I would love to see how this comes out...I am looking for a replacement playfield for my high speed and have been unable to locate one but there is an complete overlay available. I may have to go that route.

any progress?

Doing this on mine also. Just bought an overlay and need to get it done this winter. I've got a little wear also.

IMG_2773 (resized).JPG

Every flash gordon i see is mint or worn to the wood (not much in between) , did they have problems with the ink on those playfields?

That overlay looks identical to one that was installed on my FG last fall.

Couple of things to be aware of, at least on my game it was not possible to perfectly align every insert with the overlay, so you may have to make some hard choices on how to approach it.

Here is the trashed PF before the overlay.
Origplayfieldstripped (resized).jpg

Here is the overlay applied.
OverlayBottomPF2 (resized).jpeg
OverlayBottomPF1 (resized).jpeg
Issues to note on the above pics...

Most of the inserts have a white ring around the top of the circle, this is in the overlay itself, must be due to improper alignment when they printed it? (See the green Clock Seconds inserts where it really stands out against the dark background).

The insert misalignment shows up in a few places, look at the red arrow at the top left of the lower pf picture, there is quite a gap of bare wood between the overlap black outline and the red arrow insert itself.

Also notice that the overlay is missing the darker red, almost burgandy shading from the original. It's almost as if the red in the overlay matches the highlight red color from the original. See the circled areas in the pic below of a stock playfield for where the missing second-shade of red is noticeable.
MissingOverlayColour (resized).JPG

Even with the defects, it still much nicer than the original PF.

However, working with the restorer we decided to add touch-up paint to the overlay (after a thin layer of CC was applied) to a few areas to try to improve things a bit.

In the picture below you can see that the missing 2nd shade of red in the center star area was painted back in. It is subtle but really makes the center of the PF pop in comparison! It would be too complex to attempt to add it to all the areas it is missing, but I think it really makes a big difference for the center star.
CentreStarShadow (resized).jpeg

The gap between the red arrow insert and the outline was filled with matching red paint, so it is far less noticeable now.
LeftArrowTouchup (resized).jpeg
Some of the round inserts that had similar but much smaller gaps were filled in with black outlining, rather successfully IMHO. Here's before and after of the upper PF for example.
BeforeAfter

Once the touchups were completed additional layers of clear-coat where applied. The end-result is very good, far from perfect, but will make a very nice game - if I ever finish putting it back together...

lowerpfcced (resized).jpeg

Factor in you're most likely going to need LEDs for all the inserts after this swap...the overlay blocks a lot of light.

I think it's just what happens to a very popular 35 year old game with timelessly fun gameplay that was manufactured before automotive clearcoat. You see the odd one that had full mylar applied from day one that is still pretty decent, but any without mylar are usually toast.

Says a lot about the game if people still played them even without the paint on the pf.

thanks for sharing...

Yeah that should work great.

Wow, That's something!

Newbie question time: Is an overlay just like a big sticker of the artwork placed over the original toasted Playfield?
Second: If you go the overlay route, why bother eventually swapping in a new PF? It seems like you get the same effect, so is it just because a real painted PF is nicer than playing on an overlay?

bookmarked. mostly can't wait to see what your clear inserts look like lit up. are you buying a different lamp board?

Awesome work!
Cool choice on the clear inserts,led's are colored anyway,away with the old crap!
A lot of work though...
Keep us posted.

I think the clear inserts and esp. the ablaze 4smd leds are going to be way too f'in bright!

At least your pupils will be fully constricted so when the backbox flasher goes off you won't hardly notice it.

Seriously though, be prepared to swap out the 4smd's for something a little dimmer.

Well, the overlay only uses transparent windows for the inserts so it doesn't seem like it will block too much light. I went with comet 1 LED retro bulbs for the playfield lamps, hopefully they won't be too dim.

Yep yours seems diff'rent than mine...my inserts have an opaque or milky look to them, not like yours.

Mine came with LEDs fomr the playfield and the first thing I did was rip them suckers out They weren;t retros so they didn;t look good IMO

I've done a few of these overlays. 2 flash gordons last winter then I did a xenon this past summer.
The one you have is similar to the xenon I did. (Got them all from classic arcades)
The whites are not very opaque. I had to paint all the white to make it look nice

The flash gordons I ordered within a couple months of eachother. The first was a thinner vinyl that was a pain for bubbles and stretching.
The 2nd one was a thicker material that performed much better.

I suppose I see why people don't like overlays. The quality is inconsistent. But, I suppose it's better than having no option at all.

Wish overlays were available for more games.... Sometimes it just doesn't make sense to stick in an 800 dollar CPR (if they ever make it) playfield into a $500 game.

At <$1000 FG is the biggest bargain out there IMO. It's my favorite in my lineup.

I'll second this, if you look at the pics I posted above of the applied overlay you can see the white areas are semi-transparent. If that might bother you I'd plan on painting those areas white before applying the overlay.

Updates??? Wednesday, came and went. Im ridiculously excited to see what this looks like lit up with those inserts

Andy, did you ever finish?

You don't play the paint!

I just started working on my Flash Gordon today. I picked up an extra trashed playfield in case it didn't turn out well so that I'd still have a complete game set up.

I've stripped all the parts off the extra playfield, removed all the pop bumper screws, and removed all the inserts. The wood was completely sanded down to bare wood, I've patched a few small nicks in the wood, and one place by a pop bumper screw where the top layer chipped off when I pulled out the screw. All of the original inserts were sanded down flat with 320 grit sand paper. There are 7 star rollovers in the top playfield where I clipped off the end of the star and pulled it out, so as not to break the insert, and will order new white stars to install later.

My plan is to reinstall all the inserts and level them like you did with the plastic primer and glue, and then clear coat the bare wood with the inserts installed, making any corrections to any small divots that may show up after a first coat.

I like your idea with the all new clear inserts, but I don't think I'm going to go that route myself. I haven't been much into LED's other than behind the back glass for heat issues.

When you installed your overlay, what's the best course of action in dealing with trimming out all of the little holes? Especially around the kicker. Or did you cut out the kicker hole first before installing the overlay?

Anything that needs to be mentioned before clear coating OVER the overlay to lock it in after all the holes have been carefully trimmed out with an exacto knife?

Looking to use an automotive clear coat over this this obviously.

I think I got my playfield overlay from classic arcades a few years ago, but I don't remember 100% on that.

IMG_0144 (resized).JPG

IMG_0145 (resized).JPG

IMG_0147 (resized).JPG

Andyzola87 Any more progress on your FG machine? I'm about to install a new overlay on my flash gordon pinball machine, and I wanted to see if you had any advice, haha.

Here's my progress: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-overlay-project-on-flash-gordon

Here is mine, finished.

Done (resized).jpg

Awesome!! Thanks so much for the advice, Andyzola87. Really appreciate it! I'll definitely let you know if I have any other questions.

eabundy Nice job! It really turned out nicely.

Andyzola87 Looks awesome!! Nice work! Where did you get the hardtop?

Looks great. Love the bright and slick look of it. I just switched a Tommy to the frosted "sunlight white" and it looks great. FG is getting the same treatment soon. Sometimes I wish my FG playfield was a little worse off so I could justify installing a hardtop. Mine is like 95% factory Mylared and so is like new - except in the damn remaining 5%!