what a PIA that is. least a lot of it is in non backlit areas. Backglasses are a nightmare to work on.

looks like most is in the silver area, which is blockout anyway. Only way to do the backlit ones is to spot airbrush, even then it doesn't look that great.

still won't be that great as paint has different light densities than screened ink does. but at least the touched up areas will be smooth

don't know. I got mine from Airbrush city on ebay. Compressor and everything. You want one that is top feeding and can handle little thicker paint.

Nightmare? That's actually not so bad for a game that age. Most of them are so much worse if they haven't been saved by now.

I've had a couple that bad through the years. I was never happy looking at the glass lit. I remove all of the bulbs except the necessary ones - player up, ball in play, game over. To me it looked better than the mess it does when lit.

So you see them but you don't buy them. That doesn't make you lucky. It makes you choosy. People who buy games to restore them don't pick and choose based on condition. At least I don't. I'm more likely to buy the game that needs real love than I am to buy a nice clean game that only needs to be wiped and rubbered.

Neo is right, airbrushing would be the best way to go for uniformity. Brushing acrylics can yield very mottled results because it's so difficult to put the paint down in a consistant thickness.

You could also try the Deco Art stained glass paint. It's not opaque so it doesn't suffer from the varying thickness of paint. Follow it up with a thick coat of frosted white to give it the opaque look and provide nice light filtering.

Can't they be touched up in Photoshop and then have a translite made?

If you buy an airbrush stick with a single action for better coverage & lower price point. A dual action is much harder to master & twice the price. Get one you can find replacement parts for easily & cheap, as some of the parts can be pricey.

Hoov,
If you intend to buy an airbrush.......... spend the extra $$$ and buy a good one. If you buy a cheap one at Harbor Freight ( made in China), you will most likely spend all your time cleaning the poorly made components.
I just bought a Badger ( made in USA) which is a top of the line airbrush company for about $50. I bought mine at Amazon.com. , its the model 350. which came as a kit. You can see it at their website.
I bought mine to touchup my cabinet; I guess it would work on a Backglass too. If you buy paint, I would suggest you buy good paint that is pre-mixed and ready to use. Why...... the paint must be the right consistency to work in the airbrush, otherwise you will get poor results.
I will include two links to airbrushing. I hope they will help.

( 2 parts)

John

I have also bought a Badger airbrush, mine from Michaels for just a couple more $. I bought it mainly for spraying on fresh clear glass to make some interesting back-lit wall art.

I haven't had a chance to be artistic with it yet, but I did some experiments on glass when I first got it with a scrap piece of glass using acrylic paints. I cleaned the glass very well then sprayed several layers of pure white to test its translucent properties. Each layer was only 1 or two passes, and was of a very fine spray, and allowed to semi-dry between re-spraying.
The back-lit result was extremely promising. The light showed a very even coat of paint similar to that around the score reels on our pins.

I've put my painting supplies away for a while as I have other more important projects to complete but I hope to be able to experiment with back-lit airbrushed art.

Please keep in mind that I am not particularly "artistic" with limited talent. If I can do basic airbrush then a lot of others can too!

My Space Mission had a couple of score reel fires in its lifetime, and the evidence remains of some smokey streaks across the white around a couple score reels. But I haven't got the guts to scrape the old paint off and redo it.

Yep, everyone has different motivations. I have always had a tendency to pass on the super nice games. Price is too high for me but I also feel more motivation to save that game the seller might end up parting out. 40 hours sounds about right to do a good strong electronic/electrical rehab and shop job. By the time you're done repinning all of the connectors, doing whatever ground mods or board rebuilds are necessary, and pulling apart all the playfield mechs the hours can really get up there. Then once you throw artwork touchup into there the clock may as well get tossed out the window.

Badger, Paasche, or Iwata make the best airbrushes. I would recommend the Paasche as they are very rugged. I still use my original single action. If you have any questions just ask. I've been an airbrush illustrator for 35 yrs.

I'm sure I will have a few paint questions for you later....... if I may ask.
From what I've seen on YouTube about paint mixing, that is a very important factor in getting good results !

this is why I will never try touching up backglass again, you will never get it right (especially backlit). Better off touching up in photoshop, then deciding if you just want to print translite, or invest time into seperating layers to get them printed direct to glass.

Ideally, if you have the ability to scan the whole glass, you should do that every time anyway. Why wouldn't you want the ability to archive the artwork even if you do the touchups by hand? Maybe there's someone else out there looking to inkjet print like Greatwich does.

It's the white in the score reel area that is so difficult to match - the credit dots etc.