I arrived here about a year ago. A few buddies play in a league in SF at Free Gold Watch, snd they exposed me to pinball, and expos, and the whole thing. It was weird how fast I got hooked. I got my first machine a year ago, a ToM, and I didn't expect to get so into restoration and modding...Anyway, the short version is that I'm learning by doing and sometimes it's a bit like painting a jet while it's flying.

Anyway, the subject of what would be my pin #2 has been one of debate and curiosity for my friends and family. My decision was to get a working pin that needed a ton of work (not exactly a full project pin) that I could learn restoration on.

Meanwhile, in parallel, my son (15) was going through a bit of a revolution himself. As he entered high school, he had a number of learning challenges and social challenges until he discovered a class called "Principles of Technology," aka "Maker's Class." Basically, my son was rescued by an amazing teacher who focused him on learning to use all the tools in the workshop, from lathes to 3D printers to multimeters and soldering irons. He developed confidence in these things and we, his parents, threw as much fuel on the fire as we could.

As the summer approached, I suggested the idea that he and I try restoring a pinball machine together. You have to understand, it's been incredibly hard to find something that captures his interest and leverages his talent, and even harder to find one of those things he would do with me. He surprised me by showing a deep interest and thus the hunt began for the right machine.

I recently picked up a BoP that fit the bill. It was barely playable; Two posts were actually drywall screws, the head randomly spun, and the cabinet was faded and damaged. It wasn't entirely clear what worked and what didn't on the playfield. The electronics seemed to work perfectly, or at least were in very good shape. I brought it home a couple weeks ago and we started the process of tearing it down.

We're not in a rush. I figure there are plenty of BoP restoration threads, so probably not much new here. Regardless, I want to document it in case anyone wants to join in and help with comments...but also to share the experience of working with my son. I expect this to take months, as I have a day job, but who knows...Things are moving faster than I expected, so I'll post the stages here.

-JayIMG_1978_(resized).JPG

Taking a quick peek around the machine...

That coin door has definitely seen a crowbar or two:

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The right side of the cabinet has lost all it's red pigment. This must be the side that was in the sun:

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Backbox has a ton of damage and bizarre faded repainting:

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A little scorching around the eggcrate lamps behind the translite:

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The electronics are actually clean and show no sign of damage. Time to start stripping this down. First step, get the backbox emptied, then we'll remove the playfield and start working on the cabinet.

Our strategy was to empty the backbox first and remove the head.

Am I the only one who is surprised to see the MPU board looking this shiny? I'm assuming someone cleaned this in recent years.

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The power driver board... Can anyone confirm these are new caps?

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My son removing the parts from the backbox:

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Success! We have decapitated the bride.

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Next we turn our attention to stripping the head, taking out the playfield, and stripping the cabinet.

We took plenty of photos as we removed parts. It's not like we've done this before so we've been a bit careful. As we took parts out, we throw them in the tumbler for good measure. My son loves the tumblers. The idea that it's working all night long is pretty appealing to him. That, and he loves the simplicity and physics of it!

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Anyway, slowly the parts come out of the head and are arranged where we can get to them:

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I would not have guessed the ground braid went behind the lock in the backbox.

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Eventually the playfield comes out. It's really not in horrible shape, but we're not exactly talented painters and clear coating seems like something that could use some experience. We'll see as we progress how ambitious we are.

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Looking inside the cabinet, other than the cabinet itself being a filthy mess, it's actually in pretty good shape. The wiring harness isn't very dirty. I get the feeling at least one of the owners of this machine took good care of it. The boot print is a bit concerning though.

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Ok folks. What is the deal with this ground braid. Is this crazy path really necessary? It almost feels like a random path.

Looking closer at these leg plates, it's got me wondering. I've read some posts (vid) recommending you replace the plates with newer style plates. Others (bryan) simply restore the plates...Maybe clean them off, etc. I have new plates, but they obviously don't fit without some wood work. I'm not exactly the world's gift to using table saws, so I'm curious what people do with these things typically. Here's the plate in all its original painted glory:

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The full cabinet interior:

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After my son and I removed everything:

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Anyone know who "A.M." or "J.M." might be?

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Cabinet has been stripped, rails removed. Next we'll have to get those crappy faded graphics off the cabinet.

For those who are wondering, this is not how you use a heat gun:

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This is more like it:

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The painted vinyl (I believe it's screen painted vinyl vs. a decal, assuming it's original. There isn't any way for me to tell, honestly.) came off fairly easily, but as I was warned and expected, left the glue behind.

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You can see here the damage to the coin door opening:

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Is this what is meant by "cabinet/corner separation," or is this just needing some filler?

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Other corners seem like they are holding together, just need some restoration:

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Not sure what I'll do with this. I realize it's partially hidden under the backbox, but my OCD says I'm going to make this pretty before it's hidden again:

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Removed the glue today. I learned something. Glue particles can fly in the air and land on your sports car.

Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon

The question is, replace the gosset in the corner with a smaller one, or notch out the existing gosset? Otherwise it just doesn't fit. The existing gosset on the corner comes out too far, plus as you can see the other gosset will need to be modified or shortened to make room:

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We managed to get the cabinet and backbox sanded clean with 80 grit paper. The hardest part was the back of the main cabinet. It's interesting how when you sand, since you expose paint that was shielded from the sun, you can see the original color in the dust. There is no question the backbox was painted on wood, not on vinyl like the main cabinet.

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My son in appropriate sanding gear:

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The sanded backbox. I've got to say, I'm impressed it's not more beat up than it is. Some of the corners are gouged but that will be covered in my next post.

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For the cabinet, we cleaned up the outside completely (we HOPE we got all the glue off, it's sort of hard to tell). For the inside, I gave it a good go with 80 grit, but didn't get too crazy. The more I look at the overspray and mess on the bottom inside, the more I think I'll end up priming/painting that as well. While I totally respect the restoration keeping the original bare cabinet bottom, I love the look of a black, clean cabinet floor. The flipside of this is that it will show more dirt (I have a black sports car, what a nightmare).

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Next stop: Fixing cabinet and backbox damage.

Yeah, the more I look at it, the more it seems it's an extremely small (maybe four mm?) difference. If the corner gosset was chiseled just a few mm, I think the new plate would fit completely flush over the exisiting holes.

It seems to me, since I'm not hung up on having everything exactly original, chiseling out some space to accommodate the new plates will be ideal to reinforce the corners. I'm not a master chiseler but my son is pretty good so we'll see how this goes. First I'm going to repair the cabinet corners and pipe clamp them nicely before I do any chiseling. I'm nervous I might break something.

If I were Bryan Kelly I'd probably make new gossets. I'm no Bryan Kelly.

#8's fit, for what it's worth. Overbuilding is the right move, but I think I'll stick with #8's for the plates.

We decided to use vid's aluminum dam/mold method to repair the bad corners on the cabinet and backbox. My son and I love watching fiberglass resin dry:

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Here's the resin drying. I had no idea working with this stuff would be so much fun. We haven't even started with the bondo yet!

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Gratuitous post-apocalyptic selfie:

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Our first repaired corner pre-sanding, with embedded screw:

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The challenge with these corners is they look better than the rest of the cabinet. Just making sure we have it square:

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And the finished product:

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If I've learned one thing doing this corners, is that you get excited and then you get ambitious. I don't recommend doing two at once. We got a little over-confident and tried too much. They still came out great but it adds unnecessary stress.

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We applied the same concept to the bottom of the main cabinet. What I like about the fiberglass resin is that it adds a certain corner strength that can't be knocked off later. In the case of this older (1989) Williams cabinet, the underside joints reveal some weird layering and delaminating of the plywood around the corners. The resin just drips right in and solidifies the entire thing:

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The other part of this process is applying glue (we're using Titebond III) to the corners. The corners aren't exactly separating. The bevel, or groove at the marriage of the two sides, may have had glue at some point but now has sections of empty space. We do our best to put glue in the groove and then clamp it. Some oozes out so we know we must be doing something right:

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Now that we've done all the fiberglass resin and glue work repairs, next stop, bondo treatment of any remaining damage on the cabinet and backbox. Meanwhile, one last little puzzle to solve:

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This shows how the new leg mounting plate doesn't quite fit. My idea was to chisel out the gosset to fit the plate. I did about two inches in like a half hour and realized how ridiculously hard it would be to do all four legs. I asked my son what he thought, and his idea is that we 3D print a small plate that fits between the cabinet walls and the bracket, and perhaps loops up and over the mounting plate. I kind of like his idea better (except the minor issue that we don't have a 3D printer today). It's really two thin for wood to be cut to fit, and a metal plate would have to be pretty thin as well. I'm also open to the idea of putting the old leg mounting plates back, but I'm not willing to give up yet!

I sure hope my photo record can help me remember what size goes where... Yikes.

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It does. You can see I incorrectly put the hinge "receivers" on the two equal gauge, shorter ones. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, though.

Thanks! We used fiberglass resin, Bondo brand. You can actually buy it at Home Depot. We also picked up some actual Bondo for the next phase, repairing the various dings on the cabinet. Curiously, Bryan Kelly's photos of Bondo are gray. When you add the hardener to Bondo, it turns pink, right? Maybe there is a non-pink version.

Fixing the first side with bondo:

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We will bondo and hit each side with 80 grit, then once we're happy the dings are gone, we'll hit the whole cabinet with 120 and 220.

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I love hearing that. We're really enjoying this, I can imagine doing many with him in the future. He's almost 16 now so we're getting a late start, but better late than never.

Interesting strategy about skim coating the whole thing. You're making me think we'll be well suited to inspect it carefully before priming. The primer has to help smooth it to some degree, though, right?

Today we were looking at how Chris Hutchins at High End Pins restores this game. He's got two examples on his gallery. One had chrome for the stainless parts (that's our plan, it looks amazing), another has stainless (which it came with). There definitely will be some tweaking to the look as we get closer to final painting. Exciting stuff!

Todd, my son and I have gone through all your photos. We love the double-decker rotisserie! That's brilliant! For a playfield swap, that makes absolute sense. We have the standard PinTisserie from Marco, not nearly as cool.

Just FYI, The Flash Gordons are ridiculously awesome. We have a ToM...It had been so well taken care of by its original owners (Mike and Bill Hollenbeck of Pacific Coast Pinball) that I can't bring myself to restore it further. I updated the speaker panel and performed the process here:

http://www.dziedzic.us/wpc_speaker_replacement.html

Perhaps one day we'll strip the playfield and have it more professionally restored. We have so much fun playing it we can't imagine taking it down long enough to do anything else to it.

Ryan, thanks for the kudos! Agreed 100% on giving my son ownership. Frankly, I'll benefit, because well, he's a genius.

Given my son's knowledge of 3D printing from school, and his desire to dive deep into that world, I took the plunge and ordered a lulzbot. It means one less pinball machine in the next few years, but if in exchange we throw more fuel into his fascination with making things then I think it's the right investment.

Today we discussed what filament would be best for it (he thinks ABS), and that we could post the STL file so other pinball restorers running into this problem could just print their own. I'll keep you all posted on progress on that.

By the way, it seems that Bondo has color options for the cream hardener. Apparently my local Home Depot only carried the red, hence my confusion. From the Bondo website:

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I can't decide what I love more right now, the Bondo or the fiberglass resin. I'll never fix things with duct tape again.

We ordered decals from Bay Area Amusements. To be honest, we haven't opened them yet, figuring they are probably somewhat fragile and we should avoid it until we're ready. I'd assume they are purple, which was stock. The only black ones I've seen were after market or custom, though there is some beautiful art in the BoP and BoP 2.0 threads.

Clearly I failed to read the tutorial on applying cabinet decals! Why wet vs. dry? What's the advantage?

Unfortunately, I can't print (easily) metal. I could find some brackets that can fit in the gap, but they won't be connected to each other, which I think would enhance the value. I agree metal is better but...This might be enough. Only one way to find out.

I noticed that Chris Hutchins installed these in his two BoP restorations without any brackets you can see, so I'm guessing he used washers. We're talking 3-4mm here, so I'm guessing also the brackets can bend slightly to accommodate.

We'll post some updates tomorrow. We're being a bit OCD on the bondo process.

My son and I watched all these videos. By the end he was saying "Dad, can we not watch another person put on decals, I'm dying over here." LOL.

Anyway, what strikes me here is that the wet method may be best for decals that aren't 100% flat on arrival or are in danger of some kind of awkward application. On the flip side, my intuition is that I'd rather apply the decal dry, if I had my choice. The actual act of spraying the decal's underside while applying introduces a point in the process where I could introduce a mistake (i.e. a crease), whereas the cleanliness and simplicity of the dry process seems more my style.

Once we open up the packaging the decals arrived in (tube with tape covering the ends, not exactly hermetically sealed) and see their condition, we'll make the call on our first decal application method!

Now, back to sanding Bondo. My whole body is covered in pink dust.

BY THE WAY, my son and I will be at California Extreme this weekend, both Saturday and Sunday, if anyone following this thread wants to meet us. I'll look for my Pinside badge...

My son is into the Bondo. We've been a little obsessed with making it right.

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He likes doing the hard work. He'll sweat on this for an hour, why not do the dishes? I do not understand.

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This is the sort of thing we spend too much time on. On many BoPs this little spot just beneath the backbox tends to be worn and chipped. We rebuilt it with Bondo.

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Almost finished with the outside!

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Now we'll take a weekend off to attend the California Extreme show in sunny Santa Clara, California. My wife is scared I'll come home with another machine. I'm just here to play!

We have a orbital sander. Honestly, for taking off glue, going one direction was marginally faster. For finish work and sanding smooth, we like the control of hand sanding. We used the orbital for removing paint and for really rough spots.

I get the feeling a belt sander would be perfect but that being an amateur could ruin my day. Plus, you get a great workout with a block sander!!

As we move to the inside we'll move to an orbital probably since it's so awkward.

My son got a good look at some of the restorations here on Pinside. Why did I get him a computer? Anyway, he prefers the "clean look" of the natural wood for the floor of the cabinet. Since this is a BoP from 1989, when they made the cabinet, they were liberal with the black spray paint and overspray onto the floor of the cabinet. To make matters more complicated, the floor is MDF, so it absorbed quite a bit of black paint at the overspray locations.

So, for cleaning out the inside of the cabinet, we decided to sand out the overspray black paint. There are certain areas that no electric sander can hit, and even a manual block sanding is complicated. For example, in this corner where the power switch plate is located, it's hard to get into the corner. I came up with this trick, using a small razor blade to scrape the black layer of paint off:

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Finally, for those hard-to-reach channels and edges, a thin piece of plywood wrapped in sandpaper does the trick:

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The final result is surprisingly effective. I keep seeing black paint, but that may be my sun blindness at this point.

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No sign of boot prints anywhere. We'll paint the sides and the gossets semi gloss black, so no sense in getting the gossets perfect.

We'll do some final bondo on the inside walls of the cabinet, then we'll hit it all with 80, 120, and 220. Then repeat all again for the backbox!

First I'm honored you're following this thread, thanks for the kind words, Bryan! We are trying to follow your example as best we can. Somehow, going through your restoration of IJ thread, I figured out that I had most of these tools you use now...So I might as well give it a shot. What my son and I don't have is the miles of experience so this is definitely going to take a while.

We have these moments in this process where something is so hard (like the sanding of the inside bottom) where you almost feel like cutting a corner. Our agreement is to just take a break and attack it again the next day. So far, we've managed to not take short cuts. I'm a little nervous removing cabinet wood parts (like gossets or the power switch block) because we don't quite have the grace to not damage the cabinet. Maybe on the next restoration.

You probably saw I mentioned that you probably would have re-made the gossets to fit the new plates. We took a different tact, and have successfully created a 3D model of a perfect adaptor (we tested printing an ABS plastic draft) that sits between the leg plate and the wood. It's stronger than the cabinet wood, so I'm not worried about using ABS for structural integrity. We could also send the model to Shapeways and get metal adapters. When we're finished with the final touches, we can post the 3D model so if someone wants to print it (in ABS or metal) they can use it. We are a ways off from putting them in but it gave us something fun to do. So in this case, we literally avoided "cutting corners." (Terrible pun.)

Today and tomorrow we're hoping to finish the bondo/sanding work so we're ready to prime.

Question for all of you: We have a HVLP paint sprayer we were hoping to use with some white Kilz Original primer. Anyone have any experience with this? I've only used it years ago for general spraying with a thinned paint. It's a 1.7mm nozzle so I'm hoping it works without any thinning. We have some naptha we can use or can acquire some better thinner. I know Bryan uses rattle cans, but since we're going to be matching the purple decal with a latex paint for the top and back of the backbox, I figure we'll need a sprayer option anyway. Think this is doable?

All Bondo work is complete. Next we'll sand and sand and sand (120, 220). Then prime.

Backbox all filled in:

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Meanwhile, my son is printing the next draft of the adapter plate:

Fits like a glove, I love that this works:

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It's my first, for sure. I'll be honest, we keep looking at the playfield in the corner of our garage (still not stripped down) and it's super intimidating. We're focusing on the cabinet for now. I'm hoping to do a playfield swap, but even then, I can't imagine keeping all of this straight. We probably should swap out all the microswitches with new ones, but man, I'm terrible at soldering!

Thanks! I have a Weller with a digital temperature setting. My issue is mostly around de-soldering, which I must have a genetic defect preventing me from doing without damage.

We will throw it up on Thingiverse, but we really want to test it in our own restoration first. (Also we're new to all things 3D printed so any tips to posting on Thingiverse?) However, if you need it sooner than that (we're moving at a first-time restorer's pace) just PM me with an email and I can send it to you.

We're just getting back from some travel, so hopefully we can post more progress this week.

Made some progress today. We focused on getting the main, lower cabinet ready for priming. I wanted to show off some of our repairs before they were covered up!

This is what the side looks like after it has been hit with 220:

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I find it interesting that the cabinet was not sanded to this level in the first place, particularly the inside where you can see the side of cabinet above the playfield. It didn't take much work to get it smooth:

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Here you can see the repair to the front where someone took a crowbar to the coin door. We chose to drill some shallow holes in the damage, fill with fiberglass resin (after putting an aluminum dam around the coin door edge). That worked for most of it, but for the more shallow areas we ended up adding some Bondo:

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A close up:

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The original:

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My son next to the cabinet, ready to get primed. We're proud of our work, this is all new to us!

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Even the back was filled up and sanded smooth:

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I repaired the damaged ridge beneath the backbox. I somewhat regret not using fiberglass resin for this particular repair, because I have a feeling it gets dinged a lot:

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And finally, the inside. I don't look forward to taping the bottom out for priming, but we'll get it done:

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Since we're getting closer to priming, anyone have any particular advice around 1) thinning Kilz Original for spraying and 2) what grit sandpaper to scuff sand the primer coat before putting on another coat or a final top coat?

-Jay

I also plan to use an HVLP. I lack the ambition to use any two part primers or paints. If I can't get the primer to spray the way I want, I may just purchase some Kilz in rattle cans.

All good advice. I'll experiment with my 1.7mm nozzle and see what works and what doesn't. I'll post my results here.

Meanwhile, completed the backbox with 120 and 220 grit:

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The only things we haven't done is "break" or bevel the edges and make/install new chocks. Anyone have any feedback on the beveling? The backbox and cabinet did not have beveled edges on all the edges. It had that on the bottom of the backbox and maybe the back edges, but most of the edges came to a point. I understand there is value in the beveling for installing the decal art, but what exactly? The beveled edges would need to be painted the color of the art (purple) and match pretty perfectly to not stand out.

By T molding are you referring to edge covering? I think I know what you mean... I saw someone put brass molding on their ToM.

I'm leaning towards painting the edge and backbox area in front of the backlass semi gloss black. I was originally thinking purple, but the more I imagine it the more I think black will look great. It will be primed well so I don't think the plywood grain will be very visible. Is that why you are suggesting it?

Also, the Sterns with that stuff kind of look cheesy to me, but that's just my opinion.

EDIT: Referring to the chrome t mouding... Though I suppose if kept in good shape it would look pretty good.

Well the beauty of T moulding is that I can wait to see how it looks and add it after...Though I'd have to cut a slot, correct?

I think I'm going to pass on the T moulding this time. I see the value but I don't think we have the right tools and right experience yet to make it happen.

Meanwhile, prior to priming (and building our amateur spray booth), we're going to need to break these corners. I see Bryan uses a longer sanding block to make it a bit more consistent... We can try that. There already were SOME beveled edges on the cabinets, so we'll probably work to match it.

Since this is a BoP, and we're dealing with dark purple, will the white part of the vinyl be a problem on the edges?

Did my best to make some new chocks out of oak. It's not hyper precision (I think they are a millimeter too shallow) but they look better than the originals, that's for sure. Think it's safe to nail gun them with finish nails into the cabinet?

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Chocks installed! I did my best to put them close to where they were when we took them off. However, they weren't equidistant to the sides before, so we corrected that now (the holes in the back of the cabinet are also off-center slightly).

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I've beveled the corners of both cabinets.

I imagine that the color you paint the bevel will depend on what edge you're looking at. For example, it seems the bevels on the two front corners of the main cabinet would be purple (where purple meets purple), and probably on the bottom (where purple meets unpainted bottom edge). However, where purple meets black on the rear two corners, it seems to me that I might be better served painting the bevel black, because otherwise when you look at the cabinet from the back you would see a purple outline. Am I thinking of this correctly? I guess the alternative is a black outline for the side decals, which might be annoying as well. (Why are we beveling again? LOL.)

The back of the backbox I was planning on painting black to match the original, and painting the rear bevels black as well. The top would be purple to match the decals. I noticed HEP paints them a darker purple. Anyone have any thoughts on this? The back of both the backbox and main cabinet were black when I got it.

My temporary spray booth looks like a creepy scene from the TV show Dexter. Yikes.

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Tomorrow I'm going to experiment spraying Kilz Original with a 2.0mm nozzle at various levels of thinning. I'll try it first without thinning, as 2.0mm is supposedly a primer nozzle after all.

Reading online that my 1.7mm nozzle might be better. Where are the auto painting enthusiasts when you need them?

My son and I finished off the taping and masking of the cabinet today, and managed to prime the backbox. Here's my son reaching into the cabinet. We learned that the Harbor Freight lift table is also useful for raising the height of a helper so he can reach the inside of the cabinet:

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Here's what I learned priming my backbox today:

I chose a Neiko 2.0mm HVLP spray gun. The gun's specs are about 4.5cfm for nominal operation at 40psi. The compressor I have is a pancake compressor that does about 3.5cfm at 40psi. This is not ideal. Don't do this. I think for the cabinet I'll rent a larger compressor.

The nozzle size was fine spraying Kilz Original, but I had to thin it about 20% with thinner. I honestly don't think this matters much, though spraying this took a really long time (partially because I had to keep waiting for my compressor to catch up).

Here's the final product, after three hyper thin coats of Kilz:

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My poor man's spray booth was not adequately ventilated. I had a good respirator but really folks, don't do this, get proper ventilation if you're going to use a HVLP gun, it gets everywhere. I looked at myself in the mirror after and thought I aged, and realized that a fine mist of white Kilz was in my hair. I guess I should have worn hair protection!

As far as the finish is concerned, it's hard to say if it's orange peel or just my inconsistent sanding, but I think it looks pretty good. I experimented using Kilz from a spray rattle can for part of it and there is no question the atomization of the HVLP gun was superior to the rattle can. The trouble is that you can't get the HVLP gun into small areas, so using both isn't crazy if you're careful with the rattle can.

Anyway, next stop...priming the cabinet, and matching the purple decal color at a paint store.

My intent is to sand again with 320 until it's super smooth before painting a color. Do you feel we should paint another coat of primer after sanding it again?

As for the purple/black debate...I keep going back and forth. I'm definitely going with black for the inside of the main cabinet, inside of the main backbox, and the front edge and visible inside area of the backbox. Originally I was going to paint that purple but despite the marketing flyer showing this, I like the look of the black better there.

The question is what to paint the back of the backbox and cabinet. My current plan is to paint the back of the backbox purple and the back of the cabinet black, though I'm struggling a bit figuring out what to paint the beveled edges. If I stuck with just purple, this debate disappears. I have the same problem on the front edge of the backbox, where black meets purple. Decals will be married up against these edges, so my instinct is to paint the bevels the color of the decal, so I can paint the white vinyl to match. I'd love thoughts on this.

I rented a larger, 7CFM compressor, and it made a huge difference. Now I have a good motivator to get the painting done quickly:

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Once the paint was dry, I was less concerned about orange peel. It was gone. There was one spot where I painted too thickly, but that is easily rectified with sanding. A primed cabinet!

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Next step, sand down with 220, then paint color.

Thanks. I think we'll sand the primer-only decal areas with 320 prior to applying decals, everything else will be 220, paint, 220, 320, paint.

We learned a few things today.

First, for anyone in the future trying to get a paint matched to your BoP purple, let me help limit your wasted time. High end and low end paint matching stores all use a variation of the same software matching system (Sherwin Williams and Home Depot included) that scans a source color and comes up with a match. Vinyl decals, specifically purple, have a reflective quality as well as a faint dithering to create the colors. This dithering, combined with the fact that bright ink colors in general are fairly rare in household paint, will cause any computer matching system to basically fail creating this purple.

However, if you stick to Home Depot or Lowes, there is a way to do this. You start with a purple (in my case, I found a swatch called Academy Purple), and you find an experienced person with no chip on his/her shoulder working the paint matching counter. They can edit your color by hand to create a match. It took him about twenty minutes, and to be honest, I'll never go anywhere else but this dude again, bless him.

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It's not going to be perfect. If you want a perfect match for touch-ups, don't use this paint, use Createx Airbrush Colors and mix your own, you'll be way closer to the original. Here's a link: http://www.createxcolors.com/airbrushcolors.html

However, given that this paint will only be visible on the bevels, on the edge of the vinyl, and on the top and back of the backbox, I think it will be a great choice...We'll see when I get there! If you want to use it, in theory, a home depot can scan that QR code on that image and make you this paint.

Meanwhile, back to our restoration: Today we sanded the primer with 220 (and 320 where decals were going over primer) on both the cabinet and backbox. We then HVLP sprayed the first coat of semi-gloss black on the front/insides of the backbox and the inside and back of the cabinet.

The second important thing I learned today is more regarding HVLP spraying. For today's paint, which was a Behr Ultra Plus Semi-Gloss latex black paint, I used a Neiko 1.7mm nozzle HVLP spray gun, again with a 7CFM air compressor. I didn't need to do any thinning at all! In fact, right out of the can, it sprayed beautifully, though I did need to remove the stupid built in filter that ships with the Neiko (it is a small, white plastic cylinder that sits between the paint reservoir and the nozzle that is easy to remove). Here are the results of the first coat:

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I can already see the extra attention to the details really paying off, particularly in places like this:

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Tomorrow, if the paint is ready, we'll sand all the black areas with 220, then 320, then do a final coat of semi-gloss black. This thing is really coming together! I also just got word that my repro playfield is coming soon, so now I know what my plan will be for the playfield.

The magic of Bondo and fiberglass resin:

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The HVLP gun sprays a super consistent coat, but fair warning, it's also SUPER THIN. This latex paint covers really well so it's hard to tell how thin it is. I hit the black from yesterday with 220/320 before spraying the final coat, and the white primer was quick to show through in places. You can't spray thicker because you'll get orange peel, so you may need multiple coats, your milage may vary. I think I'm good with two coats.

While the black paint is available, we have a couple more projects besides the cabinet to hit with black paint!

We painted the bolts we want to be black with a Scotch Brite pad, then painted with a self-etching primer:

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Nothing quite like the fun of removing the old, moldy, boogery paint from the U and H channel pieces. Just imagine how many sneezes these pieces saw over the past 26 years!

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The channels get cleaned with a Scotch Brite pad, cleaned with naptha, then also spray painted with self-etching primer. Finally, they get a couple coats of semi-gloss black:

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Finally, the bolts got a couple thin coats of semi-gloss black as well:

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Now I'm debating painting another coat of black on the cabinet. I'm unsure if the shinier areas are that way because of my lame ass sanding or because of inconsistent painting! I'll let it cure for another hour or two and check again.

Well, the simple answer, because I don't have one. Regardless, it didn't take long. Also, the bolts had already been tumbled, so all I needed to do was a second of Scotch Brite per bolt on the head. Still, probably worth buying a wheel soon, since at some point I'll be re-surfacing the ball guides and other stainless items. It might make easier work.

That's a valid choice. In fact, working with two part automotive paints probably would give me the best results, but I have more experience with latex so I went for it. If I went to an automotive paint store, chances are I'd have an easier time matching the purple! The truth is, after reading through a number of Vid's threads, I got attached to the idea of a good latex paint.

When I sanded the paint it sanded quite easily. The key with most latex paints is that it takes longer to cure, so for best sanding results, you must wait much longer. Regardless, the results look pretty good. I'll post some better lit photos tomorrow.

Ok experts. What would you recommend doing about this orange peel?

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Should I let cure, wet sand, and re-paint? What grit to wet sand with?

My guess is that my sprayer was too close to the surface. It's on the very back of the main cabinet.

I'm thinking I should let it cure for a day first, though. It's dry to the touch but this paint takes a while.

My son thinks it looks good this way. Maybe we're overthinking this! Regardless, time to stop trying to correct it and let it cure for a few days at least as you suggest.

I lose my compressor tomorrow. I may try to paint the purple somehow, though I'm afraid to mask anything fresh.

Exactly my thoughts. Since the backbox black is finished, I'll HVLP the purple tomorrow if I think it can handle the masking tape. I also managed to get the playfield mounted on a rotisserie:

Never seen a drywall screw used as a bumper post before.

This is my first time using this rotisserie (the one Marco sells), and I have to say, I'm really disappointed. The brackets that hold the playfield bend easily under the weight of the playfield. When you turn it upside down, if the C clamps aren't super tight right up against the horizontal brackets, they will just bend and break. I'll probably screw this playfield directly into the brackets. I could probably improve this with some thought, but for now, it seems stable enough. I'll end up making my own rotisserie in the future, but a shame to pay this money and have it be flimsy.

I'm feeling the purple pinbot power.

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Do you folks typically paint the sides where the decals go? I was thinking of doing the edges of the sides so the bevel matches.

Since decals are going on the sides of the backbox, and the current surface is perfect for the decal, I may limit the spray to the edges. Then again, if I start spraying and I'm covering most of it anyway, I'll just finish the job.

The cabinet is making progress as well:

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Well, interestingly, the paint comes out initially in a bit of an orange peel, then it flows outward and the orange peel disappears, particularly on a surface properly sanded.

My painting process ran into a few hiccups. The purple turned out great. The black, however, has inconsistent semi-gloss. I'm thinking that the black paint unmixed itself at some point, or something about spraying it un-thinned. The purple, which is the exact same base, I thinned with about 10% water, and it worked beautifully.

To fix it, I abandoned the HVLP for the black and went to Rustoleum 2x "Painter's Touch" Semi-Gloss black spray paint. The stuff really looks great. In fact, I was just about finished with all the painting, when I made a rookie mistake. I had taped on top of the black paint with a high end 3M masking tape, and when I pulled it off, it left its glue residue behind, rendering wherever it was with zero gloss. If I wet with naptha or thinner, the gloss returns.

So now I'm experimenting with removing the glue with thinner. If that fails, I'll have to either repaint with black, or paint over with a semi-gloss clear, which I have handy. If anyone has any experience with this problem, let me know.

Also... I'm wondering if anyone has cleared over the warning screen text? One option would be to hit everything with a semi-gloss clear once the screen text is on, though my fear is that it would dissolve the screen ink.

Great tips, thank you. For the clear, I was planning on using the Rustoleum Semi-Gloss clear spray rattle can, since this isn't a playfield after all. Any experience with that?

You can see some inconsistency with the semi-gloss clear. I'm pretty sure this happened because the pressure out of the can was so high, even at 12", it pushed or blew the previous line of paint aside.

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Do you guys recommend we add a coat or two, or sand down (maybe wet sand with high grit) and then a new coat?

Also, can someone explain to me the science/wisdom around this:

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or from another angle:

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It seems that after sanding a coat of paint (say, at 320 grit), the entire surface will appear 100% uniform. Then, when I paint a new coat, there will be some areas that look like that. Almost like a naturally occuring steel diamond plate pattern. Is this random? Something left behind in the previous coat? We're at a loss.

The temperature was about 72 degrees. What causes checking and lifting?

This depends on what photo. On the black photo with the strange lifted pattern, that's just spray enamel (Rustoleum Painter's Touch) on top of Kilz primer. The inconsistent clear coat photo is spray enamel clear (Rustoleum Painter's Touch Semi-Gloss) over latex.

...and I should add, the strange lifted pattern was really enamel on top of enamel, as I sanded a previous coat of semi-gloss black and painted another coat on top, and got that pattern.

I didn't spray on clear in this case, it was another layer of black paint, three days later. Unfortunately, not long enough for curing.

Alas, you have all deduced correctly, I rushed it. I'm learning a new level of patience watching paint dry.

Yes, I agree, I will force myself to take more time. Interestingly, the raised areas sank back down after about an hour. More evidence that patience is a virtue.

Honestly, my son and I haven't decided. We both really enjoy playing BoP 2.0, so it may be in the future. Before we would do that, we would want to fully restore the original as best we can.

We are going to be using a repro playfield. Our playfield is actually in decent shape, and if we had some more experience, would probably be worth restoring. It is fully mylared, though that could also be a good thing as once removed it might be somewhat protected. However, as you might see from this thread, painting is our biggest weakness, so we'll stick with the repro playfield.

Doing a playfield swap is also new for us, so we're researching good ways to document our teardown.

You got it, I'll be sure to organize the photos as best I can for your reference site. So far, the only playfield elements that have been photographed/removed is the apron, rear wood panel (whatever you call that), and the two wireform rails, as I intend on having them plated. I took photos from various angles as I removed them.

What I remembered most from the cabinet was that I really needed a photo of a removed screw in context. As I unscrewed something, I would lay the screw sideways near the hole and take a photo, so I could get a sense of what size screw went there. This being said, I really think I'll throw a spreadsheet together saying how many of which type of screw is associated with each removed part, and put the part and its associated screws in a bag labeled with a sharpie. Maybe I'll take a photo of the parts all on a table together for each bag as well.

Then, for screws/washers/nuts etc., I'll total up the count when it's all torn down and buy new ones (cheaper than Flitz). I'll tumble the rest of the stuff, or in the case of guides, polish them up.

That's the current plan. I got a bunch of ideas from this thread I started last year:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/teardown-techniques

If there is something I could add to make your reference site easier let me know.

My concern here with a rattle can is that we'll end up with the same effect (inconsistent gloss) due to the burning or blowing away the clear as the can makes each traversal across the face. That leads you to using a roller, but with a roller, does it dry flat or is the nap of the roller an issue? I suppose I could do a light sanding (what grit, by the way, do you recommend for this, and any reason to wet sand vs. dry at this stage) and then wait for a few days before spraying, and worse case, sand it again.

Thanks for the advice, I'll give it a shot. Any problem using a polyurethane clear on top of a latex paint?

I seem to recall Vid saying that oil-based polyurethane will yellow over time...

I agree, no need for clear, the issue was that my HVLP sprayed on latex had inconsistent semi-gloss on the back of the backbox. The purpose of the semi-gloss clear was to even it out. Ironically, it just made it less even, furthering the wisdom that what is on bottom is amplified by coats above it.

Pretty soon we'll be finished with the painting... I can't wait. I'm done with this respirator! We need to psych ourselves up for wet application of decals next.

After traveling for a week, we're almost finished painting. I'll post some final photos of the paint work soon. Meanwhile, does anyone here have a good photo of the ground braid behind the pcb panel in the backbox? I failed to take a good photo.

I think it looks fantastic, though I grant you my son does most of the detailed observation. My eyes aren't what they used to be!

Sweet lord that Gamatron is going to be ridiculously sweet. I want video when it's done.

Ok, it's coming! I need to move the cabinet out of its redneck spray booth and into the harsh light of day and take some photos. When I get back from work tomorrow (if there is still daylight) I'll roll it out. Seeing as tomorrow is my birthday, I might leave work early, we'll see.

The paint job is finally complete. We now present to you our very first pinball cabinet paint job! We're clearly not perfectionists. Regardless, we learned a ton during this process that will come in handy in the future. Here are the photos, hope you don't mind all the angles:

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I believe next stop is the warning label screen printing. Does anyone have any recommendations on thinning the ink, how much and with what? Then we will move on to the dreaded decal application. My son wants to do it wet, because he believes we should have a second chance if we screw anything up.

Took a break from the cabinet today to work on the PCB panel. I took a note from Bryan Kelly (who in turn credited Chris at HEP) and tried to make my panel a bit nicer to look at. Here's what I started with:

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Here's my son giving it a once over with 120 grit:

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He recently cleaned a steel machete which had oxidized with lemon juice. While I realize the nature of this corrosion was a bit different, we decided to try the experiment anyway. First, apply lemon juice to paper towel:

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Next spread the lemon juice over the panel:

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After a minute or so, the lemon juice creates this film over the panel. At first I thought maybe it was just oxidizing it worse.

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Then, after a few minutes, I cleaned it with naptha and sanded again with 120. You can see it seemed to be a bit shinier than before:

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I have no idea the science behind this. Here is the final result, after 220, 320 and a red Scotch Brite pad:

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I then sprayed it with some semi gloss clear and called it a day. It's not perfect and as shiny as Bryan's but considering it's a piece of metal you can't see I'm pretty satisfied.

We restored the light panel and did our silk screens. Unfortunately, we made a rookie mistake on the screens.

First, the light panel. The plastic light shield that fastens to the front of the light panel is super brittle. It looks like, over time, heat from the incandescent lamps caused some of the very thin outer plastic to shrink, causing them to crack or bend inward. I made an executive decision we shouldn't bother trying to restore the outer edge of this component, it was way too brittle. Instead, I just sprayed it with Rustoleum 2X Painters Touch Semi-Gloss White.

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The light panel itself required I remove the bulb sockets from the back. I then sanded the back with 120 and 220, cleaning it up quite nicely. For the front, I did a very light sanding with 320 and then sprayed also with Rustoleum 2X Painters Touch Semi-Gloss White. I think it looks quite nice.

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Removing the bulb sockets from the back did result in a few chips and pieces of old, brittle plastic coming off some of the sockets. None of the integrity of the sockets themselves were damaged so it's not that big a deal, but has anyone ever sourced new sockets anywhere? I've never seen these for sale. Also, those wires love to pop out of the IDC connectors. What's the best tool for punching them down? I was hoping my 110/66 punch tool would work but it's not perfect for these. The IDC punch tool I use for the wires in the backbox also doesn't fit right for these sockets. I'm just curious what you all use.

The amateur mistake with the silk screen was we put in too much thinner. Basically, I thinned it until it looked about the viscosity I saw in the video in which Bryan Kelly shows us how to do the screens. Here was the final result:

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The letters came out satisfactory, maybe a bit soft on the edges:

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Honestly, that doesn't bother me at all. It's the CAUTION area that really came out blotchy that really bothers me:

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The patent text on the back of the cabinet also was blotchy, you can see from this photo:

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Now the question: Should I try to fix this stuff? There is something almost realistic and legit about it not being perfect. Thoughts? How would I even begin to tackle fixing it even if I wanted to?

I like all this advice. Besides, it looks already better than when it was new by any comparison, and no one ever sees the back of the machine anyway.

Next step for us is the decals. My son is most anxious about this step, because he's afraid (even with wet application) of ruining all the previous work. Personally I think it will go well.

Do you think it's really critical to have wood to fill the coin door area during the application? What purpose does that serve, just provide support for the decal in that space?

Based on that, it sounds like I would want to temporarily screw the wood into place with a support block of some kind, correct? I've seen photos of this, it looks like it would work well to avoid anything protruding outward.

I didn't spray the back where the ground braid makes connections. Also the boards make contact with clips that touch the rear of the pcb panel so they would have a good connection there. I may go a little overboard and sand a bit on the back on the panel where those clips come in to be 100% sure everything is grounding right.

My light panel baffle looks pretty good and should work fine, despite having some dimples. I'm not sure it's worth the effort having one reproduced. If it was broken, different story. (I could also 3D scan the baffle myself and print a replacement, though honestly I'm not sure I see the point, unless it cracks completely.)

I may 3D scan mine if I can get the right tools together. I'll suggest it to my son who is the 3D genius in the house. If I do and we're successful I'll post the STL file. Meanwhile, after the decals go on, we'll test our 3D printed leg bracket adapters.

Washing the light panel wire harness.

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You know, I probably could. I'm a little worried about the plastic parts melting. An ultrasonic cleaner would be ideal, but unless I'm using it a ton, I'm not sure I can justify the expense.

Regardless, this took about 10 minutes of work. As I tooth brushed each socket, I found a few that were partially cracked. I'll replace those with new ones.