and beg/borrow/trade for a different part

A related question, is what to do for the button placards? they're opaque plastic, edge lit from the door fluorescents, so I was thinking I could just laser-print new ones on normal paper. Should I laminate them too? Do soda manufacturers provide them on request? Should I find a local vending machine company and ask them for their scraps?

Thanks in advance for your help.