(Topic ID: 265073)

Big Bang Bar Screen Printing Negatives

By acitti

4 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

  • 14 posts
  • 10 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 3 years ago by Coyote
  • Topic is favorited by 4 Pinsiders

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#1 4 years ago

Hey Everyone,

I recently did a very large pinball trade deal (15 machines and lots of parts involved). I ended up with two excellent machines, a BBB and CCC as well as a few parts. I feel one of the parts is special and I wanted to share it with you all to get some more information and input on it.

I received a tube that said Big Bang Bar Decals on the outside. Initially I assumed that it was a set of new decals for the game I just acquired but when I opened it up I quickly realized that was not the case.

Inside the tube I found almost 20 clear plastic (not sure on the exact material) sheets that were labeled with "Illinois Pinball Big Bang Bar". Each sheet was individually numbered with the location and color of that layer. There appears to be all the pieces required for the left, right, head and front of the machine.

I asked a few of my local pin friends to help me identify what they were used for and one of them recognized what they were right away. He explained (in a simplified way) that each layer is placed above a screen of uncured ink like substance and a light is turned on above it. In all the areas that are clear on the sheet the light makes the substance dry up. All the areas that have print blocking the light, the substance does not dry. It is then removed and the non-cured substance is washed away to allow an opening on the screen to push printing ink through on application. He said the clear sheets were called Negatives.

I asked how many negatives he saw typically made for a project? He said that he had never seen more then two sets made because they were reusable.

So at this point, I am hoping the pinside community can help me out. I would love to know more about these prints. If anyone was involved with the project it would be fascinating to learn more about how these were used, how many were made, what they might be worth?

Thanks everyone.

Here is one of the sides, in this case "Left side roll, Top Dark Blue 3015 #5"
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Here is all the left sides stacked on each other
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Here is all the head and front pieces stacked on each other
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Here is all the right side stacked in the reverse order from the left side picture with other prints underneath
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Every print was marked at the edge with this
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#2 4 years ago

those are the Film Positive Separations use in silk-screening. IPB used them to screen print the cabinet of BBB. More than likely they are actually owned by Planetary Pinball.

#3 4 years ago

Not if they were sold on before the acquisition of IPB..

#4 4 years ago

Keep and frame them.

#5 4 years ago

The person I got them from said that they received them when they bought their BBB.

1 week later
#6 3 years ago

That’s a really extraordinary finding! You should definitely scan this to preserve this for future generations (I stitch together parts scans all the time).

#7 3 years ago

Very nice find !
useless until you want to remake BBB but very nice and rare decorations. And maybe we will have BBBr .. they might ask you for the screens to make silkscreened decals !

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#8 3 years ago

That is very cool. Whatever you do, don't separate the set. I suspect that would disrupt their historical value/significance.

Nice trade too BTW.

#9 3 years ago

As Cherries_Jubilee pointed out, these are film positives of the color separations. One color per screen. Back in the day, we would create these in the darkroom manually using a graphics arts reproduction camera (stat camera) or a vacuum contact frame. After the digital revolution, you could print straight to film using an image setter. Now, you can print your spot color separations straight from applications like Adobe Illustrator, but we used to do everything by hand.

Stat Camera (resized).jpgStat Camera (resized).jpg
#10 3 years ago
Quoted from ClarkKent:

You should definitely scan this to preserve this for future generations (I stitch together parts scans all the time).

I don't think I will be scanning these, they have a lot of blank space that would make it challenging to stitch together after scanning with a standard size scanner. Not to mention that it would take literally days to do all of them.

Quoted from TomDK:

And maybe we will have BBBr .. they might ask you for the screens to make silkscreened decals !

That is a possibility, although I am not sure how far away a BBBr is.

Quoted from mrbillishere:

Whatever you do, don't separate the set. I suspect that would disrupt their historical value/significance.

I agree, think it would be best if they were kept together.

zombywoof Thanks for the additional info and including a picture as well.

#11 3 years ago
Quoted from Cherries_Jubilee:

...More than likely they are actually owned by Planetary Pinball.

No, more than likely they're owned by acitti !

#12 3 years ago
Quoted from acitti:

I don't think I will be scanning these, they have a lot of blank space that would make it challenging to stitch together after scanning with a standard size scanner

If using a HP Scanjet 4670 or 4600 (used ones are cheap to get) it would be scanned in a short time - I can stitch together everything, even only little overlapping scans. I have a lot of cabinet decals scans done that way.

#13 3 years ago

Even the very best scanner is not going to produce files that you could use to directly produce screens for printing. At best, they will serve as a guide for someone to recreate the original separations. Even a direct film to film duplication on a vacuum frame will produce registration errors, and exponentially so with each generation.

I am not suggesting that you do not scan them. By all means, please do if you have the wherewithal, for no other reason than to preserve them! Just know it will take a lot of work by a skilled artist to go from those scans back to a screenprint press.

#14 3 years ago
Quoted from zombywoof:

Just know it will take a lot of work by a skilled artist to go from those scans back to a screenprint press

... But less than doing them from scratch.

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