Not a restoration, but a FAS Foosball Refurbish

[mike boss]

Picked up this FAS Foosball table way back in the days of the Starburst auctions in Ontario, Canada.
I've had it for years now and never really done anything to it. It's actually one of the most played things in the gameroom.
It has such universal appeal, men, woman, children....everyone likes it.

The table is in good condition, well maintained, but does have some minor cosmetic issues.
NUMBER one being the playfield that has suffered damage over the years from obvious sings of spillage.
So when my buddy who works at a print shop offered to print me a replacement playfield for FREE I graciously accepted.

Thinking back, I believe years ago I looked into a replacement and it was about $40/50 CDN. Wasn't so much that money that put me off, it was having to take it all apart to install the new one. With this offer of a free playfield I thought I would look into some other ways I could jazz up the table on the cheap.

I picked up two 18" USB LED light strips for about $5-6, I decided I would power them from a Powerbank I picked up from Canadian Tire for $20. Outside of that everything got cleaned up and the yellowing plastics got a few coats of flat white paint to freshen them up.

I decided to not go with the replacement playfield my buddy printed as it wasn't happy with the quality of stock used.
Years ago when I did a little graphic design I got a drop and repeat printed for my daughters 1st birthday so people could pose in front of it.
My printer did a really good job and the price was quite reasonable. I decided I would email him for a quote on doing the new playfield.
I really liked the quality of paper they used for the large scale prints, a nice glossy card stock. I think it would make a good replacement playfield. And I'd like to look into lamination, to make it even more rigid.

To avoid (if possible) taking the foosball table fully apart, I'd like to lift the glass and slide the replacement into place. I'm hoping all areas of the glass that require cleaning can be reached by simply lifting the glass to the maximum space available without removing the rods.
I've never taken the table apart before.

Thanks to some help on BYOAC, opt2not did a vector trace of the FAS logo for me, and the playfield I recreated looks really nice.

Here is how the table looks today with the LED lights installed, the glass all nicely cleaned, and the fresh white paint.

I'll probably get on the replacement playfield this week.


testing out the LED lights before install.


I decided I would use some leftover privacy window film I had to frost the corrugated plastic inserts. The LED lights would be placed behind these.


Originally behind the corrugated plastic were these blue strips of thin wood (or veneer) with the FAS logo.
I decided I could always add my own FAS logo after and print up a decal if I wanted.


I had to clean up old dried liquid from between the channels on the corrugate plastic.


Testing everything out with the window frosting installed.


Testing everything out with the window frosting installed. You can see the yellowing plastics.


Testing everything out with the window frosting installed.


Removed the plastics for paint.


All clean and ready for paint.


All back together again....waiting on new playfield.




Shot in the dark.


Corner close up.

[leapinlew]

Very nice. I'm not familiar with FAS. I played Tornado, on tour, way back in the day. I recently bought and refurbished a mid 90's brown marble Tornado table for my game room. I created an overhead light solution, but I may go with something from the ceiling or with the light fixture that attaches to the scoring:



Good job with yours. It looks great.

[mike boss]

Your table looks great also.
I like the light fixture.

I'm quite happy with how mine came together.
I've been so busy with other things I have not ordered my replacement field yet.
So I think I'll take a stab at using the one I have and see how it looks under the glass.
I feel I may like it, and save a few $$$$ .

I'm also going to drill a hole in the bottom of the table, so I can add a USB wire and charging brick, then I simply have to reach under, pull out the plug and plug it in to charge the powerbank. I'll still need to open the table to turn on/off the power though.

[pbj]

 Foosball is the devil

[mike boss]

So I ended up using the playfield my buddy printed for me.
I didn't want to remove the rods to install the field.
I thought the fact that the paper was thin, it would be easily
manipulated and should make for an "easy" install.
I also thought it would look good once under the glass...it does!
And the install was relatively easy.

I'll need to get an updated picture as I'm quite happy with the finished
product. The table cleaned up well and was inexpensive to make the modifications.
The lights look really good, and the frosting film I used defuses the light
nicely.

A few small tweaks remain, I didn't quite line up the playfield exact in the center.
And the glass is pushed slightly more into one of the goals. A very simple fix !
I wonder if I have tightened the plastics too tight as I recently got a few cracks....
that has never happened before.

I'll have to take the table apart, make these few tweaks and try and glue back the chipped
areas. All in all table looks good.

I'll need to post an updated pic.