I figured I'd post some of the restorations and mods we've done. We've learned a lot in the process and it would be cool to help others out if they have any questions or suggestions.

One of the first games we really did a lot of work on was Gottlieb's Cover Girl. The playfield was so pretty and the cabinet looked terrible. When we sanded the cab down the wood looked so nice we decided to alter the stenciling to expose some of the wood. I love the art on this playfield and would love to get another Cover Girl. Unfortunately I didn't think to get any before photos but here is what the cab looked like after a repaint.

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One of the next games we worked on was Gottlieb's Scuba. Another one where the games art drew us in. Not really surprising considering we are all artists. The backglass was wrecked and the cab was pretty bad too. On this one we thought the school of fish in the playfield and backglass were so cool so we decided to stencil them on the side cab. We photographed the backglass and the retraced the whole thing in Photoshop.

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Thanks Ryan! For Cover Girl I sanded the cab for Scuba I used the orange paint remover and then sanded. Both methods are time consuming and suck. Some of the work I really enjoy doing. Cleaning off shitty paint and fixing cabs is not the part I like.

On Scuba and Cover Girl we adjusted the color schemes to fit the game or to account for some fading.

More recently we got a really nice Quick Draw that had been restenciled and chromed out. The playfield was really nice but didn't have the same shine as the rest of the game so I decided to do a new clearcoat on it. I'll have to get a shot of the whole game but here is the playfield. She plays real fast and is a ton of fun.

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We got a Bally 8 Ball that had a really nice backglass but a rough playfield. The game had been touched up in the past and then they mylar'd over top of everything. There was lots of yellowing in the mylar and dirty ball swirl underneath. We removed the mylar and lost some of the paint due to the major flaking that was happening. I've noticed this flaking a lot on Bally Tuff Coat games. It mentions to not use water based cleaners on the Tuff Coat because it can ruin the adhesive properties of the paint.

When I touched up the playfield I would fill in the flaked paint areas with paint and then run a razor blade across the top to smooth the area out. After the paint dried I used a magic eraser to try and clean it up. The center ball rack was really beat up so I decided to make an overlay for it. After applying the overlay I hit the whole playfield with clear coat to seal all of the repair and smooth out the playfield. Came out really nice and is so fun to play.

I have some before images of this one but I'm having trouble getting them off the camera I used. I'll try to update this post if I manage to get them off.

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If I was going to take a cab down to bare wood I would use the paint stripper first then sand. If the paint wasn't flaking or really screwed up I will probably try to just sand it smooth and primer over top with a really good primer.

I don't think I would mind the cabinet work if I had a better space to do it. The sanding and spraying gets everywhere. I've tried rolling and spraying the cabinets with water and oil based paints. I think spraying worked the best. I typically clear with the 2k Gloss Clear. It is a two part spray can that provides a pretty nice finish. I had initially bought the 2k Clear to clear coat the gas tank on my motorcycle because it stands up to gasoline pretty well if you happen to spill on your tank.

When we got Barracora I was wowed by the art and wanted to restore it to it's true glory. The backglass has some big flaky scratches and appears to be delaminating from the glass everywhere that is black. I scaned the backglass on my little scanner and pieced it together then I touched up the messed up areas. The playfield is super worn too and I'm leaning towards creating an overlay for it because I don't think I can touch it up properly. I'm hoping to have the glass finished this week and will post a pic.

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We got this Yukon Special a while back from our buddy Rob. The gameplay is really awesome but the backglass had a pretty vicious crack and major flaking. I scanned the glass and pieced it together in the same way I did Barracora then traced out every color. I should get the final glass the same time as Barracora so I'll post an update of the pics when I do. I think this will be one of the next games we do a clear coat on the playfield.

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Last one for today is a little Monte Carlo translite I did for our game. The one that came with it was really faded and not particularly interesting to me. I made this one up really fast and it came out okay. Someone commented to me before that the girl looks really somber which is pretty strange for pinball. I'd have to agree and I might do another one at some point and try to make it more fun.

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