Like every pinball story begins (probably), as soon as I was introduced to the paddle-flipping realm of tangible video games, I was hooked. I started playing pinball at barcades near me, joined a pinball league, started watching pinball tutorials, and kept my eyes glued to pinball sales on the hunt for my first pin. Needless to say, here it is! She's a beaut but needs some TLC, like every other quality pin that's 40 years old and has seen some abuse. So, you're welcome to join me on this adventure! I would appreciate your feedback and cheers; let's see another pin restored to life!

This forum post is meant to:

1. Help me document my project - the straight facts of the project as well as my thoughts and processes through completion
2. Give me something I can look back on in the future
3. Motivate me to push through and complete this project
4. Open up my project to the community, open the opportunity for shared information as well as interest, and maybe even inspire the next person to play and/or restore pinball machines.

Notes to be mindful of:

1. I am attempting this project with an "unprofessional" budget. I'm just an average dude with lots of random hobbies. I'd like to complete this job without going financially overboard - I'd like to use the resources I have. If I need to spend money, I'd like to spend it where it really counts.
2. Though I am no professional, I intend to put a lot of work into this restoration to achieve the most professional result possible, within my personal constraints (family, finances, time, space/workshop area, tools, etc.)

Without further lollygagging, let's get this ball rolling! Here's some quick initial snaps of my F2K.
F2K pinball 1 - blurred (resized).pngF2K pinball 2 - blurred (resized).png
( these images are blurred to protect privacy. I plan to make future images nicer to look at )

Preface

** I started this restoration project about a month ago - I will do my best to cover everything from the starting point up to my current progress **

Background
The previous owners of this F2K had it in their basement, originally purchased in the early 2000's so it was with them for at least 15 years. Prior to them, the machine was in an arcade for an unknown length of time. This, in itself, indicated some upcoming challenges as most pins on location were poorly treated and often hacked when problems arose to get the machine back to earning its keep as soon as possible. I was initially skeptical of purchasing the machine because of this fact but overall thought it was in great condition to buy once I looked at it.

Assessment
Not abiding by the rules of "generally good practice", my first assessment of the machine was to turn it on and see what happens. It would boot up, run through the normal boot sequence, and then jump to idle mode. Great so far!...but that was about it. You could start a game but none of the coils would fire except for the flippers. Random points would be awarded without a ball in play as well. A run of auto-test mode showed no coils firing but everything else seemed to be in order (displays, speech, lighting). After I got it home, I was able to really get an idea of what kind of condition it was in.

Praises

• Machine starts!
• All four displays are great
• Backglass in great shape (9/10) (stamp shows replaced in '96)
• Artwork on cabinet and playfield is still vibrant with color (it was kept covered by previous owner)
• Majority of plastics are good
• Flippers are strong!
• All boards look good
• Battery on MPU board looks replaced (not sure with what - I'm new to this!)
• Sound is working and initial speech tests are positive

Damage Report

• No momentary solenoids fire (Playfield fuse blown: 1 1/4A SB)
• Upper-Left Sling coil burned and locked up. Wires to solenoid cut.
• Drop target decals missing/unoriginal for targets 2, 3, and 4
• Lower Pop-Bumper skirt chipped
• Mylar around both Pop-Bumpers will need to be removed
• Dented metal spinners and worn decals
• Lower-Left Sling plastic broken in its bottom-right corner
• Top-middle lane plastic broken where it joins the bottom post
• Blue paint splatter/overspray at top-right of playfield
• Very worn and beat up playfield glass
• Playfield artwork wear down to bare wood
• Previously touched-up playfield artwork is recessed below adjacent art
• Cupped inserts
• Screw near drain to prevent Ball 3 detection switch from getting bent
• Screw through the center coin slot to prevent coin insertion
• Original Stern and Credit stickers worn
• Scuffs and gouges around cabinet
• Wires cut to Coin-Lockout solenoid
• No coin mech
• Several switch capacitors broken off (about 5 found in bottom of cab)
• Damage to sides of wood rails and playfield due to lifting playfield up/down for maintenance
• Damage to wood rails which support playfield when lifted for maintenance
• Damage to underside of playfield where supported by lever arm almost to the point of puncture to its topside
• Missing headbolt
• Mismatching legbolts
• Missing PCB screws to hold boards in place in backbox
• Some minor scratches to backglass artwork, mostly frame

Backglass (resized).jpgPlayfield (resized).jpgBackbox boards - solenoid connections (resized).jpgBackbox boards - no connections (resized).jpgSolenoid Driver Board (resized).jpgMPU Board (resized).jpgLamp Driver Board (resized).jpgPower Regulator and Bridge Rectifier (resized).jpgPlayfield - Lower-left sling plastic (resized).jpgPlayfield - 5bank drop targets (resized).pngPlayfield - art wear (resized).jpgPlayfield - right spinner (resized).jpgPlayfield - Top-middle lane plastic broken. Paint splatter (resized).jpgFront Cab - coin mech (resized).jpgElectronics - cut wire to UL Sling (resized).jpgPlayfield maintenance support (resized).jpg

Project Intent / Plan of Action
For this project, I'd like to restore the entire machine to "like new" condition. As of now, this will include:

1. Touch-up backglass artwork
2. Seal backglass artwork
3. Repair electronics enough to make the game functional
4. Tear down playfield
5. Clean playfield
6. Restore playfield condition (scrapes and dings)
7. Restore playfield artwork
8. Clear-coat playfield
9. Clean and refurbish mechanics
10. Clean and service all key electronics
11. Rebuild playfield support mechanism for when servicing machine
12. Cabinet restoration
13. Reassemble playfield electronics and mechs
14. Upgrade to LEDs using LED lamp driver board
15. Upgrade ROMs

I won't be able to make it perfect but I'd like to get it most of the way there!

Resources and Inspiration
I've been doing a ton of research on pinball restorations - these have been significant sources of my inspiration

• Vid's Guide to Ultimate Playfield Restorationby vid1900 on Pinside
• Opening Flight 2000 Software up to the Communityby slochar on Pinside
• Flight 2000 - Playfield Resurrectionby RonniN on Pinside
• Tilting Playfield Against Backbox on Flight 2000by oldschoolbob on Pinside
• Flight 2000 Pinball Restoration Project by "HowToWith GEO" on YouTube

• Restoring an Adam's Family Pinball Machine by "The 8-Bit Pit" on YouTube

Moving Forward
As mentioned in the beginning of this post, I've been working on this machine for almost a month, now. Bear with me as I try to update this forum to my present-day progress. I do welcome your comments, "tricks of the trade", and cool (but clean!) hacks you've used to solve the same, or similar, problems. I am blessed and thankful to my pinball friends who have helped me get this far - this is a shout out to you! I am thankful for your expertise, experience, and willingness to share your knowledge with me. I'm happy to invite you, Pinsider, to that group and this forum. Pinball on.

~KP

Hey @chas10e, pictures are uploaded. My apologies that most of them don't show the playfield jumpers plugged in - I took most of the board pictures just recently after I pulled the playfield out of the cab. So, unfortunately, I won't be able to take pictures of everything plugged in until the end of the project.

You have quite the eagle eye! I was hoping that would slip by unnoticed for now lol. Yeah, it's A2-J1-8 that's burned up which is the General Illumination Bus. I'll have more info on this later

The battery...should be removed & replaced with something that will NEVER corrode

The battery and MPU board were one of the things I first looked at when inspecting the machine. Because it looked like a clean replacement and it's working fine, I'll be leaving it to the end of my project in the "potential upgrades" section. I appreciate the info and links, thank you. That first one has quite a bit of good info; it's good to know what my options are!

On the SDB (solenoid driver board) those 2 big blue capacitors should probably be replaced

I kinda felt the capacitors were ok because they look fine. I would guess that the last time they were replaced was about 15 years ago though, which does sound scary now that I say it! Is it better to replace the caps before they pop or is it ok if I let it sit for a while? I'm trying to postpone "unnecessary" purchases until the end of the project where I can take care of the "nice-to-have" upgrades/updates.

I bought the #'s 1-5 drop targets from Steve at PBR http://www.pbresource.com/ think he has the best prices on them also a good source for the other items you will need

Nice! I've been favoring Pinball Lifebut they don't have everything I need so I was also looking at the obvious Marco's. I didn't want to split orders due to shipping costs but Marcos is slightly more expensive than other resources. So my plan of action was to get a full list of items I need and then do some price comparisons to see if buying from multiple resources is worth it. I'll add Steve's PBR to the list of places

Those pop bumper caps are no longer manufactured anywhere with the ribs (at this posting) you can get 'em without the ribs ...but ...but ... ribs are cool

Ribs are cool! Thankfully, I shouldn't bneed to replace them - I shouldbe able to wash the paint splatter off. The heads aren't damaged other than the paint, so that's good, but one of the skirts is chipped. I was thinking about buying black skirts so it doesn't show dirt/scrapes. I am also buying black rubbers instead of the original white. Do you think it'd be ok to spray a quick clear gloss on the pop bumper caps when they're all cleaned up, would that better protect them in the future from cracking?

Wow! I didn't realize I had such a hot commodity!

Ok, so, the first step I took in this process was to evaluate my Flight 2000 as much as I could before making my first purchase for parts. There were things I knew I obviously needed, such as fuses and playfield rubbers, but I wanted to make sure I could order as many things as I could up-front and minimize shipping costs.

I couldn't help but turn the machine on, run it through the auto-test, and dream that it fixed itself but that obviously didn't get me anywhere! To the schematics I went! I downloaded the F2K schematics from Internet Pinball Database (ipdb.com) and threw the printed pages into a binder so I could make notes on them. My goals were to try and figure out why the playfield fuse blew and verify that other systems were working properly. Over the course of a couple days, I was looking at all of the mechs under the playfield, following wires, and making sure nothing seemed out of place.

At some point along the way, continuing my to go back and forth between the underside of the playfield and the backbox wiring, I nudged something the wrong way because something wasn't right. When I turned the machine on, a swift noise - it was a solenoid! But which one and why? I propped the playfield up, turned the machine on again, and saw the first Apollo launcher solenoid firing (Top Left Kicker - Sol. 18). But it wasn't a momentary fire, it was staying on. Staring at the kicker investigating what might be the cause, it started to burn up because I didn't turn the machine off in time. Oops! And that's how I fried that solenoid But hey, I'm learning.

I decided to take a break from turning the machine on and off for fear of burning more things. Learning more about solenoids sounded good since I seemed good at damaging them. Why not take one apart? Since the wires were already cut to the Upper Left Sling(Sol. 2) I figured it was safe to take it off the playfield. I desoldered the yellow ground wires and removed the rest of the sling (this comes to nip me in the butt later). I've never taken one of these things apart before so I was really curious - but found there was really not much to it

Ok, I thought, I still have a playfield fuse problem. What caused the U.L. Sling to burn up in the first place and what caused the Apollo Top Left Kicker to burn up when I turned the machine on? Since both of those solenoids are near the same area under the playfield, I figured something must be wrong with the wiring. Wires to the switches seemed fine, wires to the remaining coil seemed fine, and nothing fishy was going on with the wiring. I started to check the lamps around these two solenoids as well for fear of the lamps crossing paths with the coils. Ah ha! Lo' and behold I found a General Illumination lamp socket pushed up against the switch for the U.L. Sling. This may be what caused the A2-J1-8 pin to burn up on the Bridge Rectifier Board. I speculated it may have been what caused the U.L. Sling to burn up - theoretically, it was constantly enabling the switch (No. 9) and therefore constantly supplying power to the solenoid, burning it up.
GI lamp on Sw9 (resized).jpg
This exciting find didn't really explain the reason for the Top Left Kicker (Apollo Ball Kicker 1) solenoid to fire and burn up - it seemed unlikely that the GI lamp issue somehow ran all the way to the Ball Kicker solenoid. I was encouraged to investigate more to figure out the kicker issue but I was out of ideas and didn't really have the knowledge of what to do next. I reached out to a friend who actually owns and operates a pinball repair shop - he gave me some helpful advice to check all of the diodes and transistors. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? All you experience people out there are probably cringing right now but, being a newbie, I needed a boost of ideas. I started to check every single diode on the bridge rectifier board, playfield coils, and Solenoid Driver Board. I checked out the transistors on the SDB as well (including the transistor chips U1, U3, U4)...everything checked out fine. There was one transistor that was pretty badly corroded (Q10 for #3 Drop Target) but passed the diode test (I will be replacing this one anyway due to the corrosion).

I decided to stop here and put in an order for parts because I was getting antsy and hoping that plugging a fuse in would solve all my problems. Here's a list of things I put on order:

• Two coils (to replace the U.L. Sling and Apollo Ball Kicker 1)(AE-26-1500)
• Set of coil sleeves
• 10 playfield fuses (1 1/4A SB) and a couple of each other type of F2K fuse
• A few capacitors for the switches (0.05 Mfd, 25V)
• 8-pin connector (male & female) to replace A2-J1-8 (although I think I ended up buying the wrong thing on accident)
• Complete set of black rubbers for playfield
• Red flipper rubbers
• Plastic protector washers
• Set of Novus (3, 2, 1)

Now I had to wait for shipping

Lucky for you, I did that a few weeks ago

While I was waiting for the shipment to come in, I broke a couple more things! Let me show you

Sometimes you just need to see something work in order to boost your confidence in a project. In my case, I needed to see those flippers working again so I could hit something. I turned the machine on, rolled a couple credits, started a game (no momentary solenoids firing still, waiting on fuses!), and....no flippers. Wwwwhaahaat!?!? They were working last time I had the machine on, what happened? Nothing changed with the flipper coils or playfield wiring, I hadn't messed with that. It must have come from the Solenoid Driver Board because I did take it out of the backbox to look at it a day or so prior. Flipper wires were all plugged in (J1-8, J1-9, J2-1, J2-2) - what the heck is going on? This was a good learning moment for me because I started looking up how flipper mechanisms worked, especially in conjunction with the Flipper Enable Relay ( here's a good resource). I figured neither of the flippers would fire because something was wrong with the Flipper Enable Relay (FER) since it controls both flippers. The Flipper Enable Relay looked fine on the board, though, and it was working just a day or two before. Going back to the Solenoid Driver Board, I checked the transistor for the relay (Q15). If you want to know how you can check your transistors, I find PinballHelp on YouTube as a great resource (see below).

Per the PinballHelp video, I was testing transistor Q15 by putting the black lead on the transistor tab and red lead on other pins (base/emitter) - everything checked out good. "Well that's weird," I thought. Firing up the machine again still showed the same problem, no flippers. Still convinced it had something to do with the FER, I decided I should trace continuity to it from the Q15 transistor. As I went to do this and got a closer look at the board, I noticed the C-pin (collector) of Q15 was broken in two. That'l do it! I must have broken the pin on accident by accidentally bending the transistor when messing with the board. Because I don't have any transistors lying around, I soldered a bridge between the gap of the broken pin - it's not great and it's a temporary solution as I will be replacing this TIP102 in the future.
IMG_20200404_150409 (resized).jpgIMG_20200404_153326 (resized).jpg
I decided to run some voltage tests on the Transformer/Rectifier Board (A2) to make sure the output voltages were correct. I had never seen the "TP" labels on a circuit board before but after a quick google search I found that it stood for Test Point - the schematics make a little more sense now. Using this fine knowledge in conjunction with the schematic, I could test the desired voltages at each section of the Transformer Board. Genius! Be careful to switch between DC and AC voltage checks, obviously, to keep your DMM lasting long. That's not the problem I had, however; what I did was make an electrician's mistake of the woodworker's motto, "measure twice, cut once." As I was measuring voltages across test points, I followed the fuse numbers with the test point numbers: testing TP1 for F1, TP2 for F2, TP3 for F3, TP4 for-ZAP! Oops! If you take a closer look at the schematic, TP4 is for F5 and TP5 is for F4! Instead of double-checking the schematic (and the labels literally written on the PCB), I was attempting to measure DC voltage at F5 instead of AC and so I blew F5 Don't be like me! Double check before you throw your DMM on something! It's a good thing I added a couple of each fuse type to the order I placed.
Transformer Schematic Test Points - marked (resized).jpg

I finally had a chance to read this article the other day - it has great information! It pretty much answered my question about the caps - I should most definitely replace them so I'll be adding them to my parts list. Thanks for looking outI have yet to read the entirety of the article about replacing my battery but I'll likely end up doing that as well. I'll keep you updated with which route I take.

My shipment came in and for the sake of this post, the items that particularly mattered for me to more forward with electronics were:

1. Playfield fuses
2. Two new coils

First thing I did when I received my shipment was plug in my previously blown F5 fuse (see post #9). I could then test the voltages off the Transformer Board to make the voltages at each Test Point were good, being sure to not make the same mistake as last time. Things checked out ok there. I ended up doing a diode test again on all of my playfield solenoid diodes, SDB through-hole diodes, SDB through-hole transistors (TIP102), and SDB chip transistors (SE9302). Everything seemed ok there (dun dun dun! "seemed" ).

Everything was in order and it was time! I threw a playfield fuse (1 1/4A SB) in and gave the power switch a flip! ...and I was sorely put in my place when the fuse blew immediately after the startup sequence. Back to where I started - no momentary solenoids because something keeps blowing the playfield fuse. Alright, "last resort" I said to myself, and I unplugged all of the solenoid pins from their connectors on the SDB. I knew the flippers were good so I left those connectors in but I pulled all other connectors (A3-J1-5, A3-J2-4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, and A3-J5-3, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15). Then, I was going to go through each solenoid, plug it in to the SDB, and run the auto-test to see if the solenoid fires or blows the playfield fuse again. I started with J1 and J2, working my way from lowest pin to highest pin. Note that I didn't do J2-4 because it fires Sol.2 which I hadn't replaced yet and I also didn't do J2-8 because the Coin Lockout wires were cut and not really necessary. All other solenoids worked well during the auto-test: 5-Bank Drop Target Reset, Bottom Pop Bumper, Top Pop Bumper, Top-Right Slingshot, Bottom-Left Slingshot, and Bottom-Right Slingshot. Moving to the next jumper, J5, I skipped J5-3 (Sol.18 Top-Left Kicker) and plugged in the other pins one by one, testing as I went.

While testing at this point, my 5-Bank Drop Target Reset stopped, well, resetting. This was a really frustrating moment for me because I thought I was making some real progress and then I felt like something backfired. It was just working minutes before. The following day (I needed to come at it with a refreshed mind), I ran some continuity tests with the 5-Bank Drop Target Reset solenoid to discover it wasn't connected to ground. If you go back to Post #8, you'll remember that I removed the Top-Left Slingshot coil and left its wires just chilling since they were already cut. However, in my testing of the solenoids and lifting the playfield up and down several times, I eventually bumped the two yellow ground wires where the Top-Left Slingshot coil was removed - dislodging them enough to no longer be touching. This caused the Drop Target Reset to no longer work since its ground wire was in series with the Top-Left Sling ground. Another valuable lesson for me, a single wire means it's terminating, and multiple wires means it's traveling. Duh!

Moving back to J5 of the SDB, I continued to plug in each solenoid pin one by one and test along the way to find the culprit of the playfield fuse. I left out J5-3, Sol.18 Top-Left Ball Kicker, because the coil needed to be replaced. Everything in J5 tested out fine. That narrowed the problem down to J2-4 (Sol.2 Top-Left Slingshot) and/or J5-3 (Sol.18 Top-Left Ball Kicker). I replaced the two bad coils (Sol.2, Sol.18) with new ones (AE-26-1500). I threw in J2-4 and it tested fine. I then threw in J5-3 and-BAM! Playfield fuse blown which means I finally found the culprit, the Top-Left Kicker (Sol.18). I went back to the SDB to figure out what was throwing everything off. I made another discovery of user-error - it seems I like to get in the way of my own progress When testing the transistors on the SDB, I was using the diode mode on my DMM. The problem was that I wasn't actually looking at the voltage readings, I was just listening for my DMM to beep and assuming that meant "all good". Wrong! The beep from the DMM indicates continuity, electricity can travel from A to B. Which it should beep for all diodes because that makes sense. So my Q18 transistor was shorted on one of the pins...and it took me way too long to figure that out The reason the playfield fuse blew immediately after the startup sequence is because if the game doesn't detect 3 balls in the drain, it fires Sol.13 Ball Launcher (AKA Ball Walker) and both of the kickers (Sol.17 & 18) to release any locked balls. I was not aware of this feature, otherwise I may have narrowed this down sooner.

I didn't have any TIP102 transistors lying around so I desoldered Q19, which is for the Coin Lockout, and replaced Q18 with it. Fired everything up and everything is functional to play pinball! Woohooo!

After running up full credits (40) and playing through them all, the game tested out great! Everything was functional and fast!

Fair questions! It was set to 5 ball by the previous owner but I switched it to 3 ball after a few games or so. I'm used to 3 ball because of a pinball league I joined at the end of last year so had to get rid of that 5 ball play. I don't think extra balls were on but... I'm also not the best pinball player so I probably didn't do well enough to earn it if it's enabled! Never said I was good at pinball, those 40 credits went fast! Mine was set to award both "F"s but I'll change that switch when I put the machine back together (I'm working on playfield restoration right now so everything is taken apart at the moment).

I should've said everything was functional with the machine but not perfect. Both of my spinners need to be tweaked and juiced because they were sticking in an up position so you could shoot a ball straight through and it wouldn't hit the plate so no spins. When it occasionally does hit the plate, it's not spinning well. Some of the drop targets on the 5-bank don't stay up when the bank resets. I'm hoping to clean up these kinds of things when I go through and clean all of the mechanics.

That's why we buy these things instead of dropping quarters, right? haha but yeah I love this machine! I respect the old school aspect of the game; it's challenging and kicks out some serious speed. I feel like the biggest flaw, though, is how it re-locks balls after you start multiball. If you haven't already checked it out, some people are working on creating a new ROM set for Flight 2000 and the ideas are brilliant! I'm hoping to update my ROMs with their changes when I get my machine back up and running.

I haven't thought of my work that way, but yes! And there will be many more games to come in the future!

What does a good high score look like for this game? The current high score on my machine is about 7.5 million but I'm positive it's from a 5-ball game and even then I'm not sure of its legitimacy. Is it possible for me to reset the high score without resetting other saved information, such as number of machine plays, extra balls awarded, etc.?

Damaging the playfield, plastics, and mechs further started to concern me as I played my newly running machine - and I had to call it quits eventually to get the ball rolling on the restoration. Needless to say, I had to shut 'er down and start the makeover process. Before I get to that, though, I wanted to log some of my findings/notes of the schematics. As a side note, I've thought about redrawing the schematics digitally to clean things up, make things legible, and correct some mistakes...I may add this to my list of items at the end of the project.

My findings are pretty minor, and I thought I had more items, but either way I figured I'd share to see if anyone had any differences or found similar things with their machine. Here we go:

Solenoid 13 B-W (resized).png
1. Solenoid 13 for the Ball Launcher (aka Apollo Walker) is in the schematics (all page references) as wire coloring B-Y for Black-Yellow. However it was B-W (Black-White) for my machine.

Continuous Solenoid notes (resized).png

2. There's a typo for the Flipper Enable Relay (stemming from Q15) on the Continuous Solenoid schematic. It's indicated to go to A2-J3-8 but it's actually going to A2-J3-9. This typo appears to only be on this page - it's correct on the Wiring Diagram.
3. My Sol.18 (Left Ball Kicker) was wired to A3-J5-3 instead of the schematic-noted A3-J2-15 (Solenoid Driver Board Schematic). How are other people's physical Sol. 18 wired, which jumper does it connect to?
4. It's a lot easier to see digitally but on my printed schematic I couldn't read what the last jumper was on the Continuous Solenoids section so I wrote it aside. Large, clear print for the tiny-illegible-text-impaired.

Let the destruction begin! Teardown of the playfield was extremely tedious and kind of nerve-racking! I had to strip a working machine, which I just finished repairing, of all its parts...but, it had to be done! I started with the topside, removing plastics, rubbers, posts, and rails.
Plastics removed (resized).jpgRemoving posts (resized).jpg
Next, I removed the drop target banks and the ball walker- what a reduction in playfield weight! Wow! I was surprised by how heavy those things were.
Most topside components removed (resized).jpg
During the teardown, I was desolding all of the solenoids and switches. I may have made more work for myself but at the same time I decided I want to clean all of the components. I do not have a tumbler but I do have some wire wheels and metal polish. My plan is to work on cleaning up all of the larger metal parts/pieces when I get to the point of waiting for a clearcoat to cure on the finalized playfield.

I took one section at a time, removing one set of items and putting it into its own labelled bag. I'm not sure how others organize their parted pins; if you have a better idea, please let me know! I now have 3 boxes full of bagged pinball parts I tried to take pictures of every single item: a couple pictures of it in place and a couple pictures during disassembly to better understand when it's time for reassembly. That said, I didn't take many good "big picture" ( ) pictures so I don't have many photos of the playfield as a whole during the middle stages of disassembly.
Underside electronics (resized).jpg
I have a few questions for you Flight 2000 folks. What is the wire rail below the flippers for? It is very close to playfield-level so doesn't fully guide the ball like other metal wire rails on the playfiled. It appears to have been made that way because the pegs going into the playfield are much shorter than the other metal wire rails. I'm just not sure what its purpose is. If you know more info about this, let me know! Also, does anyone else have a partially drilled screw near the drain to prevent the ball detection switch from getting bent?
Below flippers (resized).jpg
Does anyone else have random nails under their playfield? I won't be adding these during re-assembly because they don't seem to have a purpose.
Underside - random nail (resized).jpg
At this point, I removed every functional component from the playfield except the lights- I left all GI lamps and controlled lamps. The playfield was finally free!
Topside everything removed (resized).jpgEmpty cab (resized).jpgUnderside playfield GI (resized).jpg
Next task was to remove the lighting. Before removing anything I traced all of the stapled GI wire on the playfield with a marker for later reference. Next was to remove the lamp sockets- some of them had so much solder on them that the screw holding it down was soldered into place. I had to remove all of the staples along the GI lines as well. This was an extremely tedious process- there are probably close to 100 staples holding the GI lines that needed prying with a flathead screwdriver and/or ripping with needlenose pliers. In my frustration and impatience of the slow process, I snapped the GI wire track in a few places
GI wire snap2 (resized).jpgGI wire snap1 (resized).jpg
I need to make a decision to repair the areas I shredded or use all new wiring for the track when I reassemble. I think I have spools of copper wire lying around somewhere but I think what I have is solid, not stranded (existing GI is stranded). The above picture gives you a little glimpse into how messy and dirty the underside of my playfield is from a close up perspective. There's flux and solder randomly splattered all over the underside of the playfield and some areas of application were heavily applied. With all of the lighting removed, you can really see the dirt, grime, and the obvious burns.
Underside - removed GI (resized).jpg
Last step to free this puppy is to remove the remaining wood rails and metal brackets. And there she is, free as a year-2000 rocketship imagined from the year 1980! (except extra dirty)
Topside - removed rails (resized).jpg

I measured my pin this morning and drew it in Sketchup. As others have said, yes it's a nominal 25" wide playfield. Here are the full dimensions you'll probably want to consider when attempting to fit in a vehicle and/or home. I picked up this machine with my hatchback and it BARELY fit (with no other passengers). I was lucky my friend, who helped me pick up the pin, drove separate because my car couldn't fit the dolly with the pin.

F2K Full dimensions (resized).pngF2K Cab dimensions (resized).pngF2K Backbox dimensions (resized).png
(NOTE: I was measuring with rough 1/8" precision so my dimensions could be slightly off)

Interesting find. My pin has the rails underneath the inlane plastics - it makes sense to help protect those plastics a bit because they're so thin.

I can only speculate that the rail just above the apron would assist in a left lane drain.

I'm actually wondering if maybe it was put there to prevent and/or discourage bangback nudges to get a drained ball back in play?

Oooh, nice and shiny indeed! Thanks for including the exact parts you used. It looks very clean, like it's meant to be there, rather than a random wood screw I have. I'll be adding this to my parts list.

No, both of my flipper location pins are present (although one is bent out of shape). The nails under the playfield don't penetrate through the topside...I really have no idea why they were added.

Ah no, what a bummer! Maybe another opportunity will present itself in the future

On with the playfield restoration! We're almost caught up to my present-day progress so hopefully I can start talking in the present tense soon

Before getting to the top side of the playfield, I really couldn't bare the mess of the underside. Besides the largely obvious discoloration and burn marks, there's crusty flux, random solder, and dirt all over the place. I decided the first step to restoring the playfield would be to clean up the underside - at least enough so it's not making a mess on my desk as I work on it. I also wanted to repair some damage to the wood and this was a prime opportunity to do it. I have several problems with the support arm mechanism used to prop the playfield up for maintenance, one of them being how little it accounts for protecting the playfield from harm. At the "hinge" point, if you can call it that, at the top of the playfield, there was a huge gouge out of the top-right corner of the playfield (both top and bottom). The support arm that props the playfield up is also extremely sharp metal which has shown to really destroy the wood at the "port". Toward the end of this project, I would like to figure out a better, safer way to hinge and prop the playfield - I'll likely do some design iterations in Sketchup.

BEFORE-top gouge (resized).jpgcab playfield support stabby (resized).jpgBEFORE-support hole stabs (resized).jpg

What a mess! My goal here was to sand and repaint the underside of the playfield- nothing too fancy, just nice enough for me to live with. I first grabbed some painter's tape to cover all through-holes on the topside of the playfield - covering anything larger than a screw hole. Maybe a little paranoid, I really didn't want mess up the topside of the playfield so I sliced up a plastic garbage bag and covered the topside of the playfield with it. The garbage bag size was actually a perfect width, I only had to trim a bit off the ends. Using painter's tape again, I adhered the plastic bag to the front of the playfield while wrapping the painter's tape up vertically around the perimeter. This was perfect because the excess tape formed a nice "mold" for the corner gouges I needed to repair. I filled the gouges with regular, all-purpose bondo putty. I also filled the stabbed up "port" hole which held the playfield support arm in place.

Side, bonus story. I wanted to get the wood filler bondo but, for those of you who don't know, some products were restricted from purchase in Michigan during the Covid-19 government restrictions. So, although the store had the wood filler bondo in stock, I wasn't able to get to it because it was in the paint aisle I managed to at least snag the all-purpose bondo from an end cap, luckily. So, I'm not sure what other people use but I hope the all-purpose bondo is good enough!

BEFORE-topside taped (resized).jpg

After the bondo cured I fired up the sander to level the bondo repairs and to clean up the rest of the mess on the underside. Next task was the paint. I had some extra grey spray paint lying around that I decided to use. All the playfield inserts gave quite the scare at this point, I really didn't want to cut painter's tape to cover every single insert. Thankfully, my wife being nearby, promptly had a great idea to fill all of the inserts with cotton. Brilliant! This worked out great! I would caution you, however, if you plan to use cotton to cover your inserts, here are a few tips:

• Don't skimp on the cotton, make sure you fill the hole enough to cover every surface and make it dense enough to be able to absorb some paint without "soaking" to the opposite side (which is protecting the insert)
• Your cotton can potentiall (and will) fly away if it's windy in the area you decide to do your spray painting
• Doing touch-up sanding to your playfield while there's cotton in the insert holes will strip the cotton right out and you'll have to do it over again

BEFORE-cotton to fill inserts (resized).jpgBEFORE-bottomside sanded (resized).jpg

Playfield was all ready for a makeover! Two thin spray paint coats was good enough for me and it was all I could do with my leftover spray paint can - win win for me! The paint turned out rather perfect, actually, because I can still see (barely) the lines I drew for the GI wires. I probably won't redraw them on there since I have enough reference between the existing lines and my pictures. I topped off the underside with a quick coat of triple thick - maybe overkill but whatevs.

BEFORE AND AFTER-bottomside (resized).jpgAFTER-profile bottomside (resized).jpg

Next up was to clean out the dirt (or soot?) from the inserts that had built up over the years (you can see how black they are a couple pictures up). I just used some generic glass cleaner and some cotton swabs - they cleaned up really well! I will use this final picture as a reference for buying colored LEDs. Until cleaning the inserts, I didn't realize the earned "BLASTOFF" letters all have off-white inserts - I initially thought they were yellow. I haven't decided what color I'll buy for those ones yet My understanding is you buy white LEDs for yellow inserts....does that mean buying yellow LEDs is not good for white inserts? Idk, maybe I'll skip all that and go to purple

AFTER-clean inserts front view (resized).jpg

Today, we move to the topside of the playfield!

I'd like to reiterate that I've never touched a playfield before so I have no idea what I'm doing Some things you can only research and read so much of in attempt to understand, it takes experiencing to really solidify understanding.

Let's look at some pictures.

1B - bottom right playfield (resized).jpg1C - top shooter lane (resized).jpg1D - corner gouge (resized).jpg1E - L A S T top lanes (resized).jpg1F - orange sweep (resized).jpg1G - splattered planets (resized).jpg1H - Special and Spot (resized).jpg1I - recessed paint (resized).jpg1J - green planet (resized).jpg

Despite being covered, the playfield collected a lot of dust and debris over the years; it probably hasn't been cleaned in 10 years. For the first phase of cleaning the topside, I started with just a cloth and isopropyl alcohol (thankfully I bought this bottle long before the Covid-19 pandemic because now you can't find alcohol anywhere). With the dampened cloth, I dabbed it across the playfield to lift the major, more abrasive debris. It didn't pick up much but it was a good start to get familiar with the playfield. I then took a microfiber cloth, dampened that with alcohol, and started to softly scrub dirt off. This worked ok but a lot of noticible dirt and ball swirls remained. After scrubbing in certain areas, it appears the playfield has some sort of protective clearcoat on it...but I'm not sure what it is. It seems that the clearcoat is covering existing dirt as well as ball swirls (therefore sealing these impurities into the playfield), or it could be that whatever clearcoat was used has weathered to the point of absorbing/retaining accumulated dirt and ball swirls. It's been really difficult for me to be sure. Again, I don't have much knowledge in this area. Were playfields clearcoated during manufacturing back in 1980? If so, I would imagine the coating they used wasn't as good as the automotive clearcoat used today. I'm kind of stuck at these crossroads trying to decide if I should attempt to strip the existing coat or if I should leave the existing coat, clean it up as much as I can, do my touch-ups, and then clearcoat on top of it. One way or another, by the wear we see on the playfield now, we know that the old clear is not sufficient enough to protect the playfield.

I knew I could at least start the playfield restoration with mylar removal and cleaning up the splatter paint. Mylar removal was extremely easy, thankfully, and I think that's due to whatever clear is on the playfield. I've never even held a Duster can before so I was really not familiar with the "freeze" feature of these air cans. For those who haven't used it before, it's just a can of pressurized air (often used to clean dust from hard-to-reach places like electronics/keyboards). If you hold the can upside down, however, it shoots freezing air and fluid (not really sure what kind of liquid). The freezing cold air is supposed to seize up the mylar glue which in turn releases the mylar from the glue. Again, this method worked great on my playfield! It was rather terrifying at first when I shot the mylar - I wasn't expecting any liquid to be shot out of the can so that was surprise. When it released onto the mylar and started bubling into a white foam, I was terrified that it was eating away at the playfield. Nope! No worries! It just foams up and can later be wiped off with a damp cloth. Whew! Scared me at first - I thought I ruined everything! When you use the freezing air method, make sure you keep your hands away from the spray by holding the mylar with tweezers or something. Also, don't pry or lift the mylar with force - all you need is a small, constant, taut grip. When the glue freezes, it will release the mylar.

2A - duster can (resized).jpg2B - mylar removal process (resized).jpg

You can see from the pictures that the overspray blue paint was on top of the mylar. This means the clearcoat was added first, then the mylar, then overspray paint. The blue overspray could very well have been from the manufacturing process - if it was, it means the clearcoat was applied during manufacturing as well which means the clear (whatever that may be) on my playfield is 40 years old. If the overspray paint is not from the manufacturer, well that just means someone had careless excecution of cabinet touch-ups lol.

2C - released mylar (resized).jpg

With the glue left behind, I used the classic alcohol + flour technique to remove it. I really feel bad for the folks who have full-playfield mylar - how tedious it must be to remove that glue! I was getting impatient with just my two small pop bumper mylar rings. Due to my impatience, I grabbed a thin, blunt piece of metal to scrape the glue off. I used the back, blunt end of the metal shaft of an X-Acto blade. I'm not recommending you do this because I don't know how other playfields are. I think the only reason I could get away with using this is because the existing clear on my playfield and the mylar was applied on top of it. Regardless, it worked really well to remove the glue after applying alcohol and flour. I did nick the playfield in a couple areas, though, so I'll need to do some extra touch-ups later.

2E - mylar glue scrape (resized).jpg

You can also really see the color varyation between the mylar-covered playfield areas and the surrounding areas. I'm having a difficult time deducing if the coloration difference is due to playfield color fade, clearcoat discoloration/fade, or accumulated dirt (or a combination).

2F - mylar removed (resized).jpg

My next task was to remove the overspray blue paint from, well, everything. The excess paint was all over the upper playfield. Most of the spots were at the top-right of the playfield but I found traces of it all the way down to the far left areas by the upper-left slingshot. To remove the paint, I took a cotton swab dampened with alcohol to prep the target spot. I then used the sharp end of my flat-head X-Acto blade to lightly scrape the paint off. I sure hope you don't have to do this to your playfield! The blade worked rather well to remove the paint, it was just tedious (as you can probably imagine) to scan the entire playfield for every single, tiniest blue spec of paint and then try to scrape it off without accidentally cutting into the playfield. I made another few nicks in the playfield during this process as well that I'll need to touch up later...but I have so much to do already, what are a few more spots?

3 - orange sweep paint splatter removal (resized).jpg

Once I cleaned up those particular surface spots, I decided to do a complete topside playfield scrub. What could clean up the playfield the most without destroying it? I tested out the common tools I've heard about: Novus 2, Novus 1, and off-brand Magic Erasers (w/alcohol). Basically what I found was the Magic Eraser did a decent job at scrubbing off dirt/grime and the Novus 2 did a decend job at hiding the cracks in the clear. I ended up scrubbing the entire topside of the playfield with an alcohol-dampened Magic Eraser plus Novus 2.

4 - ME alcohol and Novus 2 (resized).jpg

Again, I'm not recommending my methods because my playfield may be different than others'. I've heard Magic Eraser and Novus 2 are quite abrasive and yes, they will completely destroy exposed paint. Using this method stripped all paint touch-ups currently on my playfield. The true colors of my playfield, or lack thereof, now show! I don't see this as a step backwards in my progess, though. With the touch-up paint removed, I can really see what needs to get re-leveled and painted. I previously planned that whatever touch-up paint I would do, I would try to bring it up to the same level as the adjacent paint to minimize visible divots in the artwork. My main scare in touch-up work is going to be matching colors, lettering ("2000" and "PLUS"), and the dot matrix fade in the green parts of the planet.

Here are some before and after pictures summing up my work so far. Sorry for the inconsistent lighting of the pictures.

5A - B L A S T (resized).jpg5B - cleaned bottom right playfield (resized).jpg5C - cleaned top shooter lane (resized).jpg5D - cleaned L A S T top lanes (resized).jpg5E - cleaned top center playfield (resized).jpg5F - cleaned orange sweep (resized).jpg5G - cleaned special spot blast (resized).jpg5H - cleaned green planet (resized).jpg5Ib - cleaned full playfield (resized).jpg

At this point, we're caught up to my current progress!

Right now I don't have a clear plan for artwork restoration. I'm mulling over ideas of stripping the existing clear vs leaving the old clear and starting restoration now. I'm also mulling over methods for painting and what equipment to use (and potentially buy) to reach that end. To sum up, I'm sorting out my thoughts and tools for the job. Any input you might have as I contemplate the next steps, feel free to share!

Yeah I've read Vid's guide before but it's been a while. I need to go back and read through it again. Although I'm trying not to spend a fortune on tools and materials and I know his guide suggests some professional grade stuff. For instance, I planned to hand brush paint touch-ups because I don't have an airbrush kit.

Hey gang, it's been a while. Don't fret, I am still alive and I am still working on this project. My dad was generous to give me his old airbrushing kit so I have been playing around with that. I never realized how much skill and control is needed to operate an airbrush effectively! I'll spare you pictures of my practice work since I have a ways to go yet but I thought I'd show you at least some progress I've been making - color mixing! I'm prepping colors for artwork touchups - I'll honestly probably spend quite a bit of time here because I want to get the colors right. It'll never be perfect, I know that because there are varying amounts of color wear across the playfield, but I'd like to hit a solid median in a color match before proceeding.

airbrush (resized).jpgpaints (resized).jpg

I got these little glass containers at Dollar Tree, 5 for $1. They fit just the right amount of paint!

So far I think I have the off-white locked in and I'm pretty happy with it! The off-white color is mainly unseen except for two critical areas on my playfield that need attention:

1. The green planet's orbital ring/rim, and
2. The Bonus Multiplier "Plus" background.

You can see my purple is still very far off

off-white (resized).jpgpurple (resized).jpg

Note that I swabbed the paint on top of the existing clear and let it dry for a better comparison. It will all come off with a quick dose of alcohol and a scrub. No harm done!

Ahhh, that makes much more sense! My switch is bent so I thought the screw was to prevent further damage to it. Preserving game state is a seriously important matter so I understand the quick fix to make sure games were working on site.

I made a black card that essentially extends the metal of the apron.

Nice! I'm not sure if you are considered lucky that you didn't have a screw in your playfield or unlucky The cardstock looks good, I'm surprised it holds up against a metal pinball. How is it secured? Although I guess the ball can't have too much momentum by the time it gets to that position of the drain. My playfield already has a hole from the screw so I'll probably do a solution similar to hisokajp (post 20). You're right though, most players aren't going to take the effort to look at the drain from the playfield-angle.

Has it really been 3 months?!? Wow! Where has this year gone, really? Well hey, if you're still here following this post despite my prolonged absence, kudos to you! Though I can't say I'll keep a steady pace through this project, I assure you I'm determined to finish it so stick around!

TLDR:
A lot has happened in 3 months! Here's the short version:

• I made clarification updates to the sketchup drawing of the Flight 2000 (post 25) which can now be found on ipdb.org (here).
• I had to start over with paint mixing/matching; I now have 3 of 7 colors mixed with the new Createx paint.

Long Version:

Refactored Sketchup Drawing
I was asked quite a while ago for some clarifications regarding post 25 of this thread. In that post, I showed some snapshots of the Flight 2000 drawn in Sketchup with some dimensions and such. I was asked to clarify those dimensions by none other than a representative of the Internet Pinball Database (ipdb.org)! Wow! Super cool! They asked if I could clarify things about the machine such as: how much floorspace does the machine take up, what are the level/height adjustments on the legs, etc. I did some remeasuring of the pin and refactoring to the Sketchup drawing; here's a shortened snippet of the results. A complete look at the dimensional drawings can now be found on the Flight 2000 page on ipdb (here's the link to the pdf!). Unfortunately, I can't upload the .skp file to pinside, otherwise I would, so if you find yourself in need of it shoot me a message and I can email it.

F2K Full machine - iso (resized).jpgF2K cabinet body - iso (resized).jpgF2K head - iso (resized).jpgF2K playfield - iso (resized).jpg

Paint Mixing: Starting Over
Mixing paints and matching playfield colors has been an arduous task! Sheesh! I have a decent, basic-color starter set of Valejo hobby paints which I started mixing colors with. The mixed colors I had showed previously in this forum were taken of those mixes. Matching colors has been a huge struggle so before I invested too much into the Valejo paints (Vid's guide seems to sellout on Createx paints and shoot down "hobby paints"), I decided to test out Vid's color-matching technique to simulate a clearcoat (apply Naptha on dry paint). When testing on my Valejo paints I was stunned at the drastic color difference of the paint once Naptha was applied. I don't think I have any pictures of the color difference but my dried Valejo colors looked significantly lighter when wet with Naptha than it did dry. I had to mull on this for several days because I didn't want to stop progress, nor shell out for expensive Createx paint sets, nor start mixing colors from scratch again. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I'd rather do things right the first time; I was already taking a risk with the Valejo paints because of color-matching, even if I could match all of the colors well I'd still be taking another risk of the paint reacting to a clearcoat (as described again in Vid's guide).

It pained me to throw away my mixed paint but it had to be done I managed to pick up a basic Createx paint set of primary colors at Hobby Lobby for 40% off, plus a couple other individual Createx paints for specific colors.

Once again, I began to mix and match paints but this time it became more difficult because of my minimal color selection. Color mixing has been really tough! I spent a few weeks on YouTube just watching videos about color theory. By the way, I strongly suggest this to anyone else struggling with color-matching! I would consider myself more of a 3D artist than a 2D artist; i.e. I find elements of 3D visualization, construction, sculpting, and crafting much easier than more common skills to 2D art like drawing, painting, ratios/scaling, and colors. All that to say this stuff hasn't come easy to me! I'm excited to finally get to the point where the colors are mixed and all I need to do is paint by number from there

With the first couple of colors mixed, I tested the Naptha trick right away on some dried Createx paint...with not much better results than before! My advice to you is ALWAYS TEST! In Vid's guide, he claims that Createx paints do not change color when clearcoated but I have found that 50%, so far, of my Createx colors change with an overlay of Naptha. I'm not sure if they will change with a true clearcoat but I was a little disappointed to find out I will have the same problem matching paints as before- I need to mix the color, dabble paint, let it dry, and apply Naptha every single time I want to test a match. This has been so time consuming! I'm literally watching paint dry over here! Am I crazy? Has anyone else had these problems or has Vid's guide been flawless for you? Hopefully I can trust that the rest of his guide regarding paint is true and I don't have to worry about the Createx paints reacting to the clear.

There are technically eight playfield colors to Flight 2000:

1. Golden Yellow (comets, asteroid explosion, planets/moons)
2. Blue (space background)
3. Purple (space background)
4. Green (central planet, multiplier drop target info)
5. Turquoise (central planet)
6. Orange (planets, central planet rim, drop target sweep info)
7. Offwhite/Beige (central planet rim, under-plastic areas)
8. Black (space background, asteroid explosion, outlines)

As an added tricky-bonus, there are some color-dot gradients among the planets and moons:

1. Yellow-Orange gradient (moons)
2. Light-Dark Turquoise gradient (central planet)

I only need to mix seven of these colors (excludes black). Of these seven, I have completely mixed and completed blue, orange, and beige (2, 6, and 7); started mixing yellow, purple, and green (1, 3, and 4); and have yet to start turquoise (5).

Hey gang. It's probably been long awaited (I know it has been for me)- I finally have all of the colors mixed for the playfield! I tried my best to do a complete a color mixing table for each color mainly so I can reference it if I need more quantity of a particular color. So I'll list out all of the paints I used and ratios I used to mix each final color. Note that my attempts are to match the colors on my OEM playfield which have possibly faded/tinted in the last 40 years so your results may vary. If you need them, they'll hopefully get you most of the way there.

Starting Paints and Colors
I've been using only Createx paint according to Vid's suggestion on his playfield restoration guide (post 83). Here are colors I used to mix:

Createx Opaque

1. Red (5210)
2. Yellow (5204)
3. Light Green (5205)
4. Blue (5201)
5. Sky Blue (5207)
6. White (5212)
7. Black (5211)

Opaque Colors - front (resized).jpgOpaque Colors - side (resized).jpg

Createx Transparent

1. Fuchsia (5122)
2. Orange (5119)
3. Brite Yellow (5114)

Transparent Colors - front (resized).jpgTransparent Colors - side (resized).jpg

Mixed Color Charts
These are just the ratios- the quantity will be up to you to decide how much to mix. If you need help mixing your colors, I recommend the Real Color Mixer app. You won't be able to perfectly represent your real-life colors but I found it extremely helpful for determining which direction my mixes would go if I added a particular color to the pot.

Light Blue
Used for areas of the space background throughout the playfield.
Color Chart - Light Blue (resized).jpg

Purple
Used for areas of the space background throughout the playfield. This was by far the hardest color to match well. I think I attempted purple in about 6 different mixing bottles to finally get this one right.
Color Chart - Purple (resized).jpg

Dark Aqua
Used for the dot-matrix color accent within the main green planet, central to the playfield.
Color Chart - Dark Aqua (resized).jpg

Light Green
Used as the main color for the central, green planet and also used for the upper-right drop target multiplier info.
Color Chart - Light Green (resized).jpg

Orange
Used for the drop target sweep info toward the top of the playfield, planet accents throughout the playfield, and as one of the central planet's outer rims. This color was so close out of the bottle, you may be able to just use it straight without adding any red.
Color Chart - Orange (resized).jpg

Yellow
Used for the comets at the launch arc at the top of the playfield, the asteroid explosion in the central area, and as an accent color for planets throughout the playfield. I was so happy this was a color I could use straight from the bottle!
Color Chart - Yellow (resized).jpg

Beige
Used for all under-plastic areas, the central planet's most outer rim, and the background color to the bonus multiplier's "PLUS" text seen below the central planet. I went a little off-the-books when mixing this color so you'll need to make up your own intermediate colors. I unfortunately didn't take any pictures of my intermediate colors for reference either. Sorry!

*UPDATE* - The original playfield color is white, not beige. I added a much higher white ratio (about 20-30 more than listed here) to get my color closer to white yet still keep a yellowed tone so as to not make the yellowed text of the playfield look far off.
Color Chart - Beige (resized).jpg

Black
Used for space background throughout the playfield as well as a border to most items on the playfield. Again, I'm just going straight out of the bottle with this one.
Color Chart - Black (resized).jpg

Color Matching and Comparisons
So what do they look like!?!? I'm glad you asked- let's take a look. But I wanted to note, as I did in my previous post, Vid indicates that Createx color is nearly the same wet as it is dry. I have not found this to be true so I took images to show the color variances I've experienced. In each picture there are 3 dabs of paint:

1. Fresh, completely wet paint
2. Completely dried paint
3. Paint that was completely dried with a quick coat of Naptha (to simulate clearcoat)

Light Blue
Color Compare - blue - edit (resized).jpg

Purple
Color Compare - purple - edit (resized).jpg

Dark Aqua
Color Compare - aqua - edit (resized).jpg

Light Green
Color Compare - green - edit (resized).jpg

Orange
Color Compare - orange - edit (resized).jpg

Yellow
Color Compare - yellow - edit (resized).jpg

Beige
Something to note here, the final color is a little darker than the test area but this was on purpose. The testing area for this color is in a protected part of the playfield so the color is bright and clean. The main need I have for this color is at the central planet's rim and bonus multiplier text background which, on my playfield, is darkened. So I plan to be flexible with this color depending on where I need to apply it.

*UPDATE* - The original playfield color is white, not beige. I added a much higher white ratio (about 20-30 more than listed here) to get my color closer to white yet still keep a yellowed tone so as to not make the yellowed text of the playfield look far off.
Color Compare - beige - edit (resized).jpg

Black
Color Compare - black - edit (resized).jpg

I found the brighter colors are less affected by the naptha coating but as a general rule I would just say your color is likely to look different with the naptha coat.

Next Steps
The next step I have planned is to finish patching the trouble areas of my playfield and then do one last major cleaning before beginning to paint. I also want to create a protective casing for my playfield to protect it from accumulating dust and such during the off times between painting. I'll keep you updated.

No kidding! I planned on this being the hardest step in the restore (after getting the machine up and running) - I hope I'm right and there isn't a larger hurdle down the road! I'm glad this topic has been of some value for you.

I'm not sure of other peoples' processes for mixing paint but you are correct in what my process has been so far. What I've found is I'm not able to determine accurately what kind of paint I should add to the pot next (or how much) without first comparing the dried & naptha'd paint of my current mix. I didn't base my so much off the wet paint as I did the dry + naptha. In my original mixes, I remember mixing based on the wet color and later discovered that I added a color to lighten or darken the mix according to the wet color only to have the dried color show a change of tone. So yeah, my recommendation is to:
1. Mix your paint to get a wet color that's relatively close to the playfield color.
2. Once you get close, all of your tests should be of dried paint plus naptha to simulate the true color

It helps to know which direction your paint colors will change when they dry as well. I think for most cases, your colors will dry darker than the wet color so you'll want to keep that in the back of your mind as you mix.

Yes. My picture of black is slightly misleading because the "gray" is actually the sheen off the paint caused by my lamp - that's just for picture's sake. In real life, the black looks just slightly whiter when dried. But yes, I ignored the dry colors; testing against the naptha should represent the true color.

Again, I'm basing my info off Vid's guide so I really hope it's accurate because I've never done this before.

I'm back with another update! I hope you're all having a good new year so far.

Let's get down to business!

Repair Gouge
Fist up is some more playfield repairs. I'm not expecting this to be relevant to everyone but hey, maybe it'll help someone. So if you recall, I had another large gouge in the top right of my playfield that needed attention.

1 - gouge1 (resized).jpg

I used regular Bondo to repair it but you may have better results with wood Bondo. When using Bondo, definitely wear a proper respirator and work outside if possible, Bondo is powerful stuff. Just follow the normal instructions for setting the Bondo and let cure.

1 - gouge2 (resized).jpg1 - gouge3 (resized).jpg

Once cured, sand down smooth by hand. Avoid using power tools because you can quickly go from "not enough" to "too far, way too far" rather quickly.

1 - gouge5 (resized).jpg1 - gouge4 (resized).jpg

I used 800 grit sandpaper to smooth out the result. The high grit helps prevent the surrounding areas from getting torn up if they get too much attention. It worked out pretty well. My coverage with the Bondo was a little lacking so I actually came back through and filled the remaining irregular divots with primer (notice the mismatching grey spots in the above picture).

Priming
2 - primer (resized).jpg

This here is not your average primer; it's an automotive paint primer. It has a thick build and works really well! It's like a micro version of drywall mud, cement, and primer all in one. I'm sure other similar products are on the market but this is what I picked up from Home Depot.

You may not have a massive gouge in your playfield to repair but this stuff is taking us into part two of my update, ...priming. Vid's guide does not mention priming a playfield, that I know of, so why am I priming before painting?

Well, if you happened to catch Part 7 of HowToWith GEO's Flight 2000 repair videos on YouTube...

...you'll see a big flaw in his touch-up job - it results in a noticable depression between the original paint surrounding it. He hoped the depression would become unnoticed after the clearcoat but it wasn't flawless in the end.

I want to keep my playfield looking crispy so I want to make things as even as possible before the clearcoat. Automotive primer is my hope, here. Ok let's do it!

If you're following along, you'll need to prep. First, mix up the automotive primer really well (wear a proper respirator mask when handling the full can). Transfer a small amount to an empty nail polish- uhhh, jar? bottle? container? Idk. Sure. That thing. You won't need much primer so the nail polish container is perfect for quantity and for spot-applying. I used roughly 1oz of primer throughout the entirety of this project, probably less, and I touched up A LOT of areas. A little goes a long way.

Next, you need something to sand down the primer. I took some 800 grit sand paper and super glued it to a popsicle stick. Cut down the popsicle stick so you have a nice, baby sanding block

3 - mini sanding sticks (resized).jpg

(these ones are pretty beat up)

I think you can guess where I'm going with this. Let's grab this here spot from the bottom-left corner of the playfield.

Test 1
4 - lltest1 (resized).jpg

Shake up your nail polish guy, paint and/or dab the primer on the target area, and let the primer dry. It dries pretty quickly, within 5 to 10 minutes. If you're hitting a bunch of spots on your playfield, hit them one after another. By the time you get back to the first spot it'll be dry. Make sure it fully dries after applying.

4 - lltest2 (resized).jpg

Throughout this whole restoration process I've been using isopropyl achohol from a spritzer bottle (empty cologne or perfume bottle, or just buy an empty spritzer from the dollar store). It was a must-have for this process. Spray the dried primer with a single spritz of alcohol. Let it sit for a few seconds. Grab your mini sanding stick and sand it smooth!

4 - lltest3 (resized).jpg

Yes it will be messy! If it starts to gum up on you while sanding, hit it with another spritz of alcohol. As mentioned earlier, the primer has some build to it; in a sense it feels like micro, wet cement. When it feels totally flat, let the target area sit to redry. Roughly clean around the target area - pick up the excess primer with a paper towel but be careful not to accidentally wipe away the stuff you want to keep.

Cleaning up the primer becomes an art after a while. Get the big, obvious mess out of the way with paper towel. If the area has dried and still needs cleaning, hit it with a spritz of alcohol, wait a few seconds, and scrub it out. You'll probably need to do this 2, 3, 5, or even more times, depending on the mess. Use a Q-tip to clean the more delecate areas with finer detail. Spray the Q-tip head with alcohol and use it to finely clean up area. Once the entire scene looks clean, run over it quickly with a micro-fiber towel dabbed with alcohol.

4 - lltest4 (resized).jpg

Steps
Again, here are the steps:

1. Prime the target area. Let dry.
2. Spray with alcohol. While wet, sand flat. Add more alcohol as needed.
3. Clean up surrounding area
   • While surrounding area is wet with alcohol, clean excess primer with paper towel (2 - 5 times)
   • Apply alcohol to Q-tip and scrub areas close to target area (2 - 5 times)
   • Wet micro-fiber towel with alcohol and quickly wipe over the area. Try to avoid target areas. (1 - 2 times)

Test 2
Let's test on another area. In this example, I filled up three post rings. In each picture, I progressed one of the target areas one step in the process.

5 - tripletest1 (resized).jpg5 - tripletest2 (resized).jpg5 - tripletest3 (resized).jpg5 - tripletest4 (resized).jpg

Once you do this a few times it becomes your own science, no problem. It's doable. Now it's time to hit the areas we really mean to fix.

Main Primer
Do you remember this?
6 - main1 (resized).jpg

Time to clean it up!

6 - main2 (resized).jpg6 - main3 (resized).jpg6 - main4 (resized).jpg6 - main5 (resized).jpg6 - main6 (resized).jpg

Same thing, different angles.

6 - main7 (resized).jpg6 - main8 (resized).jpg6 - main9 (resized).jpg

Before/After.

6 - main10 (resized).jpg6 - main11 (resized).jpg

What's really nice about the primer is that it can become active at any time so you have plenty of time and chances to make things right. Didn't apply enough primer the first time through? Add more later. Finished sanding a bunch of areas but don't have time to clean up the mess now? You don't have to. Come back to it later, hit it with some alcohol, and you're back to where you left off. I will say, though, be prepared to spend a lot of time spot cleaning the excess primer.

Remaining Primer
Since everything worked out so well and I really like to make more work for myself, I somewhat regretfully (sorry, not sorry) did this to my entire playfield :S

7 - other1 (resized).jpg7 - other2 (resized).jpg7 - other3 (resized).jpg7 - other4 (resized).jpg
8 - full1 (resized).jpg8 - full2 (resized).jpg8 - full3 (resized).jpg8 - full4 (resized).jpg

Closing
Oof, that was a lot of work. That's also a lot of reading you did just now. Thanks for following along. I hope I don't bore you to tears!

Next Steps
Next steps are to do the things I actually say I'm going to do
I need to play around with Frisket Film in preparation for paint. I still want to create an enclosure or bag for storing my playfield to keep it clean. Then I can finally start painting.

Thanks! I think the actual painting is going to be the toughest part to get through in this restoration process. I have no option but to keep going

Oh no! I was not aware Bondo isn't good for corner repairs. Thanks for the warning. It's all said and done at this point but I will note this for the future. Lifting and lowering the playfield is exactly what tore it up in the first place. I hope to build a lift mechanism for my F2K toward the end of the project so hopefully that will limit the amount of damage to the playfield.

Indeed! I couldn't believe how heavy my playfield was the first time I tried to lift it out of the cab. I plan to design and build something myself for the lift mech. I haven't started research or brainstorming yet so unfortunately I don't have any leads or ideas. I'm open to suggestions. It'll be a while before I get to that phase of the project but it wouldn't hurt to start collecting thoughts.

@emsrph, it doesn't look like much is out there. Here are some of the more descriptive topics I have looked at:

Modification to wood rails and z-bracket by adding a ramp/wedge to make it easier to tilt playfield against backbox:
Tilting playfield against backbox on Flight 2000

Innovative dreams to gas lift struts (such that of tailgates on cars) and H-bar discussion:
Where's the playfield prop rod?

Additional prop arms:
Advice needed prop bars and playfields

Complaining, prop arms discussion, goose neck discussion, etc.:
Playfield lifting why so little innovation

Replacing your brackets with Data East replacement brackets (I don't think this solves the problem):
Playfield support bracket mod

It seems most people have settled with just making a second prop arm. I'll do an H-bar at the very least but I want to dream up some fancy mechanism and see if I can get somewhere.

I like the wedge idea too but it would still leave your playfield vulnerable to damage from dragging it on the z-bracket and wood wedge. I wonder if you could attach a drawer glide to both ends of the playfield rails so when you start to lift it, the wheels on the drawer glides start to support the playfield instead. Then you could easily slide the playfield over the bracket and down the wedge without damaging it. It might need something to protect it from getting pinched when tilting against the back box. A problem with wheels is you need to make sure they're completely secure when you expect them to be so your playfield doesn't drop on you while you're working on it.