How bad is the wear?
Don't use mill wax.. Ever.
Use water based acrylics.
clear will preserve the touch ups, otherwise they'll just wear away again.

Welcome to pinside.

A picture of the playfield would help answer your question, but in general there's nothing worse than a bad touch-up job on a playfield or cabinet. So unless you can match the paint color and make it look like original just leave the playfield alone. Personally I prefer enamel hobby paint. It is glossier, flows better and provides a harder finish. I second the Millwax and clear coat comments.

yes use enamel. Do your best, anything is better then just bare wood on the PF. I'am having a hardtime matching the gray on the streets on High Speed. Anyone have an exact color match or mix? Also dont use Acrylic enamels they just get erased when you wax (learned this the hard way), enamels mean you dont have to clearcoat. It makes sense for a small area.

Careful with the magic erasers. Too long and you'll be down to bare wood in no time. Just clean it with novus 2 and then use a good carnauba wax. No need to break out the MEs unless you have some serious issues or really bad ball swirls. Yes, you'd have to take the wax off to clear coat it but it's very easy using naphtha.

He has a Gottlieb. That means it currently does not have a clearcoat. Laquer I suppose. Should he not be careful mixing laquer with enamel? Are they compatible?

Hope someone that knows for sure chimes in

Early Premier's did have something a bit weaker than WMS/Bally/DE for clearing....Don't know if it was lacquer or not.

While magic erasers are abrasive (although less so that 0000 steel wool) you'd have to work pretty hard to get down to the wood. Used judiciously they are great for removing ball tracks and will not damage the playfield. The advantage they have is the small fibers of the Melamine will get down into microscopic cracks and remove dirt. This either works very quickly and easily or it won't work, so there's no reason to get carried away and start removing paint.

Clean the playfield thoroughly with a citrus based cleaner, which will also remove old wax. Spray a little citrus cleaner on the magic eraser and rub lightly for a few seconds. I just did some ball tracks on a Baywatch from the shark flipper to the drop hole (maybe 2" by 18") and only had to do about three passes (maybe 3 seconds total) to clean up the area.

Acrylic touch-up is fine, I just prefer enamel. Often you're forced into a paint choice based on trying to match a color. I would then add a few clear coats (3) of enamel as you suggested. See the following article on a Hook I touched up.

http://pinballrehab.com/1-articles/pinball-restoration/playfield/106-playfield-touch-up-hook

I wouldn't use that type of Turtle wax - it didn't do a thing for me

Get a good Carnauba wax. Mothers or Meguires will work. I use KIT Carnauba wax (it comes in a yellow can) I get it for 7 bucks at O'Reilly's. Good luck, and the pin looks like a fun layout, enjoy!

Acrylic... You can do it. Then clear it.

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/touchup2

Wow great work. touch ups went well.
Looks like a pretty fun game!

Yes Nice work Dommer

If you let the Testor's enamel cure for a long time, it won't come off with wax anymore. I did a section on a Firepower playfield once, and was disappointed how easily the enamel came off. A year later when I stripped it down to touch it up and clear it the 'right' way, that enamel was very hard to remove. I don't know what the minimum cure time is to make it permanent.

Acrylic is also much harder after it has cured a long time, and if it is shiny acrylic, is good enough to touch up small blemishes. You'll just be considered a hack by anyone with some skills if you do this.
Oh well.

yep, that gray is hard to match, you can get close with your white/black mix, but it was still a shade off. I dropped in a couple drops of light yellow right at the end and got an almost perfect match (I was using testors enamels)

The minimum cure time for enamel or acrylic is two weeks. Three to four weeks is much better.

Looks 10x better...gj!

What was the mix to get the gray color in the streets? Looks very good.

Good work on the touch ups.

Wow! That is some impressive work! Very cool.

I prefer not to use a solvent to remove wax. Don't know there's a problem with Naptha although it is stronger than Mineral Spirits, which will specifically only remove fresh paint. Instead I use ZEP Heavy Duty Citrus Degreaser (available at Home Depot) which will clean and remove old wax.

Naptha is actually a very useful cleaner. It isn't too powerful. It works great as a wet sanding lubricant between coats of clear, or just a general cleaner. I also use it to extend the 'wet' action of novus 2 while I am polishing a final clear coat. 90% Isopropyl is also a good solvent because it seems to solve different dirt than naptha. Maybe it's the 10% water in it? Be careful with alcohol, because I have had it soften the lacquer on some playfields. It isn't permanent, but any cloth prints or fingerprints you leave behind are. I start preparing a playfield with 90% Isopropyl and a magic eraser (lightly!). Then clean with a combination of alcohol or Naptha. If the playfield starts getting soft, I switch to Naptha, or just Novus 2. The only thing I ever use the orange cleaner on is sticky left after pulling up some mylar. If you have fresh touch ups, any solvent will quickly work on them.

Every machine is different...usually you need to figure out how much extra yellow to add.

Nice job on the touch ups!

I just bought my first pinball machine. It's a 1977 Gottlieb Golden Arrow. I have to say I love this machine. It plays wonderfully but needs some work.(ie. Pop bumper sticks, needs new rubbers, play field needs to be cleaned, plastics need to be fix, needs a new ball, inserts need to be leveled and I'd like to replace the power supply) That being said, for a game that has almost 230000 plays it's in fabulous shape... My big question is should I do paint touch ups and clear coat. The damage to the play surface is minimal. Other then the chipped paint it all seems to be cracked. I also don't know if I should clear coat or not. Also is it possible to have an automotive place do the clear coat. I have been reading and everything I can, but when it comes down to it I just need some direct advice. Here are all the pictures of my play field.

pinball_013.JPG pinball_014.JPG pinball_009.JPG pinball_017.JPG pinball_010.JPG pinball_019.JPG

Part one of my paint touch up.

DSC03603.JPG

The paint touch up looks good!

Well done. Nice work bro.

Hi i have just bought a golden arrow which needs the playing surface touching up what types of paints /colours have you used any help would be appreciated.

Lots of good information here. http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration

Createx Acrylic Airbrush paint, cures with a heatgun easy to wipe off prior so you can keep doing over until you like what you see then lock it in.

Sorry, I'm just getting back to this now. I used a lot of different acrylic paints. I removed everything from the playfield and used glass from a picture frame and painted on that before painting onto the game to help with color matching. It was very hard and a lot of trial and error. If I had my time back I would if used enamel. After a few games the paint started to chip. . After I redid all my touch ups I let it dry for a day. I decided to clear coat by hand. I found some amazing crystal clear varathane. I started by using an eye dropper and varathane to level out all the playfield inserts that had sunken over years. It worked very well..... at first. Then clear coated, let it sit for 6 hours, sanded with 2000 grit sand paper. I repeated a few times. At some point during this process I wasn't happen with the inserts so I decided to add more varathane.... but added too much. I tried to sand it down but it was super hard not to sand down the other areas around the inserts as well. I ended up getting "Goof Off" to remove the varathane. It worked well but it also pulled up some of the paint. I had to go back over it again with more paint and varathane. I was way more impatient at this point so my color matching wasn't as precise (but honestly you can't really tell, I was being overly picky) It turned out to be a real pain. I should have just left it in the first place. The process took me about 2 weeks.