Ok so I'm working on my Star Trek restoration and am ready to paint the back box.... My question is:

Do I stay with the original paint scheme, or change it up slightly??

My thought is that the back box should be the same base color (yellow) as the cabinet and the stenciling should be in the same colors as the cabinet as well.

I kind of think that the blue main color on the back box just looks like it was an afterthought or something from the factory and does not match well. Seems like most other games the base color are the same and it matches better. Maybe it's just me.

So if I change it, and make it look more like the main cabinet, so they both match better, will that decrease the value of the game? Or does it really matter if the paint job is done really nice, like I have done to the main cabinet. See pictures. So imagine the back box looking like the cabinet

Your thoughts are appreciated, Thanks!!

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I'm really leaning toward changing it to match the cabinet. I think it would look better. Not really sure if you would call it my "grail pin"

I did actually look at the posting, and thought the guy had done a great job, and it's what got me thinking about changing it up a little.

I'm checking with Jeff at "Pinball Pimp" to see if he would just sell the back box stencils in case I don't like it and have to start over.

Ok well........due to the overwhelming amount of votes on my poll, a whopping 13.

(I guest my posts are not as exciting as wondering what the next overpriced Stern game is going to be ) I have made my decision....pictures are below

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It's not up and running yet, but will be soon

Thanks for the kind words. I am really happy with the way it turned out.

I am having some problems getting it going. Not sure what is going on. Won't start a game. All the test on the coin box door work, but the game is not recognizing the credit button for some reason.

It was working and playing before I started the process with a new Alltek MPU, so I talked with Alltek and we did some test while it was on the machine, but still no luck on getting game to start, so I have to send the MPU back and have them look it over to see what is going on.

Hopefully I will have an answer by the end of the week.

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I thought about painting the wood trim around the box blue. May still do that at some point maybe that will make it work

Yeah I have no problem with you copying the paint scheme. I did have a couple of things that came up, that I did not think about when changing paint colors. I post pics of that soon.

I re-pinned a couple of connectors, can't remember which one off the top of my head, (old age). Alltec said there was nothing wrong with the board but is sending a new one, so we'll see if the same thing happens.

Here are the pictures of the poor planning on my part, didn't quite think it all the way thru.

Because I painted the back box yellow instead of blue, the accents on the ship that should have been orange had to be yellow, which the back box was already painted so you can see a paint line from the extra yellow paint. There wasn't really a way to prevent this, short of modifying the stencil, which I did not want to do. And without painting the yellow the ship would not have had some of the accents which made it look kind of weird.

I already had to modify the stencil somewhat due to the fact that I had to paint 3 colors instead of 2. They only give you 2 stencils.

So normally you would have a blue cabinet. Then you paint the yellow with one stencil and then the orange with the second stencil. But I had to paint the 3rd yellow to get the detail in the ship.

So I first painted the box yellow. Then laid down the orange with the first stencil. Then the second stencil for the blue, but only exposed and peeled what I wanted to be blue and left the ship covered. Then when the blue was dried after I peeled the stencil off for just the blue, I covered the blue up and then peeled and exposed the detail stencel for the ship area and painted that yellow. Hope that made since.

It kind of gave the ship a 3D kind of look, which I was not going for, but from a distance you can see it. So I think if I sand it down lightly I may be able to get rid of that. So there you go ...Good luck.

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Well I finally got the game playing!

After sending the Alltec board back and having another one shipped to me, it ended up being a switch matrix problem. I have Dave from Alltec to thank for helping me out. It was not the board but some of the switches under the playfield work not showing up when you do the test off the coin box door.

So I went thru each one to find the problem ones, which were the star rollovers and one out lane switch not showing up in the displays as I closed them.

Turned out that when I did swapped out playfields, I did not tighten up some of the screws enough to get the switches to work quite right. Once I got all of them working right the game started and the credit button worked and started a game.

I have played several games with no issues other that some slight adjustment to gaps in the switches other than that works great.

On to restoring my Flash Gordon..............

Thanks for clarifying all that

So with that kind of thinking..... since I use rustoleum rattle cans, which probably were not the correct color that the factory use, but close enough for me. Or a vinyl stencil, probably not what the factory used. Or that I used 47 bulbs and not 44s. Or that I am using a playfield protector made in Germany so the my non factory playfield won't get screwed up cause the factory does not make them anymore. Same with all the playfield plastics aftermarket, why cause the factory does not make them anymore.

Do you catch where I am drifting......I guess there are no 100% restored games, cause I do not think it can be done they way the did it back in the day according to your strict standards

Thanks I am pretty happy with it.