*DISCLAIMER* This is going to be fairly verbose, and pic heavy once I get the time to upload pictures, so fair warning.
Just something about the 60's vibe on this thing... we looked for probably the better part of two years just wanting a BACKGLASS.. couldn't ever find one. Some dink had a framed one that looked like hell and were asking like 300 for it and wouldn't ever come off the price. Back a few months ago, we found a Tron we could not pass on that was HUO and local to us, so we bought it...off ebay. Knowing that we had committed this huge wad of money, and that we were supposed to go pick it up that evening, I did what any reasonable pinhead would do, right?
Checked Craigslist. And there it was. A Crescendo. Not just the backglass, but the whole thing. The PF looks like CRAP, man, but the backglass, holy smokes... it's about as close to perfect as you're ever going to see short of finding a NOS backglass out of a climate controlled time capsule. And even better, what's the price? 150 bucks. Text-bomb Quiddity OH HEY LOOK AT THIS....all I get back is "Call him."
So we get ahold of the guy, agree to buy. I leave work, drive 20 miles home and we drive about 80 miles round trip to pick up Tron and take it home. Then, after unloading Tron, we drive back pretty much to the exact same area to pick up Crescendo..literally it's about 5 miles apart east to west.
Crescendo is pretty awesome for 150 bucks. The guy said it didn't work.. I got it home, sat it on the floor flat, score motor started running wouldn't stop. Manually tripped the reset relay, all good, apparently. At the time we picked it up, it would start both players and end ball properly, scoring seemed to be okay, drop targets reset properly, the whole nine yards...it should be pretty easy to get going. All the topside parts that aren't attached from undertneath are in a big ziploc baggie, so I don't even have to strip the playfield. Excellent. A few days later, check ebay, and there is a pretty decent playfield on there for 65 bucks shipped...YES! It has a rather nasty looking stain by the flippers, but we'll deal with that for something that didn't try to survive Noah's Ark...
We've been mulling what to do with this thing for months. I finally pulled the trigger on working on it a few weeks ago. Ordered frisket, paints, bought a compressor and airbrush, and all the accessories. We started working on it "for real" yesterday. Getting the better playfield done was our first task, because it has to be ready to go to clear by the end of the month.
01/14/15 - Sanded the shooter lane and trying to get rid of some of the ball trails. Wish I had taken a true "before" pic, because the shooter lane especially was way worse than the "preliminary" pic I took after I had already worked on it. I don't think I can get the remainder of the black lines out, or the rest of the ball trail, but this was never intended to be a "beyond new" restoration.. It's a learning project, and frankly, given the specific title, a labor of love.
Once I got as much done with that as I cared to do (Don't have a sanding block..I don't want to make big unlevel areas where the ball trail is..), we started working on the frisket. All I can say is that it seems simple in theory, but this is going to be a skill that takes a long time to actually master. I have yet to figure out how in the hell you are supposed to cut it without cutting the playfield. I have brand new x-acto knives...not anywhere near sharp enough as far as I can tell. Sometimes it cuts right through, other times it just makes a bunch of tiny rips that tear pretty cleanly. It doesn't have to be perfect for me, but I could see this being extremely frustrating for the perfectionist who is just starting out.
My process has been to lightly sand the areas that are being repainted, then to frisket, cut out and weed, paint, and then set. I know Vid and probably many others would want to shoot a layer of clear over the original art first, both to lock down the layers, and to give a more "reversible" approach, but that simply is not an option for me. I have nowhere to spray any kind of clear at all. So this is kind of a trial by fire. I am NOT recommending anyone else follow my process, I'm simply documenting it, and the results.
We decided to customize this playfield, and not just go 100% original colors. Decided in keeping with the psychedelic theme to go with UV-reactive highlights for parts of the playfield. So far so good IMO!
Pics incoming..