I have thought about this for awhile, and about a week ago I bought a Bally Night Rider (SS). So now I am going to have to try my hand at a retheme of it.

I played it a few times in the late 70's in a bar in San Francisco. Never thought about it much after that until I ran across this one for sale near Hollister, so I drove about 2 hours and picked it up.

It took me a week to get it up and running, and remarkably just about everything on the playfield works. It's dirty and the playfield is worn, but it plays a lot like I remembered. Well after 40 years, who is to really challenge my memory.

Someone repainted the cabinet and structurally it seems to be sound. The work now is to clean it up and start the change over process.

It will be slow, so probably only a photo or 2 every couple weeks.

I've uploaded some pics of the game as I got it.

Robert

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My first pic of a possible theme...

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So, I have started to do the disassembly process and am working to get the side rails removed.

Of the 4 or so nails I have worked on, only 1 has actually come out. The rest of the nails have had the head come off leaving the shank still in the game...ugh!

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Not sure what I'm going to do to the inside of the cabinet. I really don't like taking things apart when I don't have to, but it is a bit dirty and scuffed in there.

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I envy people with either a lot of time, energy or patience to do these pinball refurbs, leaving no stone unturned. I'm pretty sure my patience isn't going to allow me to perform to that level.

I'll vacuum the cabinet out and then decide how much to disassemble/clean/paint before I call it good enough.

I have plenty of work ahead of me leveling inserts, generating graphics, sanding/prepping the playfield and cabinet...let alone cleaning and rebuilding the 40 year-old playfield mechs.

I should probably just think about it as 1 day at a time and not try to add all the days up ahead of time.

Robert

Haven't been working on the re-theme to much since Thanksgiving, but have leveled the inserts, re-sanded the playfield and taped the original plastics back down. I put the plastics down, so I can start the process of laying out the ball path and graphics. After I taped the plastics to the playfield I scanned and stitched the scans together so I can start my graphics design via the computer.

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In the process of vectoring the stitched scan, then it's off to the printer to see how close I got.

Then It's just a matter of moving stuff around until the base graphic fits the playfield, then I'll start to add new graphics/artwork.

Robert

Vectored the scan and then I sent it to be printed at Kinko's (~$5). This is the first try at seeing how close my printed scan is to the original playfield.

After printing the line layout at Kinko's, I punched out the insert locations in the paper and laid it over the playfield. Close, but still needs some tweaking.

But I'm encouraged because it's closer than I thought I'd be at this point.

Last night I cut out more of the paper to see how the plastics and some of the other features like rollover lanes match up. About half of the printed features needs to be moved about 1/32 to 1/8-inch. After marking the paper, it's off to the vectored file to make those changes. Hopefully later this week I'll be able to get the 2nd try printed and to continue the process.

Robert

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Was on vacation for a month to New Zealand, Australia and Fiji, so I had about 2 months of no progress. Been home for about a week now, so It's probably time to start up again.

Here are a few pics of the cabinet refurbishment.

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Here is the file I'm working on for the backglass/translite. It's just in the basic form for the general layout. When it gets to a point that I think it's good enough, I'll add graphics and then it print out as a translite.

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Here is my playfield overlay. Same as the translite, just the basic positional layout of the playfield parts. Graphics will come later.

Robert

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Haven't been doing a lot on this, but started again this weekend. Getting the playfield overlay adjusted so the inserts are centered, and almost complete with the Translite overlay design.

Have been doing some work on the artwork, but haven't ported it yet over to the overlays.

Robert

Recent overlay "paper doll":

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Cabinet painting and sealing:

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Started to prime and paint a few items:

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Checking the alignment of overlay file to playfield inserts:

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Still a bit of work to do...damn.

It's been an adventure trying to get Kinko's to print out the overlay on paper in the correct size. I think I've got it worked out, but one never knows what the "next one" will look like.

Robert

This is what I used to level the dished inserts.

Robert

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After all this work, I need to relax...

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New feet for the base end.

Working on the playfield overlay...

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Thinking about this as a topper...

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Prototype side art...

Robert

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Rebuilt the chimes...

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Not sure if anyone is actually looking at this thread, but incase someone is I'm doing some final adjustments on the insert locations in the overlay.

This is probably the most difficult part of the process and really annoying to have to repeat over and over again and is exacerbated by issues with Kinko's getting the paper printout the correct size. One never knows what will be the result, when I go to pick it up.

This is printout number 7. Getting closer every time.

Robert

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Yes, the scan was a bit off and I've been trying to correct the differences for awhile now. When I finally got to the "right" people at the local Kinko's, the printouts are now pretty much right on. So, tweaking the inserts is getting some traction.

I understand about the issue with changing print sources and print media, I just hope it's not too much different. I may have to print the playfield overlay a couple of times in vinyl to get the alignment to match.

I have gotten a quote of over $300 for the cabinet sides and front, topper and 2 Backbox sides in adhesive vinyl. Seems high to me, but 2 places quoted similar numbers. Not sure what the translite and playfield overlay are going to be yet.

Robert

This is the Topper I'm probably going to use.

Robert

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Yes, I'll probably use them for vinyl...but I have been using kinko's for paper proto's...due to a suggestion.

The $300+ quote came from FastSigns...for cabinet, backbox sides & topper.

Robert

I don't know if this thread shows enough for you, but there are some posts on playfield overlay.

Robert

I have been using a graphics design program called "Affinity Designer". It cost $49 and as far as I can tell it's well worth the price.

I tried a few free designer programs, Inkscape was the best...but I found them difficult to use.

With Affinity you can export in several formats including pdf, *.pdf outputs seems to be the most widely used by both Kinko's and FastSigns.

Robert

Since you live in the northwest, I suggest you contact WrapJax. I've contacted Quinton at the Tacoma location about printing my stuff, and his price was a lot less than what FastSigns quoted.

http://wrapjax.com/contact/

I may still use FastSigns for the playfield overlay, due to perhaps any questions/answers needed real time. But the rest I'm going to have wrapjax do, and ship them to me.

Robert

For those interested in what others have done with a playfield overlay...this thread is pretty good:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/strikes-and-spares-restoration

I'm starting to work on my playfield plastics, got a few scanned as outlines and am starting to add graphics.

This link is another good thread on making playfield plastics.

Robert

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-i-recreate-plastics

With my retheme I'm continuing to fool with playfield graphics as well as still tweaking the insert locations.

Robert

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A couple of proto plastic designs...not sure how they will turn out when finished, but right now I think I want a simple contrasting design to the playfield.

Robert

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Latest Playfield Design...

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I'm have a real issue with getting the overlay to be exactly in the correct place over the 25 inserts. It's been an actual headache.

So I've come up with a plan, idea really, to use stickers:

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I've ordered some of each size. My plan is to put the stickers over the insert and the overlay over the stickers. I can then make the overlay insert openings a bit larger, to take into account "registration" issues with their locations and the sticker should take care of size and location differences. At least that's the theory.

Working on the plastics today.

Robert

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A couple of prototype plastics.

Robert

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A couple of prototype plastics done. I see I need to make the overlay a bit bigger.

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Another prototype plastic done. This one also needs to have the overlay be a bit bigger.

Because the plastic is curved like it is, doing a global resizing of the overlay doesn't work. I'll have to just add some width, using the paintbrush aspect of the vector program.

Robert

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New drop targets.

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I might have to burnish these a bit...

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Working on the last few plastics...

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A little sanding required...

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Rebuilt drop target assembly, with new targets and the mole stickers attached!

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