This weekend we added;

Mata Hari
Lost World
Space Shuttle with mirror
Meteor with all its fantastic mirroring

We also think we nailed down the translite to Backglass and have even added mirroring options as well!!

Twilight Zone (2 versions)
Attack from Mars
The Addams Family (3 Versions)

Thanks
Mike
www.ClassicPlayfields.com

MH (resized).pngLW (resized).pngAFM backglass (resized).pngTAF backglass (resized).pngTZ backglass (resized).pngToTAN Backglass (resized).png

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

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

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

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

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

Well, that looks a whole lot simpler than I was expecting. The glass you had used didn't have any fancy tricks or slight of hand, its just green in those places and the one we used clearly showed a blue there. But I believe we can fairly easily swap the blue out for a green and I'm thinking, tone the light blue down a bit too. But keep in mind we'll be messing with this backglass and will likely wind up with a glass that's not exactly like any other original.

We have encountered this type of color issues time and time again. With so many suppliers and batches made, there would never be two backglasses/plastics or playfield from different batches that would be the exact same and certainly none between suppliers that would ever be even close.

We ALWAYS have to make a copy of the exact product we have in our hands at the time, its the only thing we can do. In one case, I had 4 different samples of the same PF and each and every one of them had different cut files (missing and/or holes, different sized holes etc), different artwork and different colors, yet they all came out of the same game. My memory fails me now but it may have been Firepower. Anyway, what to do?? We got a fifth and it was the same as one of the others so we chose that one to duplicate, but really have never known if that was the most common or the most rare version.... ahhh the fun of making reproduction parts

Mike

So I had Kevin and Stu check last night and ours is definitely blue, no hint of green. It came from an NOS glass that I think we got from PAPA but I may be mistaken on that. Rather than start trying to approximate yours without any real guidance other than images on a monitor we had better leave it like it is. The three of us have had this argument more than once, but we have to make a reproduction of an actual physical object and trying to make a Frankenstein to satisfy everyone will just lead to a product that is correct to no ones. As Coyote mentioned this was a completely different version from yours from the very outset so it was never going to match. Sorry

Mike

Muskie;

We are still trying to get all of our backglasses and plastics from our back history on the website and we are also adding new product all the time. We just finished an insert count and inventory and have just under 250,000. The next stage is to see what we can make using there and get those playfields made in very short runs of 5-10. Then we need to flush out the inserts we are low on. We purchased an injection molding machine to do just that. But that takes time to learn how to use, time to make molds and time to get pre-colored material as I refuse to do what everyone else does and mix colors on the fly. All that guarantees is that almost none of your inserts will match in color. So we are buying precompounded colors which means all the inserts will always match in color, the price is about 10 times what the normal clear stock and powdered dye costs but I had to give up getting inserts from some places because the color consistency was just awful.

Once all this is done and working smoothly then we can make on demand PFs but it actually makes more sense to make them in small batches so its likely going to go more like someone orders a made for you PF and we make 5-10, then they will show up as in stock on the website. So its truly only made for you for the first guy

Mike

Guys;

Here's a short list of glasses we are currently screening the mirroring for. These are the ones we have complete artwork for as of now, although Stu tells me he has 5 more almost ready to go. I'll post them when I know the titles. But in the mean time these are the glasses coming over the next few weeks.

1. Attack From Mars - Already available
2. Bram Stoker's Dracula
3. XXXXXX - cking licencing
4. Congo
5. Fish Tales
6. JackBot
7. XXXXXX - cking licencing
8. Party Zone
9. Radical
10. Rocky & Bullwinkle
11. Scared Stiff
12. Skee Ball - Not technically Pinball - But I needed one for my own game so Stu helped me out.
13. Superman
14. ToTAN - Already available
15. World Cup Soccer
16. De Star Trek
17. Earthshaker
18. Guns N' Roses
19. DE Star Wars
20. Harlem Globetrotters

Mike

I personally don't think our backglasses are too dark. I spoke to Kevin and Stu about this and I'll get to that in a second. From my experience with these new glasses I see that at least in my own pins that I swapped glasses into, my old translites were faded a bit and the blacks were never black to begin with. Translites have no blocking layers so the light passes uniformly through them making the blacks not even close to black when back lit. That's the biggest difference I see. In my case I absolutely love the glasses as one of my translites was faded a lot more than I realized. I guess the biggest issue you will have is that we always try to use an NOS sample and then color match to that sample, which will not have faded much so that will almost certainly be darker than your existing translite anyway.

Kevin figures a lot of the issue is that on a translite there can be no black and now blacks are black, not 80% grey.

Stu's take is more technical but I've added that too;

People are comparing our Printed Backglasses to the Original Translite BEHIND Glass.
I can Not properly "color correct" the scans comparing it to the artwork Behind Glass.
I have to color correct to the Actual translite ( No Glass ).

When looking at a Translite Behind Glass it is very "diffused" and lightens up by 18-20%!
Blacks on a Translite are, like Kevin mentioned, are about 80-85% Grey, not Black.

I happen to have right now 2 different F-14 Translites here in my studio, 1 is NOS and the other is Used.
So I did a little exercise and placed the Used one WITH Glass on top of the NOS version WITHOUT Glass and photographed
them together. HUGE Difference in what you see in the photograph! Now every camera is different as is every lighting
situation, so a customers comparison will be different, however, Take a look at the differences in this photo....

1: Oranges in the "Explosion" are very rich in Color & Tonal Value on the "Translite NO Glass" compared to the one With Glass.
2: Look at the differences in the Deep Blues ( Bottom Right ).
3: Look at the Orange in the Plane ( Upper Right Corner ).
4: Look at the F-14 Logo RED Colors
4: Here's the best one: Look at the Black Explosion Clouds ( specifically the Lower 1 by the Plane's Wing ).

A Translite Behind Glass will Never look the same as a translite Without Glass ( which is what I have to color correct to ).
People also NEED to Understand that we are NOT Working From The ORIGINAL ARTWORK like the originals were made from.
There will Always be some differences, but we do the best we can, and we are always trying to improve our techniques.

Our Backglasses (since they are Printed) will always appear Richer in Tonal Value than a Translite. Our Backglasses look
more like a Translite that is Not Behind Glass ( the True Artwork ) because that's what I have to Color Correct to.

So I guess the long and short is that they will never look exactly like your old translite.... but that's really the idea. Adding mirroring and attempting to restore the original unfaded and saturated look of a brand new original translite makes them into something more than just a copy of a translite and a lot more than just a copy of some old faded one.

Mike

F-14 Translites (resized).jpg

TZ Translite vs Glass (resized).jpg

I have a CAD sample on the way and should have some out in limited quantities within a month or so.

Mike

We'd love to do a new TOM backglass as I agree with you that the original looked bad, just fuzzy and out of focus for lack of better terminology. So the issue is we need something that is better than the original artwork which we just can't figure out what that would be. We do need something though because I hate to say it but I sold my game because of the translite. I just hated it and it bugged me every time I looked at it. Eventually when I was looking for space for a new game ToM got voted out of the gameroom due to the translite.

It might be time for a custom attempt, its not like we could do ALOT worse.

Mike