Since I am stuck at my desk today feel free to ask any questions you would like about HEP,the process,the projects,the business etc if you are interested and I will do my best to answer them.

Christopher Hutchins

The old parts are returned ,trashed or kept depending on the owners request,the condition of the parts, orhow hard they are to come by.

I repaint them to an extremely high level.It is a painful process that I think helps keep this place unique.

I would say my top restores to date are

Banzai Run proto
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album77
Black Knight 2000
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album69
Swords of Fury
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album204
King Kong
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album29
and once complete the Krull will be #1
http://christopherhutchins.com/gallery/album150

There are many more and others that might seem more worthy but these were personal milestones at the times of completion.The links should show why.

Those can be tough to deal with.Polishing won't remove the trails,plating can be fragile on the more flexible parts if adjustments are needed during rebuild.
My prefrence is always to do anything I possibly can in house for several reasons but the main one is control of the entire timing of the project so I would try polishing to the best of your ability first.If you see something you can't live with or that would not be present after a few plays anyway then I would go with plating.

I am free and right there with you in spirit.What else is there to do on Friday afternoon?

Both those are covered pretty well in the BK2K and SOF links I posted.
Basically I level them and repaint the borders and breakthroughs or completely strip and decal them followed by a series of clearing and sanding.Extreme cases I remove them and wet sand,then reset and clear prior to starting the process.

Thanks Lloyd.The pleasure was mine.Hope to cross paths again one day.

There are a lot of variables but in general they tend to run $5000-$7500 these days with parts and labor.

I was a very high end auto painter before I started doing this.
My family has been in that industry for three generation or essentially since cars were put on the road.
I started out as a collector in 2000 and quickly started applying my skill set and standards to my games.After I started selling one to buy another I realized the potential for making it a nice part time business to help fund the hobby itself.At some point around 2004 it became overwhelming juggling it with my full time job and our youngest son was officially diagnosed/labeled with autism so I decided to take a shot at it as a legitimate time business.The tie in with my son is that he needs a lot of hands on attention and being able to control my own hours and income help greatly .
Like most people here I have just always enjoyed pinball.There is something about it that captivated me at an early age .

On average I would say 150 -175 hours for a normal WPC game.
Something like the Banzai Run 300-400 hours.You lose track after a while on those type of games .

No but I have have definitely made work for myself at times.
Primarily in the early days.
This is one of the reasons that I insist on doing everything myself. You have to wear a lot of hats to pull this off at a high level all the way around solo and one of the most important things you need to know is what is and what is not important as well as what you can can cannot get on any given day of the week for any certain title.As we all know that is a moving target so it goes beyond the work itself and gets into your knowledge of the hobby and current parts market.
For example when I first started doing this full time I hired a helper .
One day we were tearing down a FH and it was wreck so I just tore through it with little care because all was beat and being replaced.
The next week we are tearing down a ES(at the time there was nothing available)and he is just ripping stuff off and I say "BE CAREFUL!" he says "Why we are just going to replace it all anyway"
At times there seems to be too much info to try to impart to someone outside of the hobby.
The Hercules is on the back burner right now as I work through my older more challenging projects.I do those type of projects as I can while the more mainstream games filter in and out.

No I buy or source all my decals.The insert decals I get are the ones we all have access to from various sources.Anything that is off or needs correction I do during the repainting process.

Repainting and clear is the only method I know and trust.
Are dithered areas a concern?

Auto clear does have UV ray inhibitors so there is a level of protection since it is primarily designed for cars that spend most of their lives outdoors.
I do not clear over decals though so it only applies to my painted cabinets.
I use the same process and materials inside as I do on the outside so yes but I typically use a matte style clear on my cabinets depending on what effect I am after.

Thanks.I do 24 to 30 a year.Some years less some years a little more.These days less because the games are wrecked and I take in some pretty challenging projects.

It is tough.No matter what you can't duplicate it exactly but with some practice you could hopefully get some nice natural looking color transitions.That is basically all the dithering is but since it is done with a screen it makes the pattern more blotted and uniform looking.
If you are doing a color transition in order to duplicated what looks like 2 or 3 colors of screened dithering it will likely take 6 paint colors or so and they will be the main colors and then combinations of the main colors mixed together and sprayed in series to gradually step from one color into the next without an obvious stopping and starting point.Your overspray patterns and colors then become your dithering.
This is one of the toughest things to pull off so it is hard to be real specific it is something you will have to work on.

About the only thing you can do is pull one from another playfield.Sometimes there are other playfields that use the same insert but a different color.I have a STTNG that needs three new teal green shield inserts .I keep my eyes open for a trashed one to steal them from another option is to pull some Return to Battle inserts from my trashed AFM playfields and live with red.
Not ideal but the point is anything can be salvaged instead of trashed.

LOL NO!

No pins in the collection anymore for me.I do buy one every so often and kick it around here at the house but my real love of the hobby is the restoration process .

I use crushed walnet shells and Flitz additive in my smaller tumblers and large corn cob in my big tumblers.