Thanks Guys, I wasn’t sure if anybody would be interested in refinishing machines!
First step in cleaning up the playfield was to remove the mylar circles under the pop bumpers. I used a heat gun for about 5 minutes and they came up great with little damage to the paint underneath. I then spent about 20 minutes with Goo-Gone and my fingernail to pick up the rest of the remaining adhesive.
It seems that the industry standard is to go over the playfield with a Magic Eraser to clean up the dirt on the surface. There is a very thin clear coat over the ink that makes up the artwork so you have to be careful to not go through the clear and into the color. Here is what it looked like after the clean up, much better than before.
When this playfield was made, they machined all of the cut outs and holes, glued the inserts in and then ran the playfield through a thickness sander to level out the inserts. You can see the linear sanding marks in this plastic.
Next up is to assess the damage to the playfield and make a plan for either fixing or leaving it be. There is a fair amount of key lining that will need to be done around the inserts. This is because the inserts and playfield both move differently with the yearly swelling and shrinking of the wood. You can see some areas that will need attention in this photo, this is really easy to fix.
In addition, some of the plastic inserts will have either dropped or cupped. Some folks will try to knock these out and reseat them, others will knock them out and replace them. My plan is to use KBS Diamond finish to build up the plastic to flush like I did on Tropic Fun. I don’t want to spend any more than needed to get this back to excellent condition. These inserts definitely effect play so they must be fixed.
Some areas have been chipped by the ball through to bare wood. These will need touch up and re-lettering or have a complete repaint of the pink area and fresh lettering with the Decal Pro system. It just depends upon how well I can match the paint. This is going to take red, white and florescent pink or red. I use Createx paints because they cover well, spray well and cure instantly with heat so you can work fairly quickly without waiting for hours of drying time.
Other areas will also need touch up as well.
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