Okay, final test. When I did the pink above-which all but confirmed one of the theories about was happening- I did not have a 'control' with the Createx on a non-Spraymax surface (otherwise I could not be sure if the paint was the issue instead of the sandwiching of the 1k).

So here's the latest test with before and after photos.

In the 'after' photo you can see the same repetition of the wrinkling. Except for the test piece that did not have any clear coat base. That section had no Spraymax 1k underneath the blue paint; just plain old white valspar.

This is what I expected to see and I think definitively confirms what Rufessor stated above and what I hypothesized might be the issue: You can't put Createx (and probably other acrylics) on a layer of Spraymax 1k and then put a coat of Spraymax 1k on top of that without experiencing wrinkling of the Createx.

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Having proven that Spraymax 1k is not compatible as both an underlayer AND a top coat, I have to decide what to do. Since my playfield already has several light coats of the Spraymax 1k, I need to know what the Spraymax 2k will do when sprayed over Createx acrylic paints.

This test involved another two more airbrushed layers of Createx - one straight from bottles and the other mixed with Createx 4030 hardener.

Then on top of this Createx, I applied frisket and cut some shapes (letters) on both of these (neither with any topcoat) to see how well the first layer of Createx would adhere when frisked is applied and shapes are cut.

The purpose here is to see if I can avoid spraying a top or sealing coat on EVERY color to protect the previous sprayed layer for the frisked cutting for the next color. In other words, can I Fraser and spray ALL my colors without putting a clear on top?

The photos here show the different steps prior to shooting the 2k on the 1k/Createx layers already applied.

The smaller light green rectangle has no 4030 Hardener, the slightly darker green small rectangle does have the Hardener
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On top of the two green rectangles, I also applied frisket and cut letter shapes to see how the 4030 hardened vs un-hardener Createx would perform
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Surprisingly, both the 4030 hardened and unhardened did not have any issues with pulling off the paint when the frisket was removed. BOTH were heat set however.
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Sorry for the focus on this one, but this is the end product. My letter shapes also indicate which paint had hardener in it so after the 2k is applied noting variances will be easy.
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And after applying the 2k (remember, there are several light/medium coats of 1k on several of these sections, as well as the Createx, the only Createx without any top coat are the two rectangles with letter shapes) I finally had some good news.

The SprayMax 2k did NOT react with the 1k and create the 'wrinkling' that I've not only seen on these test pieces, but also on my playfield! This means that NO MORE SprayMax 1k will be used. From here on out its just 2k. AND...I can finally get on with the restoration!

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That's easy, since the Spraymax 1k is not a 2 part clear it's far less toxic so it seemed far more convenient for intermediate coats during touch ups. I was inspired when I read that the 2k can be placed over the 1k so it seemed like I could wait until my touch ups were done and than do the final with 2k.

Unfortunately none of that will work with acrylic paint!

Im satisfied that I've found the problem and can move on with the restoration!

Yes! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

It was fate. A lot of work to do on this playfield now. But I'm optimistic. And then...a non-working Sinbad appears on my local CraigsList, and the playfield looks like it might be a few grades better than mine. He wants $300.

So I bite.

And now I have two non-working Sinbads.

I'm an idiot.

Okay, so a lot has been happening! First I got another Sinbad. And rather than posting about it, here is what it looked like.

Honestly, while I only paid $300, the guy who put it on Craig's List posted photos of another Sinbad.

Yeah. Not HIS.

Anyway, I drove 2+ hours and it looked okay, but I had serious buyers remorse during the drive home.

What am I doing!!!? What the he** is wrong with me?

Anyway. It was freakin filthy...

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After I got the playfield stripped, I could finally see what I had underneath all that filth.

Before and about halfway through with Magic Eraser and Alcohol.

Here's "before":
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Here's after first cleaning:
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The playfield has some similar issues to my first one, mostly planking and some ground in ball swirl that really takes a lot of the color out of the art.

On the other hand, this "new" playfield has no major paint loss and I feel a lot more confident in touching up and airbrushing this one starting with a more conventional approach (fill inserts first! No Spraymax 1k! Use hardener for Createx! Pound down high points in wood! Remove ALL stuff from playfield top AND bottom).

The harness and hardware on the first playfield seems to be better, so that will be moved to playfield 2 when this is all done.

What about Playfield 1? I need to replace some of the inserts on that one, so it's going to be a longer project. More details later.

To be clear, yes, I have two non-working Sinbads.

Both Solid State, etc...

But... there's also a mystery and I didn't realize until I had two of them sitting side by side.

They are different!

Actually, it's just the cabinets. Look at these photos of the front and see if you can spot the difference:

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More photos...can you see the difference yet?

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My first Sinbad has a metal cabinet. Nothing mysterious about that, it's actually mentioned on the Internet Pinball Database that Gottlieb was testing metal cabinets with some System 1 games.

But I only really realized that the metal front to my cabinet is painted black! Is that normal for these metal cabinets for Sinbad?

I don't know! A Google image search didn't reveal any obvious metal cabinets.

Other System 1 games with the metal front are apparently painted like a wood cabinet front would be (at least of the few responses to this question that has been the consensus), and it almost appears that the photos at IPBDB website showing a metal cabinet Sinbad are painted similar to wood versions.

So you might speculate that mine was repainted at some point.

But why? Why would anythone go this much effort?

Up close, the black front is identical to other black metal areas, such as the back of the cabinet and backbox stand (including on the inside!) and appears to be "factory"!

But, it's a mystery. Is mine repainted? Did Sinbads get a black metal front? Did only a few get a black metal front?

Whatever the case, I like it. The metal cabinet is lighter and a lot sturdier than the wood one. I miss the color on the front, but the black looks good too.

I've been working on the new playfield, and taking some extra steps I did not take in my first playfield.

First, I completely stripped the entire thing. I said to myself "suck it up buttercup and do it right" so with the likely result being I will ultimately reassemble it wrong, I stripped it down. Took a thousand photos as a help.

We'll see.

I also have sanded it down and will repaint it as well.

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I also bought a rock tumbler from Harbor Freight. The expenses never end.

But my screws and metal were gross. And I can't imagine putting dull hardware back on my restored playfield.

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This is really important, and I skipped this last time. First, I am epoxying the inserts on the backside, and then I will add the 2 part clear to fill in the cupped inserts.

I'm also making sure the inserts are nice and clean on the bottom as well as checking other things I sort of skipped on my last attempt, like cleaning the crud in the star rollover inserts!

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I also flattenened out the raised wood that appears under every playfield post. Vid and others stress the importance of getting the playfield flat. There seems to be two ways to do this: sand the lumps or flatten with a punch. I decided to use the punch method. I don't know if Vid mentions this method but I read it elsewhere. It's faster, but I kind of suspect that using a punch is to level these lumps is only temporary? Well, I flattened then a week ago and with some mild humidity here this week they stayed flat, so I think I'm okay.

I'm glad I did this as it will make sanding a lot easier.

The one thing that will happen is that the ink that was on the raised post lumps will flake off. But since I'm doing a ton of repainting, this isn't a problem.

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The shooter lane got a lot of extra sanding too. I still might take it down a bit more before I put down my first "lock down" coat of clear, but it already looks 10 times better:

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You can see the lighter wood areas in the above photo in the shooter lane.

I had to really sand the ball tracks down here as it was filthy and deep. I will either have to add a bit of stain (don't really want to do that) or sand down more of the wood around the ball track (more likely) to get the wood sanded areas to blend better.

As a reference, this is what the ball tracks used to look like:

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Thanks! Honestly, I feel like this Sinbad restoration is something of an obsession now!

Yes, the sides of the cabinet are plywood, the front, back and bottom are all metal.

Your idea on painting the front is greatl! I hadn't thought of it, but you're right that a cool paint job on that black front would be cool!

Now you got me thinking.....

Updated 'Project Plan'. Having learned a lot and getting a duplicate machine, I thought I would revise my original plan. No more Spraymax 1k. Also, I had too many coats of clear planned for in my original plan. Again, I don' think I need to clear between each coat of Createx/Airbrush touchups. I've also removed the parts underneath the playfield, making the restoration a lot simpler.

Sinbad Project Plan Revised.pdf

Attempting to fill my cupped inserts with SprayMax 1k resulted in a bubble-filled disaster, and was the reason I desperately sought a replacement playfield (I will ultimately replace the inserts in the first one, but that will take several months to do and probably not able to clear coat until next summer when it gets warm enough!).

Yesterday I bit the bullet and bought REAL 2PAC from an auto shop. Using an eyedropper I filled the cupped inserts with the new 2PAC. What a difference, right?

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In preparing for my first 'sealing coat' of Spraymax 2k last weekend, I started to do a bit more cleaning with alcohol and q-tips. I thought that I had done as much as I could to get this new 'replacement' playfield clean (as you can see from the photos above, it was filthy). I started to notice that I was getting even more dirt out that I thought was too far ingrained. So I kept going.

Frankly, this new playfield is in much better shape than I thought - it was just REALLY REALLY dirty! So I did some touch up tests with a brush on the hard to paint yellow scimitar. The good news is that I don't think I'll need to airbrush the yellow at all! Yayy!! Below is my color-matching. I think it turned out pretty good as its only possible to see it from an angle with the light glare - compare the middle with the bottom (I'm really excited because even the digital camera emphasizes differences that the naked eye doesn't). The top photo is what I started with on this replacement.

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It's a huge relief to have two machines, but also somewhat hilarious to see what some operator did to maintain it over time. Check out the drop target replacements that were used on the 'replacement' machine! LOL.

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Applied base coat using SprayMax 2k. Yes, 2k. Stay away from 1k!

For a base coat, it turned out nice! No orange peel (I posted my tips on this over on the SprayMax 2k thread, but you need to have the can 6" from playfield [seemed close to me, but it worked] and laying it down thicker seems to prevent orange peel).

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Wet sanding with a Black and Decker 'Mouse" using 400 grit sandpaper. Wet sanding is the best! If you've never wet sanded before, its so much better. All the dust and grit you sand doesn't get gummed up in the sandpaper, so your not changing sand paper every 2 minutes or putting scars in the clear!

So here's the playfield after the 400 grit sanding:

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Ready to paint the white. One photo showing the three major stages. Before cleaning, after cleaning, and now with the base clear applied and sanded:

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Masked for White. Say goodbye to nicotine yellow!

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I am more strictly following others advice and doing white first this time (it was may last coat on the first playfield).

White after spraying. Three light coats. Also used about 30% of the 4030 Additive.

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The white went perfectly. Stuck to the surface, seems hard, nothing pulled off while removing the masking tape. Starting to look much better!

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I could probably touch up the rest of the playfield with a brush.

The one challenge is orange. Really hard to color match.

During my orange repaint in the first playfield I got close, but not good enough to blend in.

What I also noticed is that the Sinbad orange is really somewhat dull. It doesn't seem to have the same vibrant orange that the cabinet does.

So I think that I will amp up my restore a bit more and use a really vibrant, straight from the bottle, Wicked Colors orange.

While it's not the same as the original, I think it's a good enhancement. I debated whether I want to keep my restore as close to the original as possible, or maybe do some small tweaks that enhance the original look, while still staying within the limits of the original design.

Heresy?

Maybe. But Sinbads are pretty common and there isn't really any sort of collector market for them, so I think if I can improve the look within the same spirit as the original, it should be fine.

And honestly I will never get back anything close to either the time or money I've put into this project, so I have to what I think is right for me.

Sinbad with Wicked Colors Orange.

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Cleared. I actually started yesterday, but in my first couple of passes I noticed some places where the clear was not attaching.

Immediately I knew I missed some glue that was on the playfield from the frisket used for airbrushing. Ugh. So waited for the clear to dry, sanded it down CAREFULLY, and got the nasty glue off.

Applied the rest of the can from yesterday and another 2/3 of a can to get three good coats on it today.

Looking good now!

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Sanded down the clear with 400 grit. Now that it's looking all milky and flat time to start painting in the key lines around the inserts!

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There was a big hole here I patched with bondo. I tried to brush yellow over it but it's just too much of a contrast and the brush strokes look terrible. So I thought I was done with airbrushing, but looks like I need to do the yellow after all.

It's okay as there were some hard to fix and somewhat subtle planking issues in the yellow scimitar so I'll be able to fix that too when I spray the yellow.

Also, I'm pretty sure I know what color yellow gottlieb used for this playfield. I believe it's a shade called "process yellow". I had a small amount of yellow acrylic in this color and it was a dead match. It makes sense too as "process yellow" is a very standard color in silk screening (something I did a bit of a long time ago).

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Wow, the blue/aqua color is impossible to color match! I had an almost perfect jar of paint matched to the blue on my other Sinbad playfield, but it doesn't match this one at all.

On top of that, the blue changes color all over the place! In some areas it's light blue, some places it's very teal/aqua, and in others it's more grey!

You can see my failed attempts in these photos.

I just have to keep trying!

In the meantime I put the frisket down in preparation for the yellow spray and just need to wait until the Vallejo brand "Process Yellow" arrives.

Vallejo is a European airbrush paint brand that seems to be very popular with modellers. I'm curious to see how it matches my playfield yellow and how it compares in application to Createx.

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Great suggestion! Thanks Vid!

Brute force!

Seriously, it seemed a bit on the extreme side, but I read this in a topic not long ago and it seemed like a good idea. I searched for it but can't find the one.

I basically found a nail punch that when I reversed had a nice 5/18" wide or so flat surface that I placed over the raised post hole area and knocked it flat. It only took one or two good hits (not a lot of force really) to get the raised portion down. I'm a bit concerned that the wood might 'raise up' again after a while, but so far it hasn't.

And they are nice and level and did not require a crazy level of sanding either.

This will definitely loosen up some of the loose paint around the hole, requiring a little more sanding to get all the loose paint off of the new flat, but formerly warped wood.

I want to precisely (as much as possible) color match my yellow. I'm still pretty sure the color that Gottlieb used was 'process yellow' as mentioned above, but the 'Process Yellow" air brush paint that i ordered is actually 'transparent'. Whoops. Didn't read close enough.

Well, a transparent 'process yellow' is not going to help me cover some of my bad spots, so it's back to color matching.

I was able to determine that the yellow on my playfield and the Createx opaque yellow are basically off by a small amount of 'magenta' (using a process somewhat similar to the below). Since I don't have any magenta handy, I decided to mix some up with some Createx red, blue and white. Got close enough, and added a few drops to a jar of yellow.

Put a drop onto a clear piece of mylar and waited for it to dry. It looks close, but I'm not sure. So I came up with a plan.

Once dry I took photos from two seperate areas of the playfield with both my 'matched' yellow and the playfield color.

I then added these photos to Photoshop. Using Photoshops eye-dropper tool Photoship will provide various color values for the area that was selected. You can see my Photoshop work below.

But what's really interesting is then putting all these different color values from Photoshop into a spreadsheet, and then getting the average of these colors. I used the 'average' function to get the aggregate total - believing that the average of the yellow from three different spots will be more precise than any single image (lighting issues and all that).

As it turns out, I'm pretty close!

I can also see that there is one area where my 'matched yellow' is off. It seems as if its not as strong is in the "Yellow" area of the CMYK value and also its a bit low in the 'Saturation' levels of whatever that set of values is.

So I need to find a way to bring up my 'yellow' up a bit more. That is going to be hard - Yellow IS a primary color. I may try a spot of orange just to see what happens. I may also mix in some Wicked Colors "Detail Yellow" as that seems a bit more 'saturated'.

Anyway, I thought this might be a good technique for trying to be a bit more 'scientific' with color matching rather than just trusting my eyeballs!

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I added a tiny bit more of my mixed magenta (blue and red) and ended up with a amazingly dark yellow. Then started over and added even less of my mixed magenta and came up with a yellow that looks pretty good (the 'swatch' on the left below):

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Then I went took some more pictures (get different areas of lighting, etc..) and brought four separate photos into photoshop do the color picker test again with this new yellow.

With my first yellow 'color picker' test my biggest issue was being a bit low on yellow (-9%). I did add a bit of the Wicked Yellow which seems a bit brighter than the Createx. It seemed to work as my yellow is not off by -3% on average. Everything else is REALLY close. I think this is as good as its going to get and I'm going to go to airbrush!

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Frisket and masking tape removed. Yellow looks good! A few more quick touch ups and a next-to-last shot of clear (it's going to be 70 degrees today and that window will be closing!)

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