Thank you! I hope so! I know the playfield art really well now and can't wait to put it behind me and start playing!

Decals! With most of the major colors now looking good, and my willingness to let some of the less than perfect but still acceptable blue and magenta areas go, I'm workon the last step!

Before the disaster with my first playfield, I had created the graphics for decals that included white letters (see post #81 in this really long topic!).

I already have scans for the playfield and have both text and a few graphics that will get decals. I've attached a file that has my black decals that I'll be applying.

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The previous 'decal sheet' was created after many attempts to match the right fonts and get everything the right size. I pretty much followed the steps that Vid outlines in his topic on Playfield resto.

One thing that helps a lot is printing test versions onto clear transparency sheets (if you remember those old overhead projectors, that's what these are made for).

So testing the size/shape, look before printing onto decal paper:

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The reason the above is a good step is that my insert circles were a bit too thick, so I went back to Illustrator and reduced the 'stroke' width to better match the real insert circles.

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As Vid recommends, when using decals, Micro Set is a terrific way to get the decals to adhere to the playfield.

I also sanded the playfield with 1000 grit where the decals were going - again, as Vid points out and many people know, decals like 'glossy surfaces, so a light 1000 grit retains some of the gloss but also gives enough tooth for the next clear layer. I did wet sand with 400 grit in areas where there were not going to be decals.

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After much fiddling with printer settings (decal paper is fairly thick so the paper settings need to be set for 'thick'!) I have my decals! The decals on the right were sent to Bedlam Creations for printing due to the white letters.

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Carefully cutting everything out....

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Apply Micro Set to playfield before applying decal.

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After giving the decal a soak, I remove it from the water....

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After sliding the decal from the backing paper, gently hold it in place and I use a q-tip to push out any air bubbles or wrinkles that might have formed.

If its flat, its good!

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Decals are a great way to replace art (not just text/numbers) if you can scan the artwork are are willing to learn or have some photoshop or equivalent skills.

I was very curious about how these hand-drawn lines in Sinbad's beard would look. They look great! Unless you have the light at a certain angle, its pretty hard to notice the difference!

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A wider view of the playfield with all decals applied. This went really well (each step in this process is filled with anxiety - I'm not kidding!) and really just required patience and care. I am almost tempted to do some more decals that aren't reall necessary because they look so awesome!

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What do they say about applying clear coat over decals? "Fine, light mists". That is....difficult....with Spaymax 2k. Because a 'fine mist' with SprayMax 2k is...orange peel.

BUT it's still important. It's still essential!

I read the warnings on the Spraymax 2k thread a while ago, and yet....I still put it on too thick.

Pictures to follow. You learn from my mistakes. My gift to the pinside community.

This photo shows the decal freak out. Just to be clear, I did have a coat of clear on these decals. It was a light coat (aka orange peel with Spraymax!) and as it sat for a day with this coat, I sort of assumed I would be safe with a thick coat.

Yeah, I was being impatient.

Although, I've been working on this machine since March, so I think my impatience can be understood.

Unfortunately, decals don't care. Repair work to follow!

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Yeah, but it was my impatience and negligence this time, so I'm mostly angry with myself!

I was able to sand one out, the others had to be completely removed or partially sanded down to get covered again.

More damage

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Damaged decals sanded down ("Same player" and one of the beard shadow line decals were fine).

Here's what they look like prior to clear coat. The weather forecast says it may get up to 70 this Wednesday, so that's what I'll wait for to put an "orange peel" coat (what you get when you apply it "thin" with Spraymax 2k) and then at least two more thin "orange peel" coats.

This may be the last 70 degree weather we see in Seattle area until next June so the pressure is on!

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Lol! Thanks bud. Well, check back in two months and you can almost count on the entire playfield being reattached and then some other disaster befalls me and I'll be doing damn decals and touch ups again.

Yeah, its a pain because there's really no specific way to know for sure! There are so many steps in this process it really is something you have to be prepared that you'll mess something up and have to go back a few steps!

Do it! In truth, I wouldn't go through all of this trouble if I didn't enjoy the process (even with the setbacks and frustrations) but with the ultimate knowledge that when it's done I will have restored a cool piece of history and culture that I can enjoy and be proud of and pass on to someone else to enjoy for decades to come!

I really love the overall look of all these System 1 games, and I've actually considered focusing on collecting them! Best of luck on your project, and remember that you are preserving a piece of history as well as a really cool iconic game!

I would, but not sure if videos can be uploaded to pinside?

Okay, after some trepidation, and waiting for the temperature to hit near 70 degrees this week I realized that I don't need to worry abou the outside temp as I can just run my Costco space heater in my small shed that acts as a paint booth now and warm it up!

So today I bit the bullet...temp in the shed was 80, and I laid down 7 or 8 (!) light coats of SprayMax 2k. I used a timer so that my first three light coats were 10 minutes between, and all the following were 15 minutes. "flash off" time for Spraymax is 10-15 minutes so I was going for precision.

My spraying technique was to basically spray about 10" from playfield going fairly quickly back and forth (with a '50%" overlap with is typical for good coverage). Each coat was a thin layer of 'orange peel' looking clear. Hard to look at that, but I have heard it will be okay.....

Here's an observation...some of my decals were not cut right up to the ink, so the transparent decal area were visible up. By the 5th or 6th coat they started to become harder to see. You can ALMOST see some shadow in the 'Copyright' text decal. Again...I kept these coats as thin as I could!

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Hmmm....Pinside is telling me that I'm attempting to post duplicates. I'm not. This is strange.
So...no more photos for now. This is annoying.

(I'm going to try and sneak the photo into this post after I created it and use the edit feature. If you see a photo below, you'll know it worked!)

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You can almost see the decal edge here...

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And here's the playfield. I need to confirm whether or not I need to sand this before applying my final medium/thick coat. The normal thing is to sand 'orange peel', but a medium/ thick coat could 'flatten' it all out anyway. We'll see!

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Allright, I have learned another lesson. The fine mist coating I put down wasn't really the correct way to do it.

Here's what I did wrong:

All mist coats were allowed to "flash off". As I mentioned above I waited 10-15 minutes between each of the 7 coats. What I learned is that I should spray another, thicker "regular" coat over the light mist before it has "flashed off". That thicker coat, applied while the light mist was still "wet" would not have the orange peel texture.

If I did it that way then I wouldn't have to sand it flat after it's all dried. Which I had to do of course!

Still learning!

Although that means a very precise medium coat needs to be applied because we know what happens to decals when the clear is too thick. Ahem.

I'll be spraying what might be my final clear coat this weekend. One of the other things I learned is that it's good to have a week or two between "coats". And I think a "coat" means a can of Spraymax 2k! So that's why I'm waiting. Gives the clear coat some time to expand or whatever and finally solidify (if I recall some people wait up to six months after clear coating before even reattaching things like posts and fences).

So...a few more days!

I got my final (?) coat down! Now I guess I can move onto the new world of polishing and buffing.

Man, it’s been a long time coming!

it wasn’t the perfect I normally get, however. I think I was a bit anxious with some of the previous applications. I did apply a light coat, just in case the decals were still too close to the top, and then after five minutes put down a nice normal coat.

You can see some of my bumps below.

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Geez, thanks so much!! Well, even with a terrific guide like Vid's Guide to Restoration, it is still so very easy to make mistakes. I mean, I had some pretty big set backs and at least two good things about doing this topic on my first restoration in "real time" is I can share my mistakes, misjudgements and so on, but it also keeps me accountable! I mean, once you start a topic on something like this, if I just stopped, that's like admitting failure!

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I just love the artwork on these Gottlieb System 1's. If I could I would collect every Gordon Morrison machine I could!

And I knew nothing about Sinbad, System 1 or even much about pinball except I wanted one when I won it off an online auction site in my area. It's been a learning experience!

Make sure you join the "Sinbad Club" topic and share photos of your machine!

Honestly I really enjoy this restoration process. It's not nearly as expensive or resource intensive as restoring a car (which I would have no ability to do anyway!) but there is something really rewarding in learning new skills, applying skills learned from other hobbies, and spending time trying to get it right.

And constantly fighting yourself over whether or not I need to buy one more tool! Argh!

As long as I can do it at a pace where it doesn't feel like I'm rushed or in a hurry, I will definitely have another go!

I just thought I'd check in. Not a lot of activity right now. I'm just waiting a good month since my final coat of clear and am slowly working on final sanding and polishing. I am thinking that since the playfield portion of this restoration is done (or so it seems) I may start a new topic to pick up on the project and go through some of fixes to the cabinet, reinstalling all the playfield parts and hardware and hopefully get to a fully playable machine!

I have some future playfield projects on my OXO and potentially a custom retheme idea for my 'parts loaner' Sinbad and I've invested a lot in all the different things you need to do a playfield, so there will be more in the future!

I followed Vid's instructions on his amazing playfield resto topic and just put the removed inserts into the stars upside down when I sprayed the clear. While the clear is still wet remove the inserts. Just that easy!

Lol! Thank you very much! This effort has been so challenging and time consuming, I definitely need more experience before I can take on any work for anyone else!

I thought I posted my decals earlier, but here they are for those that need them!

First, here are the decals that I had to send out for printing that required white

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Here are decals that are black only....

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