Did you work on any areas with ME, or did you do a wide stroke clean?

The spiderwebs may still be able to be cleaned up with ME, but you would have to be very careful.

With that webbing, you have to decide on the level of restoration. You can get it cleaned up and playing nice even with the webbing.

Personally, I would try another round of ME + alcohol. If that seems to risky for you, you can always try ME + Simple Green instead.

Either way, kudos for saving a rare game.

Marcus

Save the original theme, A re-theme would be a shame as you say not to mention a loss of money as this was a limited production machine.

That would be the best call to save the machine and keep it's monetary value, so essentially you would be paid for your time.

Just my 2 cents.

Ken

My 2 cents> I'd touch it up and leave it alone. Looks to me like you've done enough w/the ME. Dirt is out and left w/the crackling. Get a nice coat of wax after touch ups and play it and enjoy it! Pretty common from what I've seen on 2 other Blue Notes. I've had a Rock Star and seen one other and they don't seem to 'spider' as bad. Good luck w/what ever you decide.

Have fun and enjoy the process and hobby!

oh don't re theme or scrap it..once she is gone, she is gone..it's a very low production game..get the playfield restored.

might sound corny but we all need to keep these games alive.

There is far worse than yours around. I would do some mild touch-ups, thorough waxing & once the pf components are re-installed & the glass atop the spider webs will likely be not anywhere near noticeable. On such a low production game it would be a great pity to retheme.

ME and a bit of Bleech White by the kicks. It will vastly improve the situation.

I'm working on a Rock Star at the VFW here.

This was originally posted in on the Pinball Ninja site almost exactly a year ago 8/5/2014. I realize you don't all have access, below are my comments from the comment section.

A couple of other interesting things to note:
1. Alcohol can melt the original nitro clear coat.
- This can be good or bad. If you go too far or stay too long in one spot, you can have a minor meltdown of the lacquer and a gooey mess. (This has happened to me)
- I have heard it theorized that a small amount of “melting” can help seal up the ball swirls, which are actually small cracks in the clear coat filled with dirt. (I can’t attest to this)
- In this case, the PF was getting auto clear, so sealing any cracks with alcohol melting the CC was irrelevant.
2. Bleach White can continue to improve the treated area for a day or so.
3. Using Bleach White on a PF causes David Gottlieb to roll over in his grave, so consider it a desperate measure. Sometimes you get additional “pops” in the paint when you work on it like this. I usually only do it if I know I’m going to CC after.

Maybe get it professionally shot by a photographer (300 dpi or greater at full size) and clean up the image in Photoshop or similar? Then "print" it out (or have it re-screened, this can be done though expensive). It's mostly line art and large areas of color. This is a pain but far from impossible. Anything along these lines is very much a reproduction image (on the original pf wood at least!) That last picture above though, ugh, I think the original paint is beyond saving.

When dealing with a non-stable base layer (like you have) you have a couple of options:

1. A lot of guys will shoot a base layer of clear after all the clean up is complete. I know HEP does this a lot. I generally don't, but I am going to try it one of these days.

2. For friscut issues:
- be sure to get LOW tack. I use this:
https://www.misterart.com/airbrushing/frisket/grafix-all-purpose-frisket.html
- Only seal about 1/2" or so around where you are spraying. This will only put a small amount of your PF in danger.
- When you pull the friscut, heat it with a hair dryer, this makes it almost fall off.

Sorry you are having issues.

Yes shoot a base layer of clear. Get it stable and level before starting repairs.

Also I would never use a water-based cleaner on a playfield with weak or no finish. Water raises wood grain.

It appears that there are 3 iterations of Blue Note's playfield. Yours has a painted perimeter and shooter lane. Mine (pictured below) has woodgrain in those areas. Also, note that the 3 characters on my playfield have tanned complexions whereas the skin tone is white on your version. Mine is a production game. I know that the sample game shows the upper character with a silhouette motif.

I've seen Gottlieb Spot-A-Cards in 2 versions (painted and unpainted perimeters) similar to the variations here.

In any event, as you can see, my Blue Note playfield has spidering as well. I think that this title is prone to spidering. Fortunately, these imperfections are not really visible from the player's typical distance. Along with Strange World and Hit-the-Deck, Blue Note is certainly among John Osborne's successful designs. . .fun game.

Be sure to post your finished result, when available. I would avoid an overlay because it alters the coefficient of friction.

20151009_221918 (resized).jpg

20151009_221446 (resized).jpg

20151009_221450 (resized).jpg

Below is a photo showing your style Blue Note playfield, with the woodgrain areas (including the skin tones) screened white. As stated, I know that Gottlieb issued these alternately screened playfields for 1960 Spot-A-Card. I think that Gottlieb did the same for 1977 Jacks Open. I know of no other titles screened in this fashion.

Also shown below is the playfield art variation on the sample game (the guitarist "silhouette" motif. . .well, arguably more of a shadow than a silhouette).

11855831_974181429268853_4044827340681353323_n (resized).jpg

11870795_975556052464724_7903194737895683612_n (resized).jpg

the pf's with the painted wood area's were gottlieb trying to use a chip board base instead of the plywood. due to the rise in plywood prices.
from what i can gather they did a small % in these to see how the performed. i have seen volley, jacks open,big hit and blue note with the composite pf's
but i bet they did others in the 3 years (1976-79)

Send the Playfield to HSA.

HSA would cost 800.00-1000.00 to restore it but IMO well worth the cost for this title

On the bright side, the kickout hole wear doesn't look too bad!

It's this thread again... This is my least favorite post, sometimes it is just better to "leave it be"

Here's a composite Big Hit playfield painted yellow (pics on the IPDB) I had - they also made a composite white and a plywood wood grain in the same run. This composite pf was always in a dry location and only needed Novus 2 and carnuba.
Composites tend to bubble the finished surface with moisture and will crumble/fall apart if exposed to too much moisture. Water based products are a no-no. Your playfield looks to be a challenging restore and would be curious what HSA's response would even be. Maybe re-create artwork in the bad areas but even if you do that you would need a solid, level surface underneath first.

Big Hit yellow playfield 005 (resized).JPG
Big Hit yellow playfield-composite 003 (resized).JPG

dave i think big hit was done in two different colors (unlike the other titles) because they had two different types of composite material and the they could keep track of how well each performed by the color.
from what i have read, the paint adhered to the composite just fine, but moisture was what it did not like. i think we don't see more of these because ops stored these games in humid warehouses. i am sure like other flake board the started falling apart.
just speculation on my part.

I was editing my post above when you typed this.

I didn't know they tested using two different composites - interesting.

this is just speculation on my part. they were cutting cost around this time, quality was starting to take a hit

Hence, the reason Gottlieb selected "Big Hit" for the experiment, no doubt.

IMO, Big Hit was the best of all the GTB baseball games produced. Fun to play.

i concur

i think volley was the first title they tried and it was only on the sample game with a completely different art package. i think it was a flop because they changed the art package and went to all plywood for the production run.

Looks awesome! Great Job!!!

Attempt at humor clearly failed: "take a hit"----"Big Hit," get it?

Clearly.

The baseball sailed right over my head and I didn't even see it

i got it.

This would explain my Lucky Hand, the WOW area was tan instead of Sunshine Yellow