I do have some Testors but nothing that would match well enough. I have a bunch of cheap acrylic paints and tried some combinations out (before waxing) on the turquoise blue but I'm not good enough to get it to blend in to my liking. If it isn't going to look almost exact, I'm not going to do it. Nice thing about acrylic though is you can just wipe it off with a damp paper towel like nothing happened. Nonetheless, I did fix some of the pop bumper art that was gone. I've probably put about 50 hours in and that's enough. Once I get the screws I need to finish up the AS relay, I'll run it through a bunch of play tests and it will be for sale. I don't have a lot of room in the house for pins (basically two or three and Firepower is taking one of those spots) and I've got three others in the garage to repair. Honestly, I do enjoy repairing them the best. I don't have the income to afford the new stuff and haven't bought a truly "working" pin since my first one.
They're very few pins I've played that I never get tired of. Firepower is one of them, Centaur is another (gotta get one of them, dammit). I'm still looking for an EM that I can feel the same way about. Maybe that Top Card that's sitting in my garage is it. I don't know. Never played one. Yea, I bought it without ever playing one. Why? Well, the $350.00 price and the fact that I didn't have to drive more that an hour or so was a motivator. Also, I watched every video of this game that youtube had to offer. I've played enough to tell from a video if I'll fancy a particular pin.
I guess it's good that I want "dead" pins. When you can find them, they're significantly cheaper and I don't want to pay for somebody else's work. Hell, I didn't even want this game (the King Rock). I was happy with getting the Liberty Bell as payment for fixing this dude's Aztec. But the guy was really happy with the job I did and, along with a little work my dad did on his lawn mower, he wanted to give this one too. I still spent a ton of time because...who the f*ck else was going to do it around here? That thing was going to sit in his barn for another twenty years until he was dead...along with that Gottlieb Super Soccer that he's going to fix...someday.
I'm happy to bring something mechanical back from the dead. It's like a self congratulatory accomplishment. I get more satisfaction out of it than I do my job. Too bad I can't make the same money though. Although, if it was my job to fix pinball machines, would I take so much pleasure in it? I doubt it.
Anyway. What was this about again? Oh, yea. Touching up the pop bumper paint. Nah. I put a fair amount of Novus and wax around them to keep the area protected for a better artist to try their hand at in the future.