Many people ask me how much work is involved with restoring a playfield. Unless you do it, you really don't understand the time it takes. So In this thread, i'm going to be documenting a playfield from start to finish and time stamping everything to show the amount of time it takes and the amount of work involved. I'll be updating this in real time as we go.

I do 3 levels of restoration. Level 1 is basic clearcoating with very minor black line insert edging touchups. Level 2, only touches up visible areas of the playfield from players perspective. So areas under plastics, ramps, posts , aprons are not touched up. Level 3 touches up everything.

This field will be level 3.

So the first group of pictures will be the field at the start.

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Mylar is removed. 1 hour
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Cleaned with magic eraser 1 hour 8 min
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dracula (stern)

Ok, apparently I can't edit my place holders or add pictures. So I guess it's going to be dragged out through the thread.

Now we address the wood chipping areas. Normally in a level 2, i'd let most of these go,as they will be hidden when populated. But this is a level 3 so I must fix and repair the chipping.

Here is the wood areas before.

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Wood filled Time 45 min

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Shooter lane sanded
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Now it's time to start color matching. Currently working on the yellow, orange and black. Black is usually easy to do, but sometimes in fields this old, depending on how well it was stored, the black fades. So new touchup black stands out and you can see all the touchups. So it has to be milked up to match it's current state. Unfortunately, I won't know until it gets it's first layer of clear. Same with the colors. Some colors darken up after clear hits them. So they look like perfect matches, until I shoot it, then it's off. Very very time consuming process. So far I'm doing orange- yellow and black

Time invested so far in color matching 1 hr 53 min

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for fixing screw holes, i'd take toothpicks or bamboo rods and wood glue them in the holes. Then take a wire cutter and cut them off. Should be strong.

i do use naptha technique sometimes to try and match. Some times that difficult as the rough texture sometimes tricks you on how the light reflects until it's smoothed out by clear.

Color matching works by. I look at a color. and find a close starting color. Then add colors until it matches. Everything is eyeballed. If it has yellowing due to years of cigerette smoke. Then i add some raw sienna in it. Faded from the sun, add a touch of white. there is really no way to teach this. It's kind of a natural talent.

For shooter lane, I have a 100 year old angle rasp that I use. Sometimes I wrap it in sandpaper and sand down the lane. It's a long round like file that goes to a point. So it's basically a shooter lane file. One of the many tools that were passed down from my great great great grandfather. Who thought i'd be using them to for pinball.

more colors sampled and tested. Time : 1 hr 39 min

Blue
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Red
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Pink
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Black line work started. Also did some first layers in white and did some more yellow. Lighter colors like whites and yellows usually take 3 or 4 layers to even out.

Time used: 2 hr 40 Min

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all depends. I find that touchups blend better without a layer of clear, as the touchup tends to hover slightly and create a slight shadow that sometimes makes a new touchup stand out more. So I try and do as many touchups as I can before the first layer of clear. Also, this really lets me see how my color looks as well.

Paint right now is all free hand. 90% of what I do is brush and free hand.

Touching up various sections of the playfield. Doing a lot of black line insert edges.

Time: 1 hr 15 min

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nothing better than being able to do a hot swap. Makes the process so much easier.

OK, first layer of clear is on. This lets me see how some touchups turned out as well as seal in what I have done so far. I can see the pink is way off.

Time: 39 min

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Now that the clear is on, now we can mask and do the white hidden areas. (level 2 fields do not get this done)

Mask applied and cut out, airbrushed and removed.

Time: 2 hr 30 min

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White airbrushed. White was matched closely with other whites on the field so it doesn't stand out.
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Mask removed, and bleed under all sanded away.

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it's a low tack stencil applicator that I use for my vinyl cutter for transferring stencils.

more touchups done. Some did a second coat on some.

Time: 3 hr 6 min

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2nd layer of clear applied to seal in everything done so far.

Time: 45 min

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it's coming along nicely. There are tons of visible cracks in the lacquer that show up and only visible after fresh clear is applied. Once I scuff to do touchups, those minor lacquer imperfections disappear. Making it very hard to remember where they all are. As you are kind of touching up blind at that point.

When i'm doing playfields, i'm usually working on 4 different ones at a time. This way, i can prep some for clearing, some for touchups, so while i'm waiting for some things to dry, or clear to harden, I have something else to work on. Nothing is more irritating than laying my arm on a part I painted that wasn't dry. Puts little stamps all over the playfield. Not so bad when I sealed in previous touchups, but sucks bad when it goes through areas I masked and airbrushed but didn't seal in yet.

the wavyness if the clear evens out as more and more layers are added. Through the spray and block sand process. Right now clear is basically used to seal in touchup layers. Leveling process hasn't really started yet.

PPG, and i use an automotive spray gun, with a tip ment for clear. Same used for clearing cars.

some wood areas airbrushed and blended in to hide the fill job and hide some wood graining.

Time: 1 hr 15 min

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Painted the inlane switch areas. Deep graining in them.

Time: 30 min

Clearcoated layer 3

Time: 25min

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yes, the only air brushing so far is the white regions and the wood touchup areas. As the airbrush feathers into the natural wood nicely. I try to keep as much natural wood as I can, as painted wood looks painted, no matter how good you are at it. Personally, I hate the way painted wood looks, so I only do it when I have to. So blending makes it much less noticeable.

Every layer of clear needs to be sanded to get the next layer of clear to stick. So it needs to be roughed up before touchups are started. Plus the block sanding helps flatten and even out the playfield. reducing cupped inserts, some to the point of disappearing completely. Depending on the severity of the cupping. Regardless, it's greatly reduced to the point where it will not effect the movement of the ball anymore.

I agree. I'd rather have a little deep ground in dirt but be natural than painted. If someone wants that stuff painted and they let me know, i'm happy to do it the way they want. But I default to saving as much natural wood as possible.

maybe he's talking about those shooter lanes that have that super dark brown layer to them. I have had fields like that, that are natural super dark brown in the middle layer. Stands out like a sore thumb.

but maybe he thought you painted them and didn't realize that's the way they are naturally?

what is that dark layer? Walnut?

Yup. Sometimes it's your only option.

For keeping brush strokes down, I use a very fine brush with very fine bristles, and keep feathering the paint over and over again so it smooths out.

But what did it look like before? He might have had to. Or the customer requested it. Sometimes that happens.

depends on the color it is. Yellows, gray, white, reds ...yes I do multiple. Fluorescents I usually have to do 5 or 6 coats.

More touchups done, more evening out. More backlighting getting the black peek through. Trying to blend wood painting areas. Lots of little areas with hairline cracks in the black and various other areas. Finding them after scuffing is a very difficult job. Giving the saucer multi levels to make it look more like layers. Still working on blending the colors together better.

Time: 4 hr 20 min

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Did some more saucer touchup with various other touchups here and there.

Time: 45 min

Clearcoat layer 4 Playfield is leveling out better and better with each layer, with block sanding between layers.

Time: 40 min

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block sand 600 wet every layer.

More touchups here and there. double up on layers of yellow and orange. Try to fix the off center inserts that are printed in the bat area. Normally I have room to work, but the way the black art blends into the lines. I don't have a lot of wiggle room to fix the offset circles. Did lessen the thickness of the rings slightly. fixed some of the blue and blended that better.

Sanding and prep with touchups after layer 4
Time: 1hr 15m

All the circle addressing and other touchups
Time: 4hr 10m

Layer 5 clearcoat
Time: 40m

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On a side note. I just wanted to show a game with massive deep ball swirls and what it takes to clean. I'm always working on around 5-7 fields at the same time. So this is another that is starting the process. Cleans up nice. Does it get it out 100% . No. It never will. But it's drastically reduced and passable. Only way to take it out 100% is to repaint it all. Which would require repainting the entire playfield. Which would cost like $3000 or more.

Total time to clean with Magic Eraser and rubbing alcohol.
Time: 6hr 10m

Before
before 004 (resized).jpgbefore 003 (resized).jpgbefore 002 (resized).jpgbefore 001 (resized).jpg

Half and half showing how much difference it makes.
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Here is the final look all cleaned and ready for the touchup process. So i'm over 6 hrs in, and havn't even got to touch a brush to it.cleaned with ME (1) (resized).jpgcleaned with ME (2) (resized).jpgcleaned with ME (3) (resized).jpgcleaned with ME (resized).jpg

oh yea, it makes a huge difference. I burned through about 6 magic eraser pads through the process. Go slow and work little sections at a time. But after you do this. Most of your lacquer is removed from the surface and if you don't clearcoat it or protect it. It's going to be more fragile than you were before. Only when you have to go this deep. This field had a ton of ball swirls. really down in there.

I use very fine bristle brushes. the finer the bristles the smoother it lays, but takes a long time to paint areas. my favorites to paint with are 0, 00, 000, and 0000. 000 I paint 80% of the playfield with. Also the thickness of the paint has a lot to do with this. my paint is about as thick as yogurt. Like real yogurt, not that premixed crap. Then when brushing. I go the same direction, sweeping motion..over and over slightly moving and overlapping with each stroke. Keep feathering it out. When I reload the brush, I start back into a part I already did, and feather out from there. Keeps the brush strokes to a minimum.

So here we have more block sanding, minor black touchups

1hr

Level 6 clear applied

40m

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MOre block sanding. More detailed touchups here or there.

1hr 30 min

Layer 7 clear

40 m

This should be the final layer. It looks really nice. Now I let it sit for a couple of days, sand out the little specks of crap that gets in the clear, and buff it out.

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I noticed in the pictures right now, that the wood parts I brushed really stand out from the flash. They do not look like that in person. But the flash does reflect thing differently than natural lighting. I"ll try and get some pics of how it looks in person, when I post the final pictures. Which won't look much different than these.

SO far we are at

36 Hours 15 min worth of time on this. My times might be off slightly, because there are times I forgot to write down my ending time on something, so I had to guess.

depending on the amount of detail needed, amount of color matching that needs to take place and all around work involved, which varies drastically from field to field. Level 3's can be from $900-1400 depending. Can be much less if it's a great starter. Level 2's are usually $300-400 less than level 3's.

might not be as detailed as I didn't take pics of every step. Actually seawitch just got it's first layer of clear. I'm usually working on 4-6 fields at the same time, so i can shuffle which ones are ready for the spray booth, and which ones have touchups drying, or resting after clear.

I think it's suppose to look like messy fur.

So, total hourly time is 36 Hours 15 min of nonstop working on this field.

After subtracting expenses (clearcoat, freeze spray, ME, chemicals, sand paper ...ect.)

came out to about $12 per hour. Wayyyy better than it used to about 4 or 5 years ago, which was around $4 per hour.

never stated the cost of this one. But material costs is over $300. Clearcoat is expensive as all shit.

I don't think that was his intent. Actually I think he was trying to figure out what I charged for the restoration work. Which I purposely made vague. Just because each field is so drastically different from the next. You can have one field that has a ton of surface area damaged but all in huge open areas without any text be cheaper, than a field that has a bunch of quarter and dime spots missing all over in high detail areas. It really is a case by case basis, and I don't want to give out specifics on this one for that reason. So many factors effect prices.

you get used to it. Out of the past 10 years, i've only had to tell a customer I had to add more than quoted twice. Even if I do go over and something takes a little longer than expected, I usually just eat the cost. Which has happened a lot. Things that add a huge amount of time on, is when black doesn't match and half of the damn playfield is black. But you won't see it until the first layer is on. That can increase time and money drastically.

I use liquitex only. Ranges from $8- $20 per color. It's high end. Holds up well against fade. Has great pigments that smooth well when adjusting for airbrush and regular. No clumping. I understand them the best and know how my colors r going to react when mixing. Cost about $1000 to have a full set of thier available color pallet.

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but a needed investment. I've been doing this for around 11 years now.

which area? The picture with all the tubes or the picture with my mixing container strips?

paint lasts forever. Unless it somehow leaks air in and dries it out. Some of those colors i've had for 11 years or more.

circles I usually freehand. If the circle is 80% or more completely gone, then i'll use a stencil and pencil line it in, then hand paint it.

hand paint a dot at a time. Yes it sucks.

good luck on finding a plastic set for that game.

I scan in every playfield I do. I only have a 8 1/2 X 11 scanner, so all my fields are done in 23 overlapping sections, so I have art to use later if need be. People have asked me many times for scans of certain sections so they can make a decal for games they bought and trying to fix. I've probably handed scans out to at least 50 different people over the years. Paragon center area is a popular one people ask for.

As for when to scan. I like to scan at the end, but it is better to scan early. NOS stuff I scan as soon as it comes in. the more layers of clear a field gets. The farther away a scanner is from the ink, and makes it slightly blurry, and washes the colors out more. But I don't want to spend hours in photoshop fixing up scans that I just use for reference, or for text waterslides.

I buy the individual colors. They have about 100 different colors when you buy singly. You may or may not be able to mix what you need with that set. If you are resourceful you can.

Screw holes? I don't mask anything when clearing. I give a care sheet after it's done that states they can take a drill, and break the surface of the clear with a drill bit if they want. help prevent cracking out from beyond posts, just in case. most of the time it won't crack. if they want they can run an exacto knife around each gi and various holes, but not really needed.

sand everything by hand. I can't really use anything else. as it's too easy to sand through things and damage the art. 600 between layers. 2500 to sand out the imperfections before buffing.