Couldnt pull through to meet your deadline... Our stencils are always put through the actual process of a respray before being officially for sale. This eliminates any unforseen errors BEFORE they hit the end user. Registration error was found between cabinet front and sides which has now been addressed. Until we are 100% certain that everything is absolutely correct with our stencils we will not sell them. Unfortunately, we could not meet the April 20th deadline you gave to have this project finished. FATHOM stencils are now available from Flipperescue and we believe they are the best you will ever be able to buy. Good luck with your restoration... FATHOM is a beautiful machine and we will follow your progress with interest.

A couple of things I learnt doing a recent cab restencil:

Satin paint is best more forgiving if you cab is not perfect
Thin paint!
When doing lighter colour over darker, a thin coat of primer light sand otherwise you end up needing multiple coats of the lighter colour and the end result looks like a sticker when the stencil is removed.
Depending on your preference for original A thin coat of clear over the final helps protect the paint.
If you end up using a stencil kit I found cutting the 2nd and 3rd in sections works best as near impossible to line up unless you are a pro.

Good luck look forward to seeing pics of your progress

You are one talented cat! You own and repair pinball machines, and you know how to use a computer!!!

Graco is a nice unit. I have the professional model which lasts longer but is essentially the same thing. That said, be careful! They go through A LOT of paint and you don't want to be int he middle of a side and have the cup empty out. Additionally, because of the pickup tube, you'll only get about 2/3 of the paint in the cup - out of it before you have to refill.

My preferred method - and I stress MY so that people don't think I am saying it's the only method - is with a Titan HVLP setup shown below. It has it's own DRY, FILTERED air supply - no air adjustments required, and will shoot just about any type of material.

I use automotive base coat/clear coat paint and will never use anything else. It is certainly significantly more expensive than latex, but looks a million percent better, comes out smoother, and with less imperfections. I use PPG Omni, but others will work as well. I have used both the high gloss clear coat as well as "Flex'd and Flat" which is almost a satin finish. Just depends on what I (or whoever I am doing the cab for) wants.

I also don't sand between coats. I find it unneccessary if you use the right material and prep the cab appropriately. I still put on multiple light coats, but automotive paint drys VERY quickly. So your coats are 3-7 minutes apart on a normal day. The clear can be applied in a few hours. I DO a light buff sand (using a burnt sanding sponge) between the base coat and clear coat. The cabs I have done are like glass and smooth as a baby's butt! Picture below of one I did for a buddy.

I completely understand that not everyone has access to a $1400 spray unit but I would most definitely spend a few bucks and RENT one before I rolled paint on. Worst finish ever. And for those that say that rolled finishes are fine, I would argue most have not seen a sprayed finish done right. I have done them both and did not know what I was missing until I saw the finished product of an HVLP sprayed cab done in automotive base coat /clear coat. Just my .02. Best of luck and I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Cheers,
Ray capspray-105-product-page.jpg IMG_1252.jpg IMG_1242.JPG

Toro
Red over black is hard to do how many coats on the xenon cab you did?

Definitely bookmarking this thread, this is really cool. Gonna have to remember it when/if I chose to do a full restore.

what brand of paint is this? latex or oil?

I want to say 3or 4. With about 5-7 min between coats. By the way, that finish is like glass and the only sanding done at all was after the base coat/stencils were dry. And then, it was a very light sanding the a burnt/used up fine sanding sponge before I shot the clear. Nothing after the clear. This was also shot out front in my driveway.

That's the benefit of using a good sprayer and great paint. I used PPG Omni and the great thing about automotive paint is that it flashes quickly-so dust doesn't have a chance to settle on it and stick in the finish.

One more thing, entire cab with stencils was painted in a day and a half. The base coat is ready to accept stencils in a couple of hours I think. Have to pull the product sheet for exact times but the stuff is great. Not cheap, but great.

how much?

For a cab like Xenon - $400-500 for everything in materials.

Stage one done!!! Stage 2 is the real test for any stencil especially a stencil like FATHOM.. hope you made good note of your registration.
OK.. paint peeling off when stencils removed can be a couple of things.. 1 is that you havent got good adhesion between the coats.. this is particularly prevelant for enamels and a light sand back of the base will help get better grip.
2 is that you sprayed too much paint and " filled" the edge between the stencil and the cabinet.. when you come to pull stencil off there is no determining edge between stencil and layer of paint and so it comes off trying to be one whole sheet.
You can minimise this by pulling off the stencil ALONG an edge and not against it.. same as when you pull masking tape away when painting up to some timber skirting for example.
The stencils have a mid tack adhesive.. it is designed to come away WITHOUT lifting any paint underneath. We have tried every stencil mask on the market and the stuff you have is by far the best and is for ALL types of paint.. BUT.. as with any vinyl stencil.. dont go spraying too heavy. In saying that though FATHOM is a tricky stencil and applying yellow over a deep blue and NOT spraying thickly is not that easy...

.. Looking forward to the next colour.. looks great so far!

Enjoying this thread, looking forward to the updates. Could you please post the Montana colors you decided to go with?

A few thoughts overall.
1) Nice job. This is not easy having done it a couple of times now. You are doing very well for the first time
2) The benefits of automotive paint cannot be overstated. it is perfectly suited for this. First off it dries quick. This means you can put MULTIPLE layers of light paint (like red or yellow) over dark paint (like blue or black) with no runs or ruining the stencil. That's because each coat dries within minutes after it hits the cab. Secondly it dries hard. This really helps when you pull the stencil off.
3) When you pull the stencil off - if you are using enamel paint, ensure you wait for it to cure a bit. With the automotive paint, a few hours is ideal. This lets the paint harden so pulling off the stencil is easier. Additionally, pull as close to straight back on the stencil as you can. Meaning, start at one end and pull NOT up, but straight back over the stencil. This works very well.
4) With respect to registration marks. Some stencils have them and some do not. I have used both. If they don't have them, I don't advise adding them. The reason is, unless they were added when they were cut, they won't necessarily line up.

How they work - Basically, they are cut when the stencils are cut. In the case of my Ms Pacman stencils for example, the registration marks were about half a dozen little pacmen in the stencil. When you pull off the first stencil, those pacmen remain. Each of the other stencils has the cutouts for those pacmen as well. You line them up so you know the stencil is in the right space. You do this for each successive stencil. What I have found for most pinball machines, however, is that they DO NOT have registration marks. Instead, they are designed so that they are cut to fit the individual sides of the pin pretty exactly. So if you put the stencil on straight, you're supposed to be good to go. I say supposed to be, because it usually doesn't work out that way. The first stencil can go on that way generally with no problems. For each of the successive colors, however, you need to ensure they line up as they should. I use pictures from the IPDB etc to make the fine adjustment with the stencil. This works MUCH better with two people.

Best of luck!

Self registration needs to be done BEFORE any stencil is used... lay one over the other exactly edge to edge and push a pin, punch a hole etc where you want the mark to be ( obviously under the siderail).. some people like registration, some dont. Its impossible to please everyone but if its not done already, then it cant be done.
Problem most have with aligning to an edge is that the stencil has sharp corners.. the cabinet doesnt and this allows for a margin of error im afraid, although if you have top edge exact and side edge exact.. stencils will align no problems. I sent you a file of what you should see when you start to apply the 2nd stencil.. i see from the pics you have posted that you are not pulling the backing sheet off completely to apply the stencils... good stuff!!.. By playing around with the top 150mm or so you can easily align and then pull backing off as you go.. the yellow waves are cut in half by the wider blue waves.. get this right and you should be OK. Only real area of precision with FATHOM is the blue checks inside the letters, although the cabinet we worked off to make the stencil had these misaligned and going outside the yellow and so we re-registered them when making the files. When done at factory there wasnt as much care taken to register compared to when we restore.. Its really up to the restorer how maticulous they want to be.. to factory or perfection?

Been waiting for the update... thats pretty good registration, the original we made the files from had quite a few of the blue checks outside the green....If you want to be really pedantic then you can mask off the small parts of base blue that are showing

Looking good. I'm pretty retentive, but I think that's pretty dead on.

Its really not that hard...

Use clear shelf liner and trace on it... then put it on posterboard.. then cut it later on top of a piece of lexan...

Looks very sweet.. and thankyou for the kind words

Awesome ! looks great !

Nice