Bought my first pin (was: Pinball opportunity... should I buy?)

[ChadTower]

Stupid websense is blocking flickr.com apparently.

[Chris]

Oops.  I redid the last two posts as attachments rather than Flickr links.

[ChadTower]

I'd live with the cabinet problem unless the game is a keeper.

I suggest looking up "ball swirl" and how to deal with that before you consider touching up the playfield.  The paint will be weird and hard to match with all that dirt next to it (dirt a standard cleaning won't get out).

IIRC the consensus method is a Magic Eraser.

[Chris]

I'd live with the cabinet problem unless the game is a keeper.

I suggest looking up "ball swirl" and how to deal with that before you consider touching up the playfield.  The paint will be weird and hard to match with all that dirt next to it (dirt a standard cleaning won't get out).

IIRC the consensus method is a Magic Eraser.

Already read it and already have the Magic Eraser. 

You don't think I should glue and clamp the plywood where it's coming apart, or that I shouldn't worry about the cosmetics of it?

[Kaytrim]

Went through your flickr set.  Nice job in documentation.  Keep it up as you progress through.  As long as your cat allows.

TTFN

[ChadTower]

Already read it and already have the Magic Eraser. 

You don't think I should glue and clamp the plywood where it's coming apart, or that I shouldn't worry about the cosmetics of it?

Well, obviously I can't tell you what you should or shouldn't do, I can only tell you what I would do.  If the problem is structural, by all means fix it now.  If it's not... get it working and play it a while before doing other stuff.  It's not like that damage will be worse in a month than it is now.

[Chris]

Well, obviously I can't tell you what you should or shouldn't do, I can only tell you what I would do. [/quote]
Well yeah, but I value your opinion. Owning a pin has been a lifelong dream for me, and right now emotionally I'm an 8 year old kid with a Dremel, so it's good for me to listen to someone with a clearer head.  Doesn't mean I'm going to take all the advice, of course, but I value it. 

If the problem is structural, by all means fix it now.  If it's not... get it working and play it a while before doing other stuff.  It's not like that damage will be worse in a month than it is now.

I think I've been consciously restraining myself from playing with it because I know once I do I'm never gonna get any work done on it.    The same thing happened to me on my MAME cab... hooking up the CP set my project back by two months.

[ChadTower]

I think I've been consciously restraining myself from playing with it because I know once I do I'm never gonna get any work done on it. 

That may not be true... pins aren't like MAME cabs.  Once you start playing them you see every moving part for its exact working condition and it isn't long before you're ripping off the glass after every third game to tweak a switch or rebuild a target bank.  MAME cabs, once wired up, work the same "half done" as they do completed, once you get to the finishing stages of construction.

[Chris]

That may not be true... pins aren't like MAME cabs.  Once you start playing them you see every moving part for its exact working condition and it isn't long before you're ripping off the glass after every third game to tweak a switch or rebuild a target bank.

Wow, I never thought of that.  Excellent point.

Speaking of switches, even the coin switches on this thing are leafs!  I've never dealt with anything other than microswitches before... unfortunately, it looks like to put this machine into "free play" mode some previous owner mangled the leafs and actuators on the coin switches.  I'm trying to get them back together, but I'm not sure I understand them.  The dime side has two leaves but the quarter side has three.  The mechs look like standard mechs, so I may replace the quarter side mech with a token mech to use my BYOAC tokens, but I'd have to widen the coin entry slot slightly to accept them..

[ChadTower]

Even recent pins still use almost all leafs.  Can't say I can remember ever seeing a microswitch under the playfield of a pin.  Can't say for sure no one has ever used them but I don't remember ever seeing it.

[WareWolF]

Some tips on adjusting leaf switches here...

http://www.flippers.be/basics/101-switch_adjustment.html

[Chris]

I pulled the glass off today and started to go over the payfield... it really is in very good shape.  The surface is nice and even, no real ball dings from airballs, very little wear. I did use the Magic Eraser which helped brighten the yellow areas and cleaned up some touch-ups that were applied imperfectly in the past.  I'm leaning right now toward not attempting to touch up anything on the playfield except maybe using a Sharpie to clean up the lines around the triangular inserts.  I'm still worried about the serious bare wood around the bottom pop bumper, though.  But I think I'm going to skip the Novus 2 step and just give it a once-over with Novus1 and a hard wax, change out the playfield bulbs, and clean the plastics. The rubbers are all relatively new so it was probably shopped fairly recently.

The backglass taught me a bit of a lesson.  I powered up the machine and there are huge ugly shadows behind the backglass where someone attempted repairs before with paints that were too opaque (see attached pics), a lesson that amateur restoration work is more likely to do harm than good.  This lesson was reinforced when I tried to clean the plastic pricing plates and accidentally removed part of the opaque coating, ruining one of them.  So I'm just going to finish gently cleaning and button it back up.

The power cord on this looks like a lamp cord; it seems woefully insufficient to drive the table safely.  I don't think it's original to the machine.

[Chris]

I did at least get good results gluing and clamping the delaminated plywood; after letting it set overnight the layers are staying together nicely.  I clamped a 2x4 along the length of the repair to keep the pressure even.

[ChadTower]

The cat approves.

[Chris]

Today I took a crack at the playfield. I touched up the black outlines on the triangular inserts and the big roulette wheel, went over the whole thing with a microfiber cloth, then some Novus #2 and Novus #1.  I thought the playfield looked pretty good so I was going to skip Novus 2, but after Novus 1 alone I wasn't happy.  So I did the Novus 2... meh.  Went back over with Novuus 1 again and suddenly there was that new playfield shine!

I started to replace the bulbs with #47's until I realized that there was only one 44 left on the playfield, under the apron for the start light where the previous owner missed it.  The rest are 47's already.  I do have one socket out, gonna have to look into that.

Next I need to start playtesting and adjusting, but lo and behold I've lost the pinball!     I have a set of 5 mirror-finish balls on the way, so I'm gonna have to wait a few more days to start playtesting it.

[Chris]

I finally pulled down the backglass to take a look.  No point in Triple Thicking it... a previous owner spraypainted the back to seal it.  Oh the humanity.

I think it's beyond help.. I can't imagine any way to remove the paint without destroying the art.

[Chris]

OK, I took a break from the mechanical problems to take a crack at the one big playfield touch-up I want to do.

The lower pop bumper has a circle worn down to the wood around it:


I debated long and hard whether to try to repair this, but I forged ahad.  First I painted in the wood with white enamel to give it a good protective base, sanded that down, then started trying to match the pink.  My first attempt was too dark:



I wiped that off and tried again:



This was looking better so I filled it in:



I'm going to let this dry and sand down to playfield level and see how it looks.  It's acrylic so I should be able to take it up easily, although the enamel white will still be there.  If I like it, I'll put a little satin varnish over it and sand and Novus it and hopefully it won't be too bad.  Certainly better than bare wood.

[ChadTower]

Nicely done.  I need to get some skill with paint, I think.  Too much fantastic repair work going on to keep me thinking I'm not capable if I figure the materials out.

[Chris]

Nicely done.  I need to get some skill with paint, I think.  Too much fantastic repair work going on to keep me thinking I'm not capable if I figure the materials out.

Not as nicely done... after I took the pic, it darkened much more after it finished drying to I took it off and started over.  What I have on there looks way too light now, so hopefully it'll darken just right.

[Chris]

Well, the second time the color match was perfect.  Sanded it down with 300, then 600, then Novus 2.. looked great but dull.  Finally the Novus 1... which took the acrylic right back off.      

I'm just going to have to go back and do it with enamel.  The board can't take much more sanding... I'm starting to lose the yellow and lettering above the bumper now.

[Chris]

Well after doing some more research I've decided that I was just too quick on the draw with the Novus.  "Dry paint" does not equal "cured paint"!  So I'll give the acrylics one last shot and give it a day to cure rather than trying to sand and finish after drying it with a hair dryer.

Yes, I'm an amateur, but hopefully I learn from my mistakes.

[ChadTower]

I didn't know you could safely remove the acrylic without damaging the paint underneath...?  How does that work?  I don't know a ton about art paints.

[Chris]

I didn't know you could safely remove the acrylic without damaging the paint underneath...?  How does that work?  I don't know a ton about art paints.

Apparently you can as long as the paint's not fully cured.  Novus 1 took it right off.  Water or alcohol will do it while the paint is still wet.

[ChadTower]

Ah... and it doesn't take up half the stuff underneath it?  That explains how a lot of guys experiment with color so heavily.

[Chris]

Ah... and it doesn't take up half the stuff underneath it?  That explains how a lot of guys experiment with color so heavily.

Not so far.

[Chris]

I've repainted the wear ring around the bottom bumper again; I'll get pics after it dries in the morning.  I've been paying more attention to the mechanical restoration lately.

I think this is the last touchup I'm going to do on the playfield.  Sometimes the touchup work looks worse than the wear.

I did paint over the front portion of the backbox; this is the portion with no art or splatter paint.  The paint is a little lighter than it should be, but I think it works okay because it's on a separate section.  I tried some touchups on the side of the machine closest to the wall, but even when the color match is good the finish match is not, and at anything other than head on the touchups stand out like a sore thumb. So I think I'm going to stop touching up the sides.  I am considering painting the front, but if I do I'll have to redo the whole thing.  It's pretty worn and the previous touchups (with marker) look awful.

[Chris]

I finished repainting, varnishing and sanding the wear around the bottom bumper.  I don't have a pic yet; the results are okay, but if I could go back I think I would have left it alone.  I oversanded in a couple of places trying to get the brush marks out of the paint and varnish and created a couple of new wear areas, and places where I broke through one coat of varnish to the next are painfully obvious.  I think, when any large areas like this are involved, it's not worth doing unless you have a proper airbrush.  Using a paintbrush seems to only be useful for small chips.

I'm got most of the mechanical problems worked out.  I have red flipper rubber coming to replace the yellow (the original machine used red), and once that's in place the glass goes back on.  I need to fabricate a back door for the backbox and decide what to do about the missing bits of wood on the backbox, but I'm leaning toward just leaving things alone.  The more I deal with paint the worse it looks.

I don't think anything can be done to remove the spraypaint from the backglass without destroying the art, so I'm just going to have to live with it.

[Chris]

I finished repainting, varnishing and sanding the wear around the bottom bumper.  I don't have a pic yet; the results are okay, but if I could go back I think I would have left it alone. 

Well, once I put the posts and plastics back on I think the repair looks better.  It's easy to see with the playfield bare, but it's fine in actual play.  Here's the before and after:

[shardian]

That second pic is beautiful.

Pics of lit pinballs in dark rooms always look awesome.

[Chris]

That second pic is beautiful.

Pics of lit pinballs in dark rooms always look awesome.

Thanks...  I actually had an 8x10 made of that shot to hang in my game room.

[ChadTower]

That's definitely a case of you being like me - looking at a job you did pretty well and all you can see is the imperfections.  That's why I'm so afraid to do artwork touchups.  I'll never see it as well done.  An assembly you can take apart again and if it works well it works well - I'm too hard on my work to do artwork.

Looks pretty good to me.

For reference, could you get a shot of the touchup with the machine off and regular lighting? 

[Chris]

For reference, could you get a shot of the touchup with the machine off and regular lighting? 

I took some but it looks like I didn't upload them to Flickr yet.  I'll have to post them when I get home from work.

[Chris]

For reference, could you get a shot of the touchup with the machine off and regular lighting? 

Here you go.  I changed the before and after to an unlit picture.  In this pic you can also see that I've put the proper bumper cap and flipper rubber on.  (The 100 bumper cap that was there belongs on the always-lit top bumper.)

In the second pic you can see some damage I did to the playfield when I was sanding the varnish on the touchup.  I didn't try to fix those.

The last pic was taken with the flash, which really highlights the repair because the new finish doesn't reflect as much and thus ends up looking darker.  It doesn't look that obvious in real life.

[ChadTower]

Hrm, the position of that bumper is tough in terms of drawing the eye.  Still, it looked good with the game powered, so it's a good touchup.  Since you oversanded this time maybe try a Magic Eraser for that last level of sanding... lighter than the lightest sandpaper but still abrasive enough to do what you need here.  Finer control.

[2PacMan]

I think the touchups look good.  Not 100% perfect, but way better than the way it looked before.  No one would really notice unless you pointed out where you touched it up.

[shardian]

I think you did a damn good job. I am depressed that I can't work on the playfield of mine yet. (personal promise not to until it is functional )

[Chris]

I know you're all just dying to know how this is going... 

I had decided not to do any more touchups on the cabinet, but when I had my best friend over the first thing she said when she saw the machine was "Wow, the wood is really torn up."  Well, it's only damaged along the bottom of the backbox really.  The box looks like it got water damaged at some point; the plywood was delaminating, the top layer of ply had chipped off along the bottom, and the ply was warped with paint misssing at the top of the box.  The damage wasn't as bad as it looked, but of course with chunks of paint missing it really drew the eye.

In an earlier episide I had glued and clamped the wood back into submission, but this still left the missing chunks of ply.  I finally went at it with PlasticWood to fill it in, sanded the heck out of it, and re-painted.  (Unfortunately, sanding lightened up some of the green paint when I wasn't careful, but I think trying to fix it without an airbrush would look worse than leaving it alone.)

The results aren't perfect, especially the repainted red part of the curtain image, but it at least doesn't leap out at you now.

[ChadTower]

Not bad.  Not bad at all.