Anyone have one of the AFM backglasses? I'm tempted to buy one to replace the translite in my AFMr, but I'd like to see how it looks in real life.
(Topic ID: 236554)
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Attack from Mars
Bally, 1995
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Lost World
Bally, 1978
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Mata Hari
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Meteor
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Tales of the Arabian Nights
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I really want to order a TZ backglass, but am torn by all the pictures that look like the backglass doesn’t let enough light through. Would an owner of the bg be so kind as to take pics and post a comparison of the translite vs bg on the same machine? I can’t tell if it is the picture making it look dark or the bg itself.
Thanks!
Quoted from Lovef2k:fold over some electrical tape
Friction tape. The stuff that is sticky on both sides.
Quoted from vec-tor:Friction tape. The stuff that is sticky on both sides.
Black hockey stick tape!
Marshall, VA
Here are some more pics that I took with the game off and my camera flash so I could try and capture the mirror effect. The big white "blob" on the picture of the rocket ship is my camera flash. I was trying to get a shot of the mirroring around the rocket ship.
DSC_0729.JPGDSC_0732.JPGDSC_0737.JPGDSC_0745.JPGDSC_0748.JPGDSC_0757.JPG
Moe
Quoted from Pinballer73:First picture is the backglass. Second is the translite. ???
Correct. Note the typical paper krinkling/rippling above Morticia & Gomez' on the translite. That's likely all over that translite, but the glare of light only exposed it there. Very typical for 20+ year old translites, warmed by the bulbs all those years.
For those of you who may have missed it - we have videos on our site for both the TZ and TAF translite-to-glass products. There is Play button on the thumbnail of the product(s), as well as a note about it in the description. They show glare of the mirror bits so you can see how they sparkle and shine in real life.
As for worries about the backlight density of the backglass imagery - it's not dark. We mimic the same throughput as the translite, except slightly less washed out, and slightly more colorfast. Meaning the (paper) translite will look much like a traditional backlit poster... while the backglass will look like a backglass - with slightly better black levels, and colors hold up better. Beyond that, everybodys' paper translite prints will have lost a bit of color over the last 20 years anyway. Depending on their environment.
These backglasses are fantastic, even my Earthshaker 'seconds' looks great.
I have a question about the Taxi budget version. I'm wondering why the car mirror wasnt left clear instead if the grey color? My Taxi has a mirror mounted behind the translite. If the backglass was left clear. I'd seriously consider this.
Quoted from SeaLawyer:19 days since ordering TAF, and nothing yet...
Not even a tracking number? I ordered Meteor last week and was delivered Friday to NJ
Quoted from SeaLawyer:19 days since ordering TAF, and nothing yet...
Wow! Hopefully someone from CPR chimes in on this.
Quoted from Lovef2k:Not even a tracking number? I ordered Meteor last week and was delivered Friday to NJ
Nada... 
Quoted from SeaLawyer:19 days since ordering TAF, and nothing yet...
Did you check the transaction details in your Paypal acct? Usually CPR adds it there.
FYI
Their website indicates they are off for spring break beginning tomorrow...
MARCH 14 – MARCH 19 CLOSED
MARCH 23 – APRIL 1 CLOSED
Allow us to escape the Canadian winter for our sanity !
We will be short staffed effecting orders/shipping during these periods. Orders CAN still be placed, but selective shipping will only be active March 19-21, and fully back active, after April 2nd. Playfield production crew will still be moving along during these periods, and will be taking their vacation at another time.
Heard back from Kevin a couple times and sent him my PayPal receipt. His response:
“Thanks for the info. Went in and looked. It's sitting there unshipped,
for no apparent reason. Everything before that line, and after that line,
are shipped. Strange.
Passed onto Thomas, our packer. He'll see it in the morning.
Next time, no need to catch my attention in public threads on Pinside.
Just shoot the site a message from the Contact page. Read daily mon-fri by
Russ, who sits 20 feet from Thomas. Thx”
I honestly wasn’t trying to trash CPR. I thought maybe there was a production delay that some had experienced, but not others. Someone here said they didn’t send a shipment notification and to just wait, which is what I was trying to do (mostly patiently). Kevin said there should have been two shipment notification emails: one from PayPal and one from UPS. The fact that he’s dealing with this after midnight when they’re closed for Spring Break is pretty awesome, actually. Thanks, Kevin!
Well...maybe CPR turned over a new leaf as of late, but I have written them many times through the contact page on their website and never received one response. I had written, per their own instructions, regarding silver and bronze play fields.
Also, I haven’t received a tracking number or shimpment notification for the bg I ordered, although the website lists my order as “completed.”
I didn’t take your post as trashing CPR and this post isn’t meant to trash CPR. Just sharing my experiences with a similar situation.
Just my $.02
Just an FYI for anyone who ordered a TZ backglass. I ordered mine on Monday and was curious if it had shipped so I inquired about it. They had actually sold out of them the first day they went on sale and new ones are currently being made and will start to ship next week after their break.
Sherwood Park, AB
I was over the shop a few days ago and most of the Harlem Playfields are there and ready to ship but the guys are away. I think someone is in for a few days this week and might get a few out.
Wish I could say more than they sure look nice.
Mike
1 week later
Quoted from CPR:I was over the shop a few days ago and most of the Harlem Playfields are there and ready to ship but the guys are away. I think someone is in for a few days this week and might get a few out.
Wish I could say more than they sure look nice.
Mike
Mike,
Do you have an estimate when the Meteor playfields might go into production? Will CPR also be doing Meteor plastics sets?
Quoted from ita47:Mike,
Do you have an estimate when the Meteor playfields might go into production? Will CPR also be doing Meteor plastics sets?
Plastic sets are available now from .. I believe PinballRescue, down in AU.
Quoted from Coyote:Plastic sets are available now from .. I believe PinballRescue, down in AU.
Yes I found those. I'm on the pre-order list for a CPR Meteor playfield and I was concerned the colors in the plastics from PinballRescue might not match the playfield colors from CPR. I would think if CPR also makes plastics they would for sure match the colors of the playfield.
I'll check into it, we should be offering them but truthfully I'm not sure we have the art. The meteor PFs though are having CAD files done right now.
Mike
Quoted from Tsskinne:I hope CPR does a mirrored run of their Flash Grodon backglass soon as I could sure use one
Shows the mirrored version as available on their website:
https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-backglasses/flash-gordon-4/
Has anyone purchased this latest FG glass from CPR? I'm wondering if it's the same as the earlier one.
Bath
Quoted from SeaLawyer:Shows the mirrored version as available on their website:
https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-backglasses/flash-gordon-4/
Always good to see some end user photos though.
It won’t be the same as the first ones we did. The first ones were silk screened using a high end Roku ink. The new one is a totally different beast and process.
Back in the day all back glasses used a lead based ink which produced some very opaque colors easily. When lead based ink was phased out it was very difficult to screen print with a new ink that looked good lit but also when unlit as the density of the ink was lacking. About this time translates became popular because they were cheap, easy to make and didn’t use any hard to get inks.
Our first attempt at glass reproductions of CMYK glasses was left wanting for the same reasons that they werent great in the 80s, lack of lead based ink. We never had issues with spot colors but CMYK had us pulling our hair out. We did improve the process greatly though very costly experiments up it never was up to my standards. The last one we did was Barracorra using straight screen printing and that was one of the reasons we changed processes. The old screen press was so time consuming and expensive for CMYK titles it would only per worth it if they were perfect and we sold the entire run. They weren’t and we certainly didn’t sell enough to ever break even on one.
I know it’s too late to cut this short but these new glasses are much different. Much improved and with real mirroring which is still screened on.
Mike
Quoted from SeaLawyer:Shows the mirrored version as available on their website:
https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-backglasses/flash-gordon-4/
Thanks ordered!
2 weeks later
1 week later
I bought both TZ and TAF and received them a number of weeks back. I am finally at the point with my TAF restore that I got to test install the TAF glass. It looks really awesome! With the power off the glass has a really heavy blue tint but after lighting it up it looks great. I am using Comet Pinball 2 SMD 6.3V AC/DC SUPREME BRIGHTNESS with FACETED LENS bulbs in warm white.
Cousin It is lit up like that because I need to find blinker bulbs that work with GI OCD 
Quoted from blowback1976:Any chance of Bad Cats backglass?
Came here to ask the very same question!
Yeah I’d love a Frontier Backglass, that one seems to have issues on most of them I’ve seen out here.
I feel I may regret what I'm about to say.
First of all, I'm a huge believer and supporter of what CPR does. I have purchased CPR playfields and plastics and recommend them without hesitation. I recently sent my original Meteor plastics to be scanned so that others can refurbish their machines. You guys have always been awesome to me.
I have some thoughts to add to my review of the Meteor glass on the first page of the thread.
I was getting ready this evening to replace my original flaking Meteor glass with my new one, and I've realized that the CPR reproduction is completely missing the dark green ink layer. Not super apparent while frontlit, but when the the glass is backlit, the difference is very striking.
Putting them side to side it's absolutely better than a roached glass but I can't believe I didn't see this before.
I'm sorry guys, I've got to take back some of what I said in the review before. This isn't purist nitpicking; the scan is missing a primary colour layer from the original glass. If you take a look at the asteroid and the cones on the reproduction rockets it's obvious that the layer was present in the scan, but got interpreted as a dark shade of blue when doing the artwork.
Pretty bummed out right now, to be honest. Now that I can see the difference I can't unsee it. The green layer is in every photo I see of original glasses too, including that early red run, so it doesn't look like an original production difference.
I know you guys really tried to get it right, and the hard work you put into it shows- but folks that have a passable original glass might want to hold onto it a little bit longer.
Quoted from semicolin:Pretty bummed out right now, to be honest. Now that I can see the difference I can't unsee it. The green layer is in every photo I see of original glasses too, including that early red run, so it doesn't look like an original production difference.
ack that is a striking difference in not having the green.
Its so odd that Stern would insert a colored layer out of order that cannot be seen until back lit like this. I've never seen this from them before. This appears that it could be a totally hidden layer which was weaved into the artwork our of sequence..... or it could be an effect caused by the lights Colin has in his backbox. The problem here is that without the original films we had no way of knowing this was ever there or even if it actually is. I can only see the green at all when a bulb appears directly behind the artwork and only in this picture. Do you have a picture of our backglass lit up in your backbox to compare? Is it really a hidden green layer or is it an interference between two existing color layers or is it an effect caused by the light bulbs? Where does it start and stop? There was never any evidence of this on the original glass that we used. Its not apparent as a separate layer from either the front or the back. Worse still, I see no way to actually recreate this layer even if it is an actual screening trick used by Stern unless we could lay our hands on the original 40 yr old films. Anything we could approximate would be just pure guess work. If its any help, you may be able to approximate this by using a slightly green LED on the areas you want to be green.
Mike
Quoted from Tsskinne:Yeah I’d love a Frontier Backglass, that one seems to have issues on most of them I’ve seen out here.
We can easily do a Frontier glass or a Bad Cats glass (Stu tells me there are several versions of Bad Cats) and we will certainly do these if we can lay our hands on near perfect examples of either or all. If you have a Bad Cats or a Frontier that is near perfect just contact Stu via our Facebook page and we'll get it done! https://www.facebook.com/Classic-Playfield-Reproductions-110079519323049/
Thanks
Mike
Thanks for your quick reply, Mike. I'll take some time this afternoon to take some additional pictures.
I can confirm that it isn't a screening trick: even when not backlit, it's obvious that the front facing ink layer is a dark forest green. Putting the two glasses side by side it's very noticeable that the dark green was reimagined as a dark blue hue. I don't know how that happened.
Hang in there for a half hour and I'll have something under better controlled conditions for you.
I think it's the depth/darkness of the colour that is doing it. In a poorly lit environment without backlighting it would be easy to mistake for dark blue. The moment the lights are on it pops. It's the only colour in those areas so it's definitely not a layering artifact.
Backbox lighting layout so you can see there's no funny business:Backbox lighting for reference
Original backlit with ambient light:Original backlit
CPR backlit with ambient light:CPR backlit
Original frontlit detail on black surface:Original Frontlit 1
CPR frontlit detail on black surface:CPR Frontlit 1
Additional original detail:Original Frontlit 2
Additional CPR detail:CPR Frontlit 2
Original mask to show no touchups:Original mask
Side by side outside you can really see it: take a look at where the meteor is hitting the earth. Side by side
Quoted from semicolin:I think it's the depth/darkness of the colour that is doing it. In a poorly lit environment without backlighting it would be easy to mistake for dark blue. The moment the lights are on it pops. It's the only colour in those areas so it's definitely not a layering artifact.
Backbox lighting layout so you can see there's no funny business:[quoted image]
Original backlit with ambient light:[quoted image]
CPR backlit with ambient light:[quoted image]
Original frontlit detail on black surface:[quoted image]
CPR frontlit detail on black surface:[quoted image]
Additional original detail:[quoted image]
Additional CPR detail:[quoted image]
Original mask to show no touchups:[quoted image]
CPR mask:[quoted image]
Side by side outside you can really see it: take a look at where the meteor is hitting the earth. [quoted image]
Thanks for pointing out the differences, I never saw the green even on my own pin just never looked I guess. Kind of sucks it isn't there but I did just receive my Backglass and it looks amazing. I can't wait for the playfields to be ready to get a set with new plastics and do a complete restore on my game.
Why is there no white on the left side of the new cpr glass ( or is that a light reflection on your original
Quoted from nightsearcher:Why is there no white on the left side of the new cpr glass ( or is that a light reflection on your original
That's the plastic trim. No issues there!
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