I’m restoring a game where all of the felt has deteriorated. What do folks use for replacements?

I would just leave it alone, the adhesive on the foam is what caused the ink staining anyway and you can't take that stuff off without damaging the ink further.

I've had good luck gently rubbing the residue with a finger to loosen it. It will usually just flake off slowly. Once the foam is gone you'll never get the adhesive off. At that point I clean the inside on the glass with a Windex wetted soft cloth to remove any dirt and them triple thick it. Won't be perfect of course but usually looks good.

Every game I have has that old deteriorated foam on the back. Never have seen it affect the paint like that.

Wonder if replacing the padding with something would darken those areas and make it less noticeable. You could try it by cutting up some notecards to see what effect it has.

The crumbling remnants of this rotted foam make a mess, so I scratch the remaining bits off with my fingernail until there is nothing but the adhesive strip remaining, which I have never tried to remove. Too risky.

This padding is away from the recessed cavities where the GI resides, so light tends not to bleed through. If it does, remedies are plentiful: acrylic paint, sharpie, masking tape, etc.

Triple Thick only if you can detect lifting ink, especially if it appears fragile. From what I can see, your glass looks mighty fine.

The fuzzy side of Velcro. It will never cause this issue as the foam did.

This has happened on my Surf Champ. I cannot pull open the back-box mechs as it has bonded so strongly with the backglass at a minimum it will rip off the paint.

Take a piece of dental floss and carefully work it between the foam and backboard…not the big. Sometimes easier with two people-one on each side.

It happened on my Flipper Fair. You can see it on the pink elephant on the left side of the picture.

83B11048-0D6C-41BE-818F-E12C4DB30DAD (resized).jpeg

Thanks! I’ve had this game for over 20 years and have never been to replace bulbs.

Sure thing. Hope it works for you. In my original post it should be bg(backglass) not big. Good luck and enjoy!

Thanks again

You bet. Were you able to ‘free’ it? (hopefully!)

I have had a few Gottliebs that happened on, all late 60's to mid 70's.

This is all too common. Not much can be done about the discoloration, but it often in an opaque area. On a less than perfect glass, you could scratch out the faded area, and repaint with the original color. Being that it's opaque, it would be hardly detectable from the front. Then, use felt or thin cork pads to cushion the backglass.

I use the felt tape linked below from WoodCraft. It is thinner than the loop side of velcro and causes less chance for an overly tight fit. I've found it to be just about perfect for reapplying felt padding to the head board on Gottlieb games.

https://www.woodcraft.com/products/felt-tape-brown-3-4-x-25