Well into a DE The Simpsons refurb and thought I would post some peogress and a bunch of pics here incase it's of use to anyone else down the track.

Picked up a fairly worn out Simpsons locally. Looks like she had been played a fair bit in her day and stored for quite a while since but the price was right!

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Stripped out the cabinet and back box.

New base was required and all sides of ply were delaminating to some extent. The upside is it made for easy removal instead of sanding.

New 12mm MDF base made up and used about 4L of fibreglass resin to build the sides back up rebuild all corners and let any dry areas soak up. Took a fair bit of sanding to get all side smooth again. End result added some weight back into the cabinet and decals went on smooth.

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Cheers Chris. I'm sure many have been scrapped in better shape for sure!

Retro Refurbs. I will have a post on those shortly, there were a few things that whent on there.

It was a polyester resin. Gives such a strong repair and bond to ply. I have used it for rebuilding corners as I don't have the carpentry skillset required to do it the original way.

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For the cabinet steelwork, both the speaker panel and side rails had some corrosion and powdercoat flaking. They were taken back to bare metal, prepped and coated with a black epoxy. The particular paint used had the most similar finish to the original powdercoating. Nothing beats the longevity and hardwearing properties of the original powdercoat finish but given this game will now be played at home a few times a month as opposed to the relentless weekly abuse during its arcade heyday, I think it will stand up fine...

Also decided to freshen up the speakers and dmd plastic as i found none of the DE Simpson plastic kits contain this peice and they all seem to have faded over time. I scanned the original speaker grill and plastic for some photoshop treatment. Cleaned up the speaker design and completely reworked the dmd.

The speaker grill was an experiment using a product called mod podge. You can take a laser print (not injet), paste it face down onto the metal. 24hrs later, moisten the paper and disintegrate it away. Your left with the ink adhered to the surface with a thin layer of clear glue. You then lacquer the surface so it has a deeper color. Worked surprisingly well however, it certainly takes some time to manually clear out each hole in the speaker grill afterwards. The design for The Simpsons is so simple, I have made an inverted black and white digital copy that I'm having made into a screen print mesh on etsy for $30. Should be able to see if that will work even better.

The dmd plastic was just a scan of the original then some good old fashioned photoshop work before having the plastic made up. The plastic really pop,'s now against the black. I also integrated an LED strip to the back timber panel as the original lighting only spot lit 3 points.

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So a quick one on the decals. I have used retrorefurbs for Lethal Weapon and now Simpsons. I used Pinball Centre out of Germany for a Twister refurb. I found both to be great but Pinball Centre's supplier definently uses a thinner vynil than RR. Doesn't make them worse (some may prefer it) but it took alot more care not to screw it up. I have found the RR is thick enough/stiff enough for 1 person to apply and a little more forgiving if your surface prep isn't to a NASA clean room standard.

So on these Simpson decals I initially wasn't happy, there were some artwork errors, very small but as your going to the effort you want it to be perfect. RR suprised me, they replaced the lot, I was only after the coin door decal but they had mistakenly used an old file set so it was the whole new set with near perfect graphics and coloring as per the original. Nice work.

The backbox decal positioning was a slight headache, with The Simpsons i would reccomend doing the left hand side first as the positioning of the artwork isn't as forgiving as the right hand side if your planning to keep the same angles as the original without needing to crop or atleast having both sides cropped the same. I used an outline of the backbox on the playfield glass to layover the decal to find the perfect position.

I used the steel leg protectors as I have found the plastic ones still move and can damage the decals.

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Cheers. Project pins are also really hard to find here in Australia. It's only my 3rd resto but the first that's been so involved. The playfield is underway, this thread has almost caught up to where I'm at now.

Yeah a bit of fun for sure! Mylar is worth it's weight in gold when it comes to protecting the artwork. From what I have seen on other threads, these Simpson playfields were susceptible to wear around Moe, the waterfall and the inlanes. The cartoon artwork makes it possible for touchups that can look as good as the original. Some talented folks on pinside with the brush.

Absolutly.. the crustier the better! but also as the saying goes, beggers can't be choosers.. very rare for project pins to pop up for sale here. The good thing about this one was it hadn't been stripped for parts so that's half the battle won already. I did a Twister a while back and man that was a challenge to track down some of those parts.

The playfield... aye'carumba

So it does look like this playfield may have, at one stage, closely orbited the sun. Crusty, dry, yellow. Clearcoat seems to be all gone. All the donut and icecream inserts lifting. At some point half the Mylar has been pulled off Bart and some red spray paint used. Good as new, play on kids! All the other areas with the typical wear, Moe and his apron, cracked ramp etc.

Initially thought I could freeze off the Mylar, clear and have it look semi respectable but as I was stripping down the PF and the paint was flaking off, it became apparent this would either need a new PF or be an overlay job.

So it turns out overlays for the Simpsons do exist. France of all places. There may be others out there but I didn't find them. It arrived the other day and have to say the quality looks spot on.

I spent some time and alot of freeze cans to remove some of the Mylar but in the end it was removed in the same manner a tablecloth can be removed from beneth a fully set dining table. Ta da!

The lifting inserts removed with care but they still had cracks so new ones needed.

The whole playfield was sanded down with 80 grit then 240. Small imperfections filled with Tamya putty. A dremel was used to clean out all of the old glue residue for the inserts, that took some time, very sticky stuff. New inserts sanded flat in preparation and treated the edges with Loctite SF 770 for the best possible bond with the epoxy when installed. Some hardwood, baking paper and long throat G clamp used for the install. They set fairly flush but given another 80/240 sand to be completly smooth and flush once set.

Overall the playfield timber is in good condition. All the other inserts fine. That's where she is at for now! Will need a good coat of clear some time to harden up and a good sanding job before the decal can go down so may be a few months before there's any more progress...

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Some parts that have been replaced so far. Able to get a decent backbox & dmd loom to replace the corroded ones. Generic shooter replaced with DE. Power supply has some corrosion issues and previous repairs. Both drop banks had a bit too much wear in the plates had already been rotated at some point. Speaker is shot. Coin door wasn't too bad but replaced.

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Cheers. Hoping to get it looking great again and live on for a while yet in the family. Definetly a project for the sake of enjoyment given the hours needed.

Thankyou. Getting better at it slowly. Alot more talented and experienced people on pinside doing great work on some of these older pins. Wouldn't stand a chance without some of those guides they take the time to write up.

Is that a home-brew Simpsons playfield in your profile picture?

Nice one! I was having a hard time finding another PF that was right for the resto. Was very happy to find that overlay supplier although, it was hard communicating at the start to order it. That's 3rd person now that's recently got an overlay for the Simpsons. Good luck with it.

That's awesome. A massive undertaking and a very cool theme to be working towards.

Following on from the idea of another pinsider, a small side project that may fail... either way original plastic won't be altered..

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Nice one! Looks nice with the all white backbox design. Did you decide to keep homer's feet un-lit? I didn't realise they were just for errors/cleaning

From a pinball shop in France

https://www.flipper.shopping/

The quality is great

Will do... even if I stuff it up!

Should be able to get it done/attempt it in about 4 to 5 weeks after the clearing/prep is done and other work commitments out of the way.

Yeah that's an odd one for sure! Maybe a reaction with a fresh clearcoat and the adhesive on the overlay? Or a chemical used to wipe down prior? I'm letting this clear sit for a month before prepping and putting the overlay on. Fingers crossed!

NOS is the holy grail find that's for sure.

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Yep, you should just be seeing the white of the backing paper behind the clear print medium. Aslong as your overlay doesn't have any sort of clear protective cover ontop of the print? A pinsider from the states received one like this recently and it destroyed the overlay when he tried to remove it. The one I received has no top layer like this.

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Finally back and getting into it.. should only be a few days before there is a result either good, bad or ugly.

Couple of clear coats have had some time to set and now nice and flat 400 , 800 then 1200.

Should be good enough for decent decal adhesion. Just deciding if I want to get really polished up for so the inserts to pop or if dull inserts @1200 won't matter as almost all of them will be behiend artwork anyway. Also mindful I don't want this decal to lift/delaminate after a few years. Maybe leaving a little bit of bite is a good idea.
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Cheers Dave, I haven't tried lining it up yet but as you say, going to look alot better than it was regardless.

Cheers for the picture. Looks good!

I've done a quick backlight test and looking ok. The outlane switches are probably the two main culprits making perfect alignment difficult for me.

Any tips from your install? I'm going the folded top half then bottom half install method. Some light flatbar across the top of the decal to keep it square while applying. I havnt made a trace of the playfield for location of wire form holes etc but imagine they are easily located by feel once the decal is down?

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