As playfield work has progressed I've been putting some thought into the apron.
Sadly, mouses or just time/humidity have done a number on the apron and shooter guide to the point that they looked ok. . . but not good enough for me to put back on the playfield as is. Even after a good cleaning the rust, dirt, and fading were too obvious to me.
I bought my buddy in the graphics business another case or two of beer and we came up with a couple ideas. I know add on decals are available that cover the entire apron top, but I liked the idea of painting the entire apron a base color that matched the wood rails and tweaking it from there. We started with the shooter guide. A before picture with new decal:
5J5A9636 (resized).JPG
Blasting everything clean:
5J5A9637 (resized).JPG
And with new paint/decal applied. If I hadn't slightly put the decal on crooked I would be ecstatic with the result, but I'd say even as is I'm a notch or two above happy compared to the original.
5J5A9646 (resized).JPG
That leaves the main apron. I have been searching for another Bally Wide Body Apron via the marketplace to work with and still keep the original as a reference for the artwork. I've been quoted a couple at $50 plus shipping but that is a bit more than I am wanting to spend at this point for an experiment. If I cannot source a donor in the next couple weeks I may try bending some sheet metal and making my own.
I did want to modify the design a bit. Not sure why but "Bally" on an angle has always bothered me -- almost like it was put on that way just so it would fit. We scaled it down to horizontal and I tried cleaning up the other half by eliminating all the fine print, replacing it with "Paragon" in the playfield font. I will paint my new apron blue and add the cut decals on similar to this:
Paragon Apron (resized).jpg
Maybe not to everyone's tastes and that is ok, that is why I will tuck the original in the cabinet for a future owner to swap in should they wish.