Yet another one enters the hobby room. Was asked by a pinball friend to work on this gem. Honestly I came across posts of this title a while back but thought nothing of it. Since the request to rejuvenate it i have looked into it and Im honored to be asked to work on a rare title (300ish made?). Table was received today so work can begin on it right away.

Work is outlined as follows

- finish disassembly of rails
- remove existing pop mylar
- remove existing center mylar
- thoroughly clean surface and inspect
- evaluate existing touch up attempts and how they will affect future repairs
- remove and or prepare existing patch attempts
- fill existing damaged areas
- owner asked that 2 light holes that the previous owner installed that are not stock be filled
- sand existing clear and prep surfaces
- review existing inserts and possibly remove existing clear on them also removing existing lettering / numbering and prep as required
- touch up existing open single colour areas with spot airbrush touch ups - no masking or stencil work will be used on table until locking clear is installed
- apply spot clear in areas to make up for sunken inserts and low spots
- apply first clear to lock in existing paint and minor black touch up areas
- sand and prep for touch up work
- proceed with more open area touch ups
- do custom masking / stencil work to areas that require more complex fixes
- owner is ok with repainting badly cracked white areas under the plastics so instead of a bright white, I will tint to make it look slightly aged to match the other random aged white graphics on the dragons on the field so they blend in nicely.
-review low spots and spot fill with clear
-apply clear
-wet sand

I made a few custom suggestions to the owner about possibly adding a few things to the playfield machinery and he seems onboard. Minor things will be done with the standup targets, drop targets and pop caps to compliment the playfield theme.

Lets get started!

Here you can see the previous repairs. His face and other random areas were touched up with black. Check out that awesome hot pink just left of the dragon head. In my discussions earlier with the owner today I mentioned what I think the black repaired areas were done with and why they have a ghosting around them. The next few posts will confirm my thoughts and will give you a closer look.

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Not going to lie but my sphincter was clenched tight as could be while removing the existing mylar. What you see lifting with the mylar is not actually the original paint but the black and blue from the previous attempted repairs prior to installing the mylar. Ok......I lie 2 tiny original paint areas lifted right around an insert. Hardly an issue at all as the inserts are all getting new black painted outlines. The blue you see on the mylar is actually another area that was touched up with blue paint previously. the 3rd picture confirms my suspension on what was used for the black. FELT MARKER!!! the ghosting in the mylar was the adhesive reacting and wicking the black out. Also I am also sure that pink area is nail polish. The blue I cant figure out but its not adhered very well to the wood below. You can see the felt actually being removed by the rag when i was cleaning off the mylar adhesive.

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Oh I got some surprises for you.

If he gets on my nerves I will drill random holes and install magnets and paint over them so he never knows what’s going on.

Mylar glue is all off and its ready for another look over.

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Ball swirl is bad and plentiful in areas. Its something that has to be lived with unless it fully repainted, but its character and wont look bad after the re-clear.

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It sure looks like this table at one time was possibly in storage somewhere without its glass. The whole thing is covered in what looks like a paint or clear over spray. Stuff will not come off unless it worked at.

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Its time to get sanding but first I need to remove the rails. I sure love this tool, a simple push and hold and in or out they go. A few final pics prior to the angle grinder being brought out.

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First go around done on half the table. Two long full stroke passes and check for colour on the pad. Keep checking and keep rinsing! You can see the inserts are slightly sunk, all inserts look the same. It was discussed to sand down the inserts and repaint the numbers / text however I am going to review again contemplate the pros and cons. If some inserts or all inserts are refinished the new look vs the adjacent ball swirl aged areas might look odd and out of place. New outlines around the inserts is a definite must do.

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The vertical lines you see in the inserts are existing and not from my sanding. In the picture just above you can see my sanding starting to work out the grooves.

I only sanded half of the table because reaching over the bench to the other side wolt allow me to apply the same constant pressure. The field will be flipped and the other half to follow. You can see the difference in the halves and how well the first sanding procedure helps sort out the existing rough play surface.

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The light reflections create a haze in areas. I have not hit paint paint but it looks that way in the pic in the black area.

Need to revise the list i made at the start. I forgot to list a few things prior to the first clear application.

Work is outlined as follows

- f̶i̶n̶i̶s̶h̶ ̶d̶i̶s̶a̶s̶s̶e̶m̶b̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶r̶a̶i̶l̶s̶
- r̶e̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶o̶p̶ ̶m̶y̶l̶a̶r̶
- r̶e̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶e̶n̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶m̶y̶l̶a̶r̶
- t̶h̶o̶r̶o̶u̶g̶h̶l̶y̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶n̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶f̶a̶c̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶p̶e̶c̶t̶
- e̶v̶a̶l̶u̶a̶t̶e̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶e̶m̶p̶t̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶a̶f̶f̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶f̶u̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶p̶a̶i̶r̶s̶
- r̶e̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶p̶a̶t̶c̶h̶ ̶a̶t̶t̶e̶m̶p̶t̶s̶
- f̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶d̶a̶m̶a̶g̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶a̶s̶
- owner asked that 2 light holes that the previous owner installed that are not stock be filled
- s̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶p̶r̶e̶p̶ ̶s̶u̶r̶f̶a̶c̶e̶s̶
- review existing inserts and possibly remove existing clear on them also removing existing lettering / numbering and prep as required

- NEW -do colour matching mixes for all colours being used on project

- t̶o̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶e̶x̶i̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶p̶e̶n̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶g̶l̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶l̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶a̶s̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶s̶p̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶i̶r̶b̶r̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶t̶o̶u̶c̶h̶ ̶u̶p̶s̶ ̶-̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶m̶a̶s̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶t̶e̶n̶c̶i̶l̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶u̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶u̶n̶t̶i̶l̶ ̶l̶o̶c̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶l̶e̶a̶r̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶s̶t̶a̶l̶l̶e̶d̶
- apply spot clear in areas to make up for sunken inserts and low spots
- apply first clear to lock in existing paint and minor black touch up areas
- sand and prep for touch up work
- proceed with more open area touch ups
- do custom masking / stencil work to areas that require more complex fixes
- owner is ok with repainting badly cracked white areas under the plastics so instead of a bright white, I will tint to make it look slightly aged to match the other random aged white graphics on the dragons on the field so they blend in nicely.
-review low spots and spot fill with clear
-apply clear
-wet sand

Forgot to mention about the colour matching. I think now is the best time to do it because once you get your clear on and sanded it can give you grief. By doing it now your actually not fighting with the fresh new 400 grit sanded clear that can cause the existing colours below to look slightly faded due to the sanding marks.

Got the first lay down of black finished yesterday. Why do black now? I found that laying down black / base colour on damaged areas is best done now. Doing this makes sure the colour I need to add after the first clear can be reduced to a much thinner application. All areas that had flaking or missing black paint such as around the inserts is covered free hand with the airbrush. This process can generate some minor ghosting around colours but its absolutely no issue. All areas will be cleaned with swabs and rubbing alcohol thus removing the slight over spray in areas. I don't use any adhesive masking at this time as I cant risk the existing colours being lifted.

The other base colours needing touch ups will go down later today after work, and the final insert sanding will be finished.

Feeling painty....might delete later.

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Because clear takes time to dry other things could happen. Need to talk to the client about the rails. The existing ones are in decent shape but show damage in areas. Its plywood with a black vinyl wrap that is slightly peeling back in a few areas. If new ones are desired I will get going on those this weekend in the sun.

Colour matches all tinted and set aside for project.

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Project is looking great and coming along decently as you can see.

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Upgrade!

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Inserts were glued a 2 days ago and I finished sanding them yesterday. Two were loose and were ready to run away.

Pretty in pink! This will bring out his eyes!

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Yes some progress has been achieved but I am slightly dragon my feet on this one HA HA HA get it.................. dragon................

Using my time machine i will take you back to about 3 months ago

Before doing the first clear i took a closer look at the existing art and found so many areas that were hardly holding on. Simply by using the airbrush and blowing some air at a low psi areas just started to fly away. Areas that were fair to begin with turned into a disaster zone. If i never identified these areas now the clear down the road would just lift later.

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After finding these areas i apply colours to them prior to the first clear. This will help reduce the amount of layers of final colour i will need to cover the dark or light areas. I dont have a picture of right after applying the colours but if you look at this pic from a later step you can see what I did for the primary colour touch ups. The black felt that was used by someone actually soaked into the wood and slightly ended up being re wicked up into the direct on wood primary yellow application as you can see.

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I went to go lock in the original art after my initial sanding and touch ups. Things did not go well. I had a reaction with something on the play field and it caused some massive fish eye. Not sure what caused this but possibly the unit was once cleaned with something that had a possible silicone additive that found it way thru the original cracked clear?

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At this time the existing center inserts had some terrible bubble issues because even after I did my best to sand them down slightly they were still hairline cracked deep into the insert. The owner was ok with me replacing them. I have a slightly different method of removing inserts. Im not a fan of pushing them out because even if you score around the tops of them and slightly heat them I have had the play field lift around them. I drill holes and then use my cutting bit in my Dremel to slice them in half and then pull them towards the center with pointy pliers and they just fall out.

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Discussed a few options for a new bonus insert layout. Factory had both clears and opaque. I first proposed all clears but the top 100% one would show the socket below and i did not favor that. Nothing more annoying than having a bonus bright light right in your eyes in that location. I suggested all white opaque with colour leds under. This way every bonus is a different colour and you get a uniform bonus indicator all the way down. It will also show off the new font being used better. A test was done on my sinbad. Hard to see in the picture but all inserts are clearly a different colour.

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After sorting out the fish eye issue with lots of patients and stress I was able to move on. The first thing I tackled was the orange. I went thru this process about 6 times because i was not happy with the final colour results. You need a opaque base colour down first before the top coat to cover any dark areas and ball swirls or they just show thru with straight orange. Also with a base you know for sure the top coat will be the same tone all over the board and not be affected by the old sun faded/ darkened existing areas. White as a base made the orange way to bright and looked florescent in a way. After working with the base coat i found something i was happy with that worked perfect with the orange, and red. I now did not have to actually tint the top coats but rather was able to use the opaques right out of the container. You can see the wacky base colour but it worked great. Orange, red is still bright but it took off that edge.

With white

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With custom base #6

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Yellow also had its own base coat tinted to bring down the yellow pop a bit.

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The lighting in the pics still make it look dull but in a few posts you can see how bright it turned out with better pics.

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I finished with the accent orange ,yellow and red areas and also re did all the white areas. I started To work on Bruce but wanted to lock in all the other work just in case I had to rub off some of him for a redo i would not damage the adjacent work. I sprayed clear on the weekend and gave it a new 400 grit sand and now I am now ready to focus on Bruce and the center red area and yellow floor area along with the blue circle. Blacks are last so pay no attention to the missing black areas and lines. You can see on some parts of Bruce the new toned down yellow vs the old yellow with all the ball swirls that make it look very very dark.
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Semi interested. PM me pics and your thoughts.

Doing stuff, back on track. Chipped away at a bunch of small things. Got clear on it yesterday to seal it up. Black details are next and the text.

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A quick sand to prep it for the next stage. It has a few pin divots around the inserts. A drop of clear to each will fix that on the next coat.

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Some details are still required. Everything else was at a stage that if I tried to do some of the other details over the freshly painted areas and messed up I would not be able to remove the botched area without taking off the paint below. I can no revisit these areas because the clear was sanded today and ready for more paint.

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A few gas bubbles around a few inserts. Nothing to worry about as the next clear I will just add a drop to each one first prior to doing the spray.

Small details are being fixed up. Making corners sharp, ensuring curves have nice straight lines.......it goes on and on.

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The center scales needed to be tackled the correct way or it would have been a waste of time. Took the time to do a pattern and array it in Corel Draw to fit my area. Took some time to get the dxf to be recognized correctly from Corel so i brought it into Solidworks and worked some magic.

Lets play the jelly bean game!!! but can you guess how many dragon scales there are instead?
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Once down edges are trimmed so they can lay flat and not get under spray.

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A little bit of a sacrifice had to be made trying to do the scales. The original pattern had some very small areas that would not have worked out well trying to reproduce. I think I came fairly close and it will do the trick. There are about 3400 scales if you realy care.

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Once cut its best to leave the cut sheet sit for a few days if possible for something like this. After the stencil material gets cut it will actually open up just a hair allowing the cut outs to actually remain on the backing and not get pulled up when peeling off your cut piece. You can see in the pic the separation.

So there is a reasoning for doing all the black first if your wondering. If i were to paint the area red first then that means i would have had to transfer all the scales to the field and then sprayed back to get the outlines. Doing it that way would mean i would have to use a transfer tape to lift the scales off of the backing and then after applying it to the board tried to get the scales to stick properly and securely enough so they would not lift when trying to remove the transfer tape.

So I did it backwards. Black first then all i need to do it transfer the web to the board. This brings up another possible issue. Painting red over black gives you essentially black lol. Laying down a white or grey coat first and then the red can cause an issue when you lift your web after and you can possibly see the slight white or grey layer from the sides. Trick is to fool the eye with layers. First coat is a thin hot pink, then a cherry, and then the blood red. The lower test is an example of how it works well. The top is red just sprayed over black.

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Sexy hot pink!

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And a follow up of straight red.

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Fairly close of a match.

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Now you got me feeling worse about it.

Cut more scales and put down the blue.

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He’s got the blue measles.

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Stand ups and drops got a little dressing.

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Time for some airbrush splatter.

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Splatter went down good. Just some black shade in a few areas by hand after.

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Boring stuff.....

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More boring stuff.......

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I will skip all the other steps in the painting process as it gets monotonous.

This is it all finished at last. Hope the owner thinks it was worth the wait.

Rails just need to be put on, and all the post holes to be drilled and beveled.

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I think it would be a shame to replicate this one. Everyone and their dog would buy one and convert an old cab. So much for a rare title.

Now that’s a good polish !

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Stern circa 1980’s

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So help me god pingball if you drill a hole in that playfield I will come over and hit you with a stick.

I was thinking of larger stick but you got the idea....