Now I have a better idea. It looks like you have sanded as low as you can, and since you are hitting ink. I would do your touch up, and if I didnt have access to a spray room and automotive clear (which is really best for a full time sprayer, I used to do my pfs with commercial quality floor polyurethane. I was actually a builder before this, and I had a beauty altoz floor sander. the people who sold it to me in hastings michigan, used to sell me a commercial floor cover and that was so much better than varnathane (which is not bad but they got bought by minwax which I do not recommend) I like the oil based, and if you find good stuff, it will not tint your pf light brown. I forgot the name brand of the stuff, but gene used it on all of the IPB pfs for a while. (he owned a roller rink) the key is plenty of thin coats. I tried the water based and there are a bunch of reasons I say not again. the oil gloss is nice and hard. thin coats can be sanded level the next day and built up another coat.
after you do your first coat, you can check how your art looks and adjust after you do all of your prep for the next coat (duh but I have done it in the past).

Before a trim carpenter, I was a painter for years. when it comes to polyurethane, or varnish, gloss is the hardest. when you go semigloss that put a gloss retard in there that makes it softer (side effect).
I say this because people doing older games are afraid the gloss will look non stock.

1000 posts. Man I am long winded! Thats what happens when you live alone and subside on coffee and doughnuts

One more thing. if you have just one insert or 2 that are lifted, then it best to take them out and re set them. I have found that if I clamp them flat and reglue, without pulling the insert and cleaning it, it will pop back up in short time. DE games with the oval inserts are notorious for that!!!!!!
I am sure VID has a How to: on removing inserts you can check out. I dont know but I am told he has a lot of info on pfs.

we are on the same page. In my last days of being a house painter back in 98 they were making waterbourne and products to replace oil based because califorina was making it illegal. In my experience back them, the expensive enamels only made a really good option in the best situations, like a really good existing foundation, new construction, ect.
I think the key to the oil based polys is getting something that wont tint, but the good thing is for the most part you are not in the wood. So you wont be absorbing it much, and if you do thin coats, you can get a really hard, very durable finish. if you have a HVLP sprayer, and you are good with it, use it on your last coat, and you will have less work blocking it down and polishing it out. If you do a great last coat you dont have to block sand and polish after. That is what all of the manufactures do (or dont do), but if you want it level, and slick... its elbo grease. If you are a painter you all ready know in most cases its not rocket science, its not being lazy, or afraid of a little effort.

The gal of varathane I have in the shop that I use on the backs, has a purple tint to it rather than brown. I kinda dig it because the waterbourne finishes have a purple/blue tint to them also.

The last thing is, like I mentioned before, if you can get a line on some pro floor finish rather than home owner, there used to be a huge difference for some reason, and the price was not much more at all. IF I remember it was the same with wall paint. For some reason they make professional/commercial paint that is easier to use and looks better, and is around the same price. Sooo... It confuses me. Why buy the home owner stuff?
Maybe you can answer that, if you are in that world.

If I hadnt all ready had big trouble with customs, I would mail you a gal. I cant even drive to windsor without getting detained

Please post pics when complete

dont forget to sand and seal the back also

Here is a big ol pain in the booty. I dont mind doing it, what I mean is a small spot that causes a lot of work. I have to match the purple but it goes in to the pink also. so I have to match the colors and if they are not perfect, (rarely are) I have to paint the whole area of that color.

If this is your rolling stones pf, please contract me so we can make a plan.

I added some pics of the work I do after I quit pfs at about 8.30, until its pitch black. with all of the time and equipment, I know darn well it doesnt save me a penny to heat w wood, but I think it must keep me in shape. I sort of enjoy it also.

This is the subdivision that the squirrels were born in. they are at adriannas house now because they are over 225 grams and need a 5x5 ft cage with shelves and hammocks and all kinds of stuff in it for them to run around. 4 weeks till we take the cage out side and open the door in the day and lock at night. I am not sure how it will work but I will just play it by ear, and what they want to do. 2 of the 3 of them are able to sit up on their back legs and eat now.

On the first pic if you look to the far left there is a slice of a log (hollow) that I set on top of a big stump. thats where I found the 3 nuggets (squirrels), in that little hollow. Hairless little worms

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does anyone have a willy wonka CE pf that you can take a pic for me?
There is a sticker over a clear piece of plastic at the bottom of a 6 in cut out circle on the left hand side. I sanded thru half of the sticker, not knowing that there was a dam sticker on a $12G game.

So I found out a month ago the dam at the beginning of my river is privately by people who own property on the feeding lake which is a huge deep lake named gull lake. No more cottages on that lake. shoulder to shoulder mansions. I think 100 ft of shoreline starts at a mil. anyway the lake is low and oh no the boat docks are having problems. they closed the dam completely for the first time in 110 years (when it was built) so I only have the springs and rain feeding. The ecosystem is desimated. No trout this spring, no pike, no fish at all. they were struggling at first, because it was so shallow, now they are just gone.

The river runs in to and out of another lake about 1 mile before me, and because of this all of the silt from that empty lake has clogged up my previous rock bottom, which is now stinky muck. Not a dam thing we can do about it. suck sandwich. When there are power boats and expensive lake houses with sandy beaches at stake, fuck the wild life right?

Here is a good example of a day in the life.

Since I havent attended any shows since mirco changed his clearcoat procedure, I have not had a chance to see how they fair. Now he clears first and then does the CNC work. The edges of the cut outs are very sharp (from the clear cut on a 90 deg angle) and I have to put more effort in to sanding the edges of any cut outs and I also have to spray unlike any other pf. In the end its all good, I just want to know if they wear better or worse after a couple hundred games played.

Thanks goes out to nic for the pics of the WW, and thanks to tommy for the camera!!

Thanks to everyone else for the support.

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Not pinball but folks ask.
I am so ready for these things to move out, go off to squirrel college, what ever. move on. This is the first week they are all able to sit up right

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Maybe its the same down in texas, but you may notice none of them are red. Red squirrels are a totally different ball game. they chew on the buildings and get in the attic. well somehow all 50 plus red squirrels on my 10 acres died of .177 cal. lead pellete poisoning. Not only do they destroy the buildings, they are loud bastards. They would scream at me crack of dawn. get right up to my window and scream bloody murder. They love to hear themselves because they will do it for hours. I stopped throwing my shoes at them, and now use frisbees (they work for the deer eating my hostas also).
I taught my girlfriend to shoot, and she is naturally better than me, plus I dont like killing stuff any more.
The reason I was being over run by the red bastards is I had an old gal living in the guest house that would dump a half pound of bird seed every day for over a year. The population exploded. Once I gave her the boot, I had all of these hungry, loud red squirrils getting rowdy and tearin up the place.

I love the animals, and I love living with them but my step dad (one of a couple) had one rule that I picked up as my rule. The house comes first. If any animal or kid for that matter is wrecking the house... it gots to go! I sold 9 houses just to finance this place no way I am going to let anyone or thing trash it.

The squirrels are still getting fed milk (they sell it in powder form ) 3 times a day. I think they say 12 weeks total on milk but I dont think it will be that long. One squirrel is very loving, one is moody, and one pretty wild. They all get held while eating, pulled out, weighed. They used to get a lot of baths but not any more. My "girlfriend" used to run a rescue for cats, and has the patience for this stuff, and is very familiar with bottle feeding. Its not like I need more squirrels here at the compound, but I couldnt let them die because I had their tree cut down. Also the experience enriches life. In the last 15 years my experiences are stuff like this, rather than the life of a gangster addict in detroit, and all of the crazy that goes with that. Tryin hard to rebalance the karma scale.

So this is why I am running a little behind, and not accepting any work for a month. Every one of these belong to a customer. One pf is mine (indy 500) that is sold but not paid for so who knows.
so the plan is to have all of these done by july 30. At that point I will start the NOS pfs from that large batch that sold and people want them cleared.

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The july 30 deadline is going to be pretty hard to manage, but I am working about 50% more hours per week to make it. I am looking at it as a challenge, definitely not daily business as usual. If there was not an end, and it was just the way it is, I would go bonkers.
The cool thing is spring and the longer days give me a lot of energy, and at this window of my life, I have nothing else to do, so why not. Heck, of my 3 good friends that live around here, I only work more than one of them! One guy has been working 7 days a week for a couple years, and the other works 5 or 6 stupid long days, and then has a pinball-mod company! Since I cant speed up my process, I found the solution is just to take plenty of coffee and doughnut brakes

It pretty cool when I look at the list of all of the pfs, which tells how many coats

I polished out a safecracker yesterday. I have restored 3 of them and probably had 20 go thru the studio in the years, but I never noticed that they are only 17 in wide. They are shorter than reg sized pfs, but never noticed they are thinner also.

I finished the xenon also, but I still have to run a cloth thru all of the holes of both. I am going to do it while watching cartoons tonight. It takes almost an hour each. That will get me thru family guy and in to adult swim.
I love rick and morty as much as anybody, but there is only 4 seasons and I think there are less than 20 episodes per season. Adult swim plays 2 episodes a night 7 days a week. I know each one word for word, and I am practicing the dialogue in spanish to kill the boredom. Talk about shoving something good down your neck until you hate it. Reminds me of commercial radio in the old days

my side project after work.
One of those big logs is bald

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That was good for a morning coffee out the nose laugh

allright! got 2 complete!
In the hi fi world this would be studio reference. flawless.
I will post the pics of the safecracker after I put a coat of wax down.
In the last 2 pics you can decide if you are a leg or breast man or woman

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I just had a retired paint /finish engineer from GM look at the xenon job and said he was really impressed. so thats cool

I was just looking on the CPR website, looking for an 8 ball pf (so if you have one for sale, drop me a line)
He has fire pfs on clearance for 449!!!
Thats a good wall hanging. I will say this. Last night I went to lowes to get wood for crates. usually my bundle is 185 for wood and foam. yesterday it was 390 for just wood, and I went down to 1/4" rather than the usual 11/32 I have always used. No one had an answer but 2 employees said the price goes up every other day. I think it was 48.00 for 7/16 sanded on one side!!!!!!!
so I have to raise the prices on crates unfortunately. last batch I ate it, this timeI cant, more than double the cost! Oh and the best part the quality is garbage. The glue must have gone up also because the last 2 batches I bought, I had to take the time to reglue the ply's. Next time I am going to go to menards. I dont like that place but they cant be worse.

New branches are very exciting to sculpt as well as bury treasure under. they stash everything

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I cant stop laughing. at first I thought it was another guy who thinks his cpr shadow is worth 3 grand (here ion pinside and ebay) but then I realized its the price of the ply wood! haaaaaa.

I have always thought of price gougers as buttholes. I know there are millions who say thats supply and demand, and blahblah balh. So if there is no chance you will get caught, will you rob your neighbors? Ok how about people you dont know?

Its a diner cpr pf not shadow. oops

Here is a really nice KISS LE stock pf for sale.
Its not a de-pop that they dropped a tool on and pulled the parts off.
This is a really nice quality pf and it took me 10 months to get it.
The clear is amazing for a production pf

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