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Subscribed! and i should be getting push’s in app now on your updates and replies
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Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
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Wow what a project you are taking on, very impressive work.
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I’m surprised Jason doesn’t have one of those play field rotisserie thingies yet
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Cool thread… can’t wait to see how it turns out.
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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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Thanks Guys, I wasn’t sure if anybody would be interested in refinishing machines!
I LOVE these kind of restoration posts, always nice to see how things are done on the real thing.
That playfield looks nice after the cleanup, pumped to see how you are going to make it shine !
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The playfield if now all retouched up, I thought some of you might like to see how the process works for difficult colors like florescent red.
Every color that is not opaque needs a backing color to help it register correctly. For example if you ran a sheet of clear film through your inkjet printer you might be surprised at the colors it prints. That is because the inks are designed to go over white paper. The florescent paints from Createx are not opaque so they need a backing color, white is best for my project.
The playfield has a light blue area with a florescent pink “SPECIAL” just below the captured balls. This is a high impact area on the machine so the clear coat and paint have been completely torn away from ball hits over the years. I started out by mixing a light blue that consisted of a little blue, lot of white and touch of black (since I don’t have grey). This is one area where it is nice to have a wife who paints and has excellent color sense, I never would have gotten this great of a match without her.
Here is a photo of the area with the blue paint applied. The white spots are areas where the clear coat and top layers of ink have been work through but the wear hasn’t gone through the undercoat of white (which is put onto the playfield first).
Next up, paint in the missing sections of lettering with opaque white.
Lastly mix up a florescent pink, in this case about 6 drops of pink and just a fraction of a drop of white to tone it down just a little. You can use a fine brush to do this, toothpicks also make excellent painting tools for fine work like lettering and key lining.
Here’s a photo of the playfield as it stands now, the shiny areas are diamond clear over the plastic inserts, flat areas are Createx without clear coat over it.
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Looking good. And really is a neat game so worth the effort your putting into it for sure.
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Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
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if you need any parts or pieces there is a guy parting out a jubilee on pinside https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-em-seeking-parts-thread/page/96#post-4796876
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The backglass file got sent to GameOnGrafix today so we’ll see how long it takes to get it printed and back. Here are images of the front artwork and mask layer, the black border is there should I need to move the image to make the reels and lights line up correctly
BorgDog let me know if you want these for your table.
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dude, that looks pretty awesome, of course I want a copy. I’m thinking after you get done (hopefully a playfield scan in there somewhere) we can work together to update the table.
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Looking forward to seeing printed art
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Messing with the VPinball app and push notifications.
So if you haven't downloaded app yet what are you waiting for!?
for IOS and Android********************************************************
You need to login in order to like this post: click here
Here’s an interesting thing that I learned while restoring this game. When I’ve made VP backglasses I’ve noticed that some EM’s have flashing sections of the backglass and other don’t. These flashing sections are usually behind the title of the table. I assumed that there was some mechanism that controlled the flashing and I even spent a bit of time watching a Capersville video to map out the sequence of flashes.
It turns out that these games had bulbs that had a bimetalic strip in them that opens and closes with heat just like incandescent turn signal bulbs on a car. You can tell which sections in a backglass are designed to have these bulbs by looking for dished out cuts into the board that holds the bulbs. The dished out areas are made so that the round bulbs can fit more easily.  You can see the flasher bulbs on my Darling game just above the credit reel and standard bulbs everywhere else.
A lot of guys just put in standard non blinking bulbs so that is why some games flash and others don’t. Some folks on Pinside say that the Game Over bulb is often a flasher to cut down on heat.
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Lots of layers of KBS Diamond with some wet sanding as well. Not very exciting but necessary to get all of the plastics level with the play surface.
Has anyone used KBS Diamond in a spray can? I’m wondering if that would put on such a smooth layer that no final sanding would be needed?
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I’ve thought of getting some of the spray just for like the final layer, maybe next time I order something from them. I think you can’t get away from the sanding for leveling everything though even if you do spray.
Looking good.
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Thanks BD! What’s your technique for applying KBS diamond?
I’ve been decanting a small amount into a secondary container and using a foam brush. I seem to always have some linear brush marks so I alternate each layer lengthwise vs crosswise with some 400 grit wet sanding. I also have been doing some drop fill on the plastics to fill the edge cracks as well as middle scoops.
The finish does not look as good in person as the photo seems to show. After all of the coats are on and the finish has had time to cure, it will need some final wet sanding. I was hoping that I could flash the top with spray to cover the fine sanding marks from the final leveling as opposed to wet sanding 600 -> 800 -> 1000-1500 -> rubbing compound -> polishing compound -> Miracle X -> Paste Wax. I bet you are right about the spray needing wet sanding as well.
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pretty similar, I’ve only done 1 playfield with it so far, will be doing Hulk this weekend likely. I used a bristle brush because I have a supply of them, but with enough thinning they seemed to flow out pretty good, yup lots of sanding, which reminds me I should probably check my supply of fine grits..
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What are you thinning the kbs with?
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I think I got some of their thinner, not sure it’s been a while.
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