I've recently purchased a Gottlieb Bronco, and have begun restoring it. This is my first pin (and therefore my first restoration), but I have a lot of hobbies from which I've developed skills over the years, so I'm expecting this to go reasonably well. Like many restorations I've read about, I'm not aiming for museum quality, but just presentable and playing well.

I've started with the backglass. Here are some "before" pictures. The first one was taken by the guy I bought the machine from:

// Error: Image 152838 not found //

As soon as I got the machine, I removed the backglass, covered the scoring and credit windows, and gave it a few coats of Krylon Triple Thick to prevent any further damage.

// Error: Image 152841 not found //
// Error: Image 152837 not found //
// Error: Image 152839 not found //
// Error: Image 152840 not found //

For the girl's hair, I made a stencil, and then sprayed the entire area with lemon yellow lacquer. This filled in the holes, and also darkened the hair overall (due to the thick coats), but it was a good colour match, and looks fairly good backlit too:

// Error: Image 152846 not found //
// Error: Image 152843 not found //

The cowboy's vest was touched up the same way, with an almond coloured spray paint. The pants I touched up with a light brown brushed enamel, first carefully filling the holes, and then brushing a thin coat over the entire area (I used the same technique inside the girl's hat, on her gloved hand, and her face with tan paint):

// Error: Image 152847 not found //

For the horse, I figured I'd never get the colour to match, so I didn't even try. Instead, I turned him into an Appaloosa by spraying the entire horse area white (again using a stencil). My wife is a bit of an expert on horse colour genetics and assures me this colouring is feasible:

// Error: Image 152848 not found //

There were two problems in the "Players 1 2 3 4" area. There was a chunk missing out of the "A", and there were holes in the "4". For the "A", I first carefully touched up the black keylines using a very fine brush and black enamel. After that was dry, I brushed lemon yellow enamel into the hole. There's a slight wobbliness, but nothing too noticeable. This area is opaque, so the backlighting isn't going to change anything:

// Error: Image 152842 not found //

The "4" was a bit more of a challenge. I eventually just mixed some red, yellow, and tan enamel to get a close match, and used the same technique as on the cowboy's pants, first filling the holes, and then an overall coat. When backlit, some splotchiness is apparent, and the colour isn't the same as the 1, 2, and 3. However, I've noticed that both the colour difference and splotches almost vanish when backlit with red light, so I'll probably just use red LEDs here instead of #47 bulbs.

There were also a few holes in the sky (all of which is opaque). For the two larger ones, I found a matching paint chip in the hardware store, punched out some 1/4" disks using a hole punch, and super-glued them to the back of the glass. The holes are now almost invisible unless you know exactly where to look. For the smaller holes, I just used some close-enough sky-blue latex paint.

I also repainted the white behind the score windows after careful masking. There was still quite a bit of bleed, so I spent about an hour with a sharp knife cleaning up all the edges.

When all was done, I painted silver over the opaque touch-ups, and then applied a few more coats of Triple Thick.

I think I'll tackle the playfield next.

EDIT: Hmmm. For some reason, all the photos that I've attached have vanished.