all black roses are diamondplated. Doesn't look bad for being brushed, but if you truely want a glass like look. you are going to have to block sand with 600 grit, do another clear, sand, clear , sand clear , and then sand and clear on last time. Will give you a nice flat look, hide your insert edges and look fairly good. Then take 2000 or 3000 grit wet paper..sand out imperfections, than buff it out. good to go.

they used the diamondplate logo early on when they first started DPing..after that they stopped putting the logo on because everything was Dp'd.

with bondo. I usually take a razor blade and scrape it all off in a nice even pattern right away. or use a credit card. Form each section before starting another. But I don't use bondo for playfeilds. I don't know how it holds up over time. Not as durable as the PC woody stuff. I like working with that. Longer work times, and gets super hard.

matching off whites are very difficult. Your going to end up getting it close and repainting that entire area. Every Black rose i've ever had to restore I had to repaint that entire area.

that's all well and good except one major problem. Every playfield is different. 1 out of 10 black roses will match this color. Every game I restore, it seems the colors never match again for the next one. I've restored probably 25 different TAF fields. Out of those 25. 3 of them matched in the green. the rest all had to be custom mixed. I have so many versions of TAF green, I could start my own color pallet. Same with whitewater blue, and funhouse blue. Someone else tried selling premade color kits before, with paint by number like setup for playfields. Found out pretty fast, just because it matches the one you did, doesn't mean it's going to match anyone else. it's a shame, because I could sell premixed sets for nearly 100 playfields if that was the case. :/

you have to freehand cut fisket. I don't know any other way you can pull it off.

turned out really good.

thin it out more with lacquer thinner or reducer. Thin it out at least 10%. it will cut down no bubbles.

still soft? I thought you went with auto clear? Should be rock hard in about 3-6 hours

only reason you would have to wait more than 3-6 hours if you are using an air dry type clear. I always clear and sand the next day , redo touchups if needed and spray again the next night if need be.

you using fast or slow hardener?

just a note. For those attempting to do this. Just because you are brushing it on. You still need eye and lung protection. This stuff is very very dangerous and loves to stick to anything wet. Including the vapors. So it will stick to your eyeballs and lung walls. So be very carefull. 10 years ago, when I first started restoring fields. I ended up passing out in the shower because the masks I was using were not the right type. Even tho, I couldn't smell it, the dangerous stuff was still getting through. Exhaust port was not strong enough either.

I only thin with reducer..but others have said lacquer thinner works.

reducer is cheap. it's like $18 for a quart. You probably can get smaller amounts. Go no more than 25%.

so you go 2 : 1 : .5

the finishing , sanding and buffing is the part I hate the most. So time consuming.

no. No matter how smooth that final layer is. There is always some random crap that happens to get in the clear. Either particals of dried clear, or random shit floating around or something. Obviously the less crap that gets in that final layer, the less sanding with 3000 grit you have to do, but there is always some to some degree and you always have to buff with buffing compound. That's why, just clearcoating , costs so much for me to do ($350 for level 1 with minor black line work). Just basic clearcoating for NOS, or repro, that needs leveling and 3-5 layers of clear, takes a crapload of time.

First there is playfield prep. Insert edging detail, then first layer of clear. Then block sanding, then scuffing, then 2nd layer. block sand, scuffing, 3rd layer (rare cases this is final), block sand, scuff, 4th layer, then 3000 grit spots where crap fell in. Then about an hour of buffing and glazing layer.

end result looks pretty good. Well done.