Greetings!

I recently began working on restoring my 1989 Bally Elvira and the Party Monsters pinball machine to a respectable condition. I bought the game in 2012 for a fraction of the going price. Obviously it was because of the machine's condition. It worked well, almost no problems playing, and visually could pass off as a pinball game. I decided she deserves better and began working on her in January 2015.

elvira & totan.JPG

Here she is next to my TOTAN. The photo was taken shortly before I began disassembling the game.

image-2.jpg

First, I disconnected all the cables from the backbox to the playfield. I labeled them with label stickers so I would know what goes where when I will be reassembling the game. I unscrewed the backbox and took it off.

As the wood is chipped in many places on the cabinet and backbox, I've decided to order a replica cabinet and backbox from a carpenter. I'll get a new set of decals for it so that the game will have a nice new "home".

image-2.jpg

Here she is without the backbox. I literally tore it apart. The construction could definitely be improved; something I will be implementing once the new cabinet and backbox arrive.

image-3.jpg

Inside of the cabinet. Very dirty, not taken care of properly.

image-4.jpg

The nails and glue let go in one of the joints. The previous owner used this as a solution...

Cabinet completely disassembled, ready to go for a trip to the carpenter.

image.jpg

I stripped the playfield of all the elements (ramps, posts, rails, etc.) and set it up on a matress (ran out of foamboard...) with the proper layout.

image-8.jpg

Now it was time for the playfield. I had to get all the mechanisms, wires, and bulbs off. This was a tiring job, took me about a week to do (wasn't productive the few days I was doing it, to be honest).

image-6.jpg

Slowly...

image-9.jpg

Slowly...

image-7.jpg

As I removed each element I attached a label to it with a number. I documented the number of the label in a notebook along with a brief description of the element. The back of the playfield has the appropriate label number at the position where the element goes. This makes reassembling the playfield later on much easier.

image-10.jpg

Finally, playfield stripped of everything and ready to be worked on. I began assessing the damage to the playfield. I removed the mylar with an exacto knife blade (the one shaped like a trapezium, hard to come by), and the mylar glue with the IPA/flour method. The paint under the mylar was in excellent condition; the paint that wasn't covered in mylar was a tragedy - the colours faded completely.

image-11.jpg

I began covering the playfield in airbrush frisket. I didn't want to take any chances so I just covered the whole plywood in it. I began with black since it's a base colour and it covers most of the bottom of the playfield (particularly as it wasn't covered in mylar, the fade of the paint was greatest on the black colour).

image-12.jpg

I sprayed two layers of black Createx Opaque airbrush paint onto the areas that I cut out (the ones I wanted painted).

image-13.jpg

I don't know how but some of the paint "smudged" onto the areas covered with foil. Not a problem though, I'll fill these out with a brush.

image-14.jpg

Next up, I began restoring some of the white onto the ghosts. Here's a picture I took just after doing a layer of white paint on the ghost's head.

image-15.jpg

Two layers applied. Looking better already. It was quite late, my eyes were getting tired and my hand started to disobey me so I decided to call it a day. Update on the painting tomorrow!

image-16.jpg

Done with white on the right ghost. Now I'm waiting for the paint to dry completely. After that, I'll apply one layer of overlay just to smoothen the paint out. Then I'll work on removing the smears; areas where my paintbrush slipped and went on the black paint. As the black lines on the ghost are very thin, I think I'll do this with a small dowel with a profiled end (I'll have to cut that myself to the shape I want it).

image-17.jpg

So I've finished applying the black paint to all the lines. I was worried about the "dotting" (areas where my brush didn't run a smooth line, some of these lines are less than 1mm wide!!!) so I ran a little test with clearcoat on a piece of wood. Turns out the clearcoat layer smooths the dotting out a bit so it shouldn't be so visible when it will be applied. Anyway, I wasn't interested in getting everything back to a perfect condition, I just wanted to revive the colours (faded colours look much worse than a dab of paint on a line here and there).

Next up is yellow. I'm keeping violet for the last since I actually want to do it with my airbrush when I will be repainting the upper part of the playfield.

image-18.jpg

Yellow done. The violet for the shading and the red ring for the insert will take some time since they aren't standard colours so I'll need to use a colorimeter to measure the appropriate quantities of blue, red, and white paint that I will have to use to get them.

Overall, I am positively surprised by the accuracy of the paints that I have in terms of their resemblance of the paints used on the playfield. I'm also quite content with the quality of my work thus far, so yeah...

Wish me luck!

I'm using acrylic paint for the entire playfield. Big areas I cover with my airbrush using Createx Opaque paints. The little details I use Games Workshop model paints - this is because I find that these paints offer the greatest colour spectrum; there are almost all shades of every colour and they compose well in terms of tone and saturation with the paints used on playfields. They're also good for value since the areas I cover with them are small and the paints come in small bottles. I could get exact colours, but the minimum quantity of paint I'd have to get is 1 litre, which is an awfully large amount when taking in the area to be covered under consideration. The only drawback is that these paints are not "noob-friendly" so you'll have to spend a few hours learning how to apply them properly. Other than that they are, in my opinion, the best solution to painting a playfield. Under Mylar or clear coat they'll look nice and glossy.

Ok, so to do the purple shadows I had to use a colorimeter to get the approximate quantities of red, blue, and white paint I had to mix in order to get the appropriate colour. Since photos aren't always exact I came up with a rough 20% tolerance level for the colouring. This is the first tone I got from the digital reading.

When mixing paint use clear plastic from and old box (anything you get in a clear plastic box i.e. batteries). This will allow you to compare the colour you're mixing directly with the colour you want it to be (by placing it over the desired colour). Just a handy tip.

image-19.jpg

As you can see the 20% tolerance level I established was quite accurate as the initial colour had too much red in it. I readjusted by adding blue, and white since blue made it a bit more darker so I had to compensate. Second colour was a dead-on hit.

image-20.jpg

But, of course, in the excitement of managing to get the right colour in the first 2 tries, I forgot out of stupidity about pigment sediments. Basically in any colour mixing you should always do a dry test first (I'm quite experienced in painting so I skipped that part, I've probably missed the right tone by 3-7% so that's negligible) because pigments in different paints set down on different levels (chromatography, y'all!). This means that as the paint dries you can get a slight variation of the tone you initially had. In mine, the blue set down the latest so the tone of the paint is perfect, but it's just a bit more darker than the original. Not a problem though, still looks great! But a lesson for the future - go hard with the white. It's easier to shade down than up...

image-21.jpg

Just a quick before and after comparison:

image-14.jpg

image-21.jpg

Houston, we got a problem...

Well, perhaps it's not that bad.

So, to learn on my mistakes I ran the Createx paints on my colorimeter. Blue came out most dense, then red, then white least dense. I mixed them accordingly.

image-22.jpg

After minutes of tireless mixing of paints to get the perfect colour I finally got it and began covering the playfield to prep it for airbrushing.

image-23.jpg

Didn't take long. I loaded the paint mix into the airbrush and began working. Then just like in the Apollo 13 mission, a few minutes into the "operation" the oxygen tank burst. Figuratively speaking. My airbrush stopped working. Wonderful. I think the compressor might be broken, or I set it aside for too long and the paint managed to dry up in the shaft. Anyway, I had a few specks sprayed on already so I couldn't really abort the mission. I decided to go ahead with a brush. Came out quite well. I went off to grab something to eat. When I came back I was shocked.

image-24.jpg

image-25.jpg

Motherfreaking paint sediments... Fizzle this shizzle... I wanted to break the playfield in half, but I don't see what good that would do. I decided not to mess around with such large scale mixing again since it really doesn't pay off. I'm not pissed off though, the bad tone will work as a base coat for the actual paint. This part of the playfield had massive wear.

IMG_1094.JPG

Couldn't find a better pic, but you get the idea. So this bad colour will cover all the scratches and dirt-remains, and then I'll paint over it with the ACTUAL colour on Monday.

Enough adventures for tonight.
Over and out.

For some reason the picture only wants to rotate into a vertical position that gets it upside down, so yeah...

IMG_0472.JPG

I did a recolour. Mixed a new batch of paint, this time I did a sampling to see how the paint dries etc. to get a dead on hit. Missed it by a tiny bit, but the clearcoat should kill the tone difference.

IMG_0475.JPG

These are the results from the sampling. They just indicate how many drops I need to get the "base". The "base" is the standard colour without the drying/sedimentation of the paint. So basically, it's just the EXACT colour of the one I'm trying to get whilst the paint is wet. You always have to tweak it a bit because, as I've stated earlier, dry paint is never exactly the colour it was when it was wet. Usually this step involves adding a lot of white (hence the III = IIIII [can't do a tally 5 on the computer lol...]), but also a bit of red or blue (literally a speck!).

IMG_0473.JPG

I didn't mix anough paint and it began drying as I was spreading it out during mixing, which means I couldn't get the playfield painted accurately. I brushed over the areas to be painted like a maniac. It's not a problem though, just means I'll have to spend more time on fixing the areas I painted over.

Here I've also covered the "WHEN FLAMING" text. This is because the area around it was totally destroyed and I didn't have the time to get in there properly. I'll most likely print the text out on a sticker since it'll be a pain to draw using a brush. Alternatively a calligraphic dowel, but I'm not too fond of those...

IMG_0474.JPG

Three-tone-comparison. The area around the bat is the original faded colour. The dominant colour is the failure from the first painting. The tone emerging from the right is the new, good tone.

I fixed the colouring of the upper playfield. The colour is now 99% the same. I'm not sure whether the 1% is a tone difference or clearcoat difference. Essentially they're the same colour, it's really hard to tell them apart. The only time you really can tell the difference is when you shine a light at an angle facing towards you onto the playfield. The original paint is glossy as the playfield was clearcoated after painting when they produced the machine. The new paint isn't glossy so the painted areas are clearly visible.

image-26.jpg

Next up - a long and tiring job of cleaning up the mess I made while "speed painting". Convenient though since most of these areas needed fixing anyway.

Wooo! Backbox parts arrived today (along with some parts for my The Shining whitewood...)!!! Finally, after almost 2 weeks at the carpenters. The boss of the carpenter shop I gave it to was at the hospital and the normal workers didn't give a rat's ass about whether work was getting done or not. Well, boss got back yesterday and really must have rang their necks.

image-27.jpg

These are the individual parts.

image-28.jpg

That's how it looks like put together (obviously not held by glue or nails). I'm going to order all the necessary replacements today (backglass, backglass trims, decals, appropriate screws/nuts/rivets) so I can get to putting this back together ASAP.

Only things hard to get will be the Bally speaker logo (might need a 3D print...) and the "tape" around the edges of the side panels of the backbox.

Chose the easy way lol...

image-4.jpg

Did you airbrush everything?

Pretty much same for me.

Insert decals came in today, I was working on the backbox in the meantime. Painting it black tomorrow, ordering decals when I've got the money for them (welcome to Poland lol...).

image-5.jpg

The PF scan I got was 72dpi... That is totally unacceptable for such a big print format. Soooo... I'm going to have to redo the ENTIRE playfield in a graphics editor. Marvelous...

Here's a difference between the 72dpi scan and the 300dpi version that it should be:

Zrzut ekranu 2015-03-27 (godz. 13.57.36).png

I'm not intending to sell this game, so not a problem. Sticker's on foil anyway, I'll coat the pf before putting it on so there's always the possibility of taking it off.

I'm going with the decal, it's just that the scan that I found was 72dpi - not good enough! I made a 300dpi file and I'm "painting" it digitally.

Wanted to get a CPR playfield, but the wait time is 12-18 months so no thank you.

Aurich sent me the decal file, thanks so much again! I'm getting it printed tomorrow cause I don't really have the time today to pick it up. Sticking should be fun... A bit of a waste of money now that I look at it (the paints + the airbrush), but they'll definitely come in handy in the future regardless of what project I'll be doing. Could've put the money into a new set of posts and post screws... Meh, no point in crying now - what's done is done.

Be sure to pop in for a game if you do make it

As far as the resto is concerned - I'm going to grab the overlay decal tomorrow, the printing company was busy today so they couldn't get it done. I was trying to find cabinet and backboard decal scans, would save a lot of money if I could print them out as well rather than getting the ludicrously expensive ones off eBay.

I'm also looking at a potential CNC cutting of a new playfield and getting a silkscreen print of the playfield now that I've got the high res file, the problem is that there isn't a lot of CNC routing facilities in Warsaw and I don't have the file or the know-how to make a CNC-routing plan. Guess I'll stick with the overlay then, unless I just sand down my playfield and get a silkscreen on top of it. Don't think I have the heart to sand down a playfield though...

Yaaaaaay!

image-6.jpg

Just removed the inserts, waiting on the filler to dry up (had a hole near jet bumpers) then sticking the overlay on.

Sending out. I was thinking of Mylar though.

Nope I don't know what happened though, I'm pretty sure I aligned it correctly, checked all edges thrice. Perhaps the top is a bit off. Maybe that's better though. I did a recolour on the version you sent me and it somehow dropped the dpi to 100. I asked today at the printing shop whether they can print a 90MB file, they said no problem up to 500MB. Sooo, I'm going there with the 90MB version on a pendrive along with a masking line file for the plotter so that they cut it out PERFECTLY. With the insert holes and sides cut out there won't be a problem to get it right.

Useful learning experience.

Oh, update on the rest:
Cabinet should be done by the end of the week. I should order the decals now, but I'll wait a bit more. Once it's done I'm going to get all the metal parts for a new powder coating in chrome, along with my TOTAN parts (which will be made brass/gold). THEN, once the cabinet and backbox are done, I'll put them together and airbrush them glossy black (I used spray paint as a base, overlay with the black airbrush acrylic). Decals on, put all the cabinet elements back together.

At least the woodwork is going on well.

image-7.jpg