Have you looked at bgresto.com

You could give these guys a try if you want it on glass:
http://bgresto.com/
[EDIT: Elevatorman beat me to the punch with this]

Out of curiosity, what kind of quote did you get for the product you're describing here (two-piece vinyl print adhered to glass)?

Vinyl is probably not going to work unless it's really thin or light will never shine through. You're looking for "duratrans", or "backlit poster", or even "thin white mylar" keeping in mind you need a mask layer. It also means you have to get a new piece of clear tempered glass made.

You need a good baseline image, if you do not have one without flaws, fading, veining, or cracks.

Use an existing backglass scan (for those machines that have already been done as there are quite a few), or ask a fellow collector who owns a particular glass of your game as a donor for a full scan. Today, you can make a pretty good one run replacement using plastic film and cutout the score areas, and then back it with another pure white piece of film for proper transparency.
Keeps the cost under $100.

What does this NOT do?
Provide a replacement when a backglass has specialized mirroring, cutout areas, or specialized effects that were imbedded with the silk screened ink process.
A good example is Haunted House (Gottlieb, 1982) with the lightning strikes, because it wont work at all.

I don't think that's true. Mirroring can be done with spray paint (not 100% as good as silkscreen, but not bad). Haunted house lightning isn't anything special (there doesn't even seem to be a mask layer), it's just well placed lights (there may be more than 2 layers to get the window effect):

<$50 at FastSigns.

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You might recall somebody (I don't remember who, maybe Alan Meyer?) did a reproduction HH backglass in full thick plastic as a replacement glass before some of today's techhnology back in the late 1990s or early 2000s. It was a good replacement, but the lightning effects sucked. The house itself is multiple layered. Have you compared an actual original NOS glass to a translite equivalency? I have and its not very good.

You cannot use LEDs or colored bulbs in HH if you want the full lightning effect, otherwise you end up with what you saw in the TNT Amusement video.
Something was wrong with those NOS glasses, its like they were missing the screening.
When I light up my HH backglass the lightning strikes are very distinct.

I do agree that you can use silver paint for mirroring and masking, but its a pain in the butt to do right.
You have to be very exact with the lines or the its obvious what was done. The EBD (Bally, 1984) version photo above has no mirroring (or at least I cannot see it), which was partly my point, but certainly good in a pinch as this backglass is SMALLER than the 1980 version of the same glass (I learned this through my own adventures).

Standard backglasses do look good.

thick plastic isn't going to work, so thin plastic print has made it better. I agree nothing is quite going to beat glass as it was intended

I guess it depends on how complicated it is. If it's just simple lines, easy to mask with tape. If it's blocks of mirror (say like a black knight), it's going to be a nightmare. You may as well do a faux mirror with stripes of grey shades.

Also the EBD translite above looks like there's no mask layer since I don't see any text coming through. That could easily be remedied by getting a clear layer printed with black (or create a mask using cut vinyl) and spraying silver.

The text is being done with reverse cut vinyl attached to the back of the piece. I did it to the rear plexi sandwich to start with but it was too fuzzy. The pics show the first attempt.

Mirror vinyl looks really good... to a perfectly flat surface. That ain't gonna happen here. Just a nice fix for a $300 junker saved from the trash bin.

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Just goes to show that anything is feasible and cost effective, if you are creative.
It is better than junking a machine.
Not that many 1984 versions of EBD are left either.
Estimates of the production run were under 2500.
At least the playfields can be interchanged though, but the wiring harnesses are DIFFERENT!
I built one ground up to save a machine just like you, as the playfield was solid, but the cabinet was a WRECK and the backglass was missing. Found a backglass, but that was YEARS ago.

The cab was as cheap as they come. Particle board and plastic trim. I redid the whole thing in some nice plywood and even made my own stencils. It's been a fun project.

xTheBlackKnightx - Are you referring to the NOS HH glass that TNT claimed to have sold in the video to not has proper screening? My HH original glass is shot, and I need a new one. I'm looking for an original, but have two options presented to me 1.) buy a new CPR repro from a private seller for $300, or 2.) BGresto has a HH glass they can provide in 4 - 8 weeks turnaround.

What is my best option here? Do the CPR repros look good in person? I noticed they don't have as much detail as the originals. And does BGresto actually do good work?

Thoughts?

Can you post a picture of the back to show your masking technique? And whose doing the reverse-cut vinyl for you (or are you doing your own)? Thanks!

The NOS Haunted House backglasses I had until recently were stored for many years....I got them along with a boatload of other NOS glasses froma local man who got them from a distributor/vendor at some point. So MY glasses (along with all those NOS Devil's Dare backglasses) were ORIGINAL GOTTLIEB made Glasses! I believe I also had purchased a couple recently made glasses in a package from another dealer a few years ago. I am not sure if they were real old or recently made. Remember...for a long time, no one wanted Haunted House, Black Hole, or Devils Dare!

I'm doing the cutting on my Silhouette Cameo. I used whatthefont.com to determine the font then used the Silhouette software to recreate the verbiage and flipped the image before cutting. The results have been ok and improving. The opacity was overcome with bright LEDs and I now have the lettering attached directly to the art piece. That has eliminated the blurriness. The second image is all of it lit up in lamp test mode.

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Can someone elaborate on this technique. I’d like to do a reprint of The Simpsons as going through BGRESTO from Canada is an absurd amount of money.