Evercoat Edge 2.1 102740 base with 102744 medium catalyst. I got it from a local auto body paint store.

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I know there's some smart printer folks here. Here's my frustration. Just bough a new Canon MF632Cdw laser printer. It prints great. EXCEPT.... The colors are completely different than the original scan.

Not as noticeable in the picture but the (what is supposed to be) white in the checker pattern is MUCH darker than the original in real life. The picture difference doesn't show this well.

The green is a completely different color of green.

I've ran the auto adjust twice, where the printer prints a rainbow then scans it to determine the difference between original and product.

Is my expectations of scanning/color matching to much? I know it would be impossible to be exact, but this isn't even close.

Thoughts?

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Make sure you have the correct color profiles installed for printer and screen.

Sorry, I don't know what you mean... How do I do this?

If you can, PM me instead so we don't clog up Vid's thread (any more)

Thank you for any and all input!

I agree that it is not fully cured. It has a decent shine, but I would not describe it as a mirror finish. I had chalked that up to lack of polishing experience but now it seems like it not being fully cured is probably the real issue. Here is what it looks like:

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I can barely smell the distinct clearcoat solvent stink but there is a faint whiff there if I press my nose right up onto it.

As for measuring, I use these little disposable medicine cups:

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I fill it to the top 4x for the body and once for the catalyst. I have been careful about temperature. Our weather has been a tad too cold for this stuff, so I've been heating the workshop up with the woodstove and getting everything up to 70-75 degrees. I measure ambient temperature with the thermostat for my wall mounted a/c unit and surface temp of the playfield and clearcoat containers (which I agitate regularly to try to ensure that the clear in the container is the same as the container itself) with an infrared spot gun.

I am starting to wonder, though, about temperature fluctuations 6-8 hours and beyond after application. I do not keep the workshop at a steady temperature since the wood stove is the only heat source. I wonder if the fact that later on in the curing process the temperatures range from 50-60 at night to 70ish in the daytime is slowing down the full cure too much?

Now that I am once again depopulating the topside, I can see that it is the posts that were smaller in diameter at their base and star posts that had significant band tension on them that caused the worst of the clearcoat damage. That said, even standard star posts with no tension left ring marks in the clear. Here are a couple more examples:

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I am no longer intent on trying to salvage this without shooting another layer or two of clear to repair it. It seems like the bad wrinkles probably need to be cut out and the area filled with eyedropper applications of clear, block sanded and cleared again? And what about the areas that just have halos from slight lifting of the clear? I have no clue how best to approach those.

I'd assume letting it fully cure as is, then sanding it down until wrinkles are gone.

How many hours of cure time did it have before you started populating it? Seems strange it is so soft.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of three weeks.

Urethanes are peculiar about temperature and below 60 they often will not dry at all. Ive seen stuff that can still be finger printed the next day.

It gets messy, real messy. You have to set up color calibration throughout your workflow, from scanner to monitor to printer to inks to paper. It requires a combination of software and hardware to do it “right”. Some of the hardware gets expensive, such as the monitor calibrators. The pros also use expensive high end monitors that are made for accurate color representation. You can get things somewhat close on your own with freely available or cheap tools, but the less accurate the entire system is the more trial and error you will need.

There are also certain colors that might have been laid down with specialty inks that you will never be able to replicate with digital printing such as inkjet or laser. This will lead you to the wonderful world of gamuts.

There are lots of references on the webs to help, here is a decent one.

https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/creative-software/how-get-consistent-colour-from-screen-print/

Some gamut info, there is plenty more to google.

http://blog.imagesmith.com/2011/06/22/color-printing-101-the-rgb-cmyk-spectrum/

After I do that, what do you think about putting the playfield back in the cab with the glass on and sitting it out in partial sun in the afternoons (it's been in the high 70's/low 80's here lately) to kick up the temperature to get it to cure better? I'd babysit it with the spot temp gun to be sure it didn't get overly hot.

how did you apply the clearcoat ? , 2 or 3 light layers with 5-15 minutes inb2in ? or maybe you applied too much of a clear resulting in a thick layer ?

Mist coat with 10 minute flash time followed by a wet coat. I don't remember how many total coats are on there. Four, I think, applied days apart. I think it is both thick and too cold as an average temperature and hence not fully cured.

Is this the first time you have used this clear?
What is the mix ratio? I would get a real mix cup from the place you bought it instead of the little cups. They have markings on them for all the different ratios available.
Something seems off here. I have cleared many playfields and I have never seen anything like that on a playfield that has been sitting 3 weeks. But I'm also not a professional.

You might not be a pro but your work is on par with one. I used this same clear on a prior project. It worked fine. The significant differences between this project and the last are average ambient temperature (lower in this case) and total layers of clear (more in this case).

I'm not sure about infrared curing but the label indicates normal forced curing of 30 minutes at 140F.

I agree about sanding it back. It's WAY too thick. I've surgically removed the worst wrinkles by heating slightly with a hairdryer and scoring with the xacto knife. What comes off looks like a clear washer roughly 1/32" thick.

Approximately how much liquid volume of clear do you normally apply per layer? I've been mixing a total of 5 fluid ounces and typically have just a tiny amount left in the gun after spraying.

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That looks thicker than a standard piece of mylar.

How thin is thin? Do you have a rough sense of the total liquid volume of clear you usually shoot per coat?

This is waaaay too thick for sure !! I use approximately 180 - 200 ml for the whole clear coat process ( 1 light and + 1 wet )

+1

Edit: (now that I have the hang of the cheap HF HVLP)

Okay thanks - I'm in that ballpark. I've been mixing roughly 170ml and always have a tiny bit leftover.

I think the bottom layers just were not fully cured as I put on subsequent layers. Combine that with low temps after the initial set and I think that explains it.

I've got the worst of it cut out. Vid, I like your reasoning on sanding. I'm going to go that route.

Thanks for all the good questions and suggestions. It has really helped me think this through, hopefully to a point of understanding, definitely to a point of having confidence in my repair approach.

One last comment/thought before I take this freak show back to my restoration thread - it's a sunny 65 here today. Simply moving the playfield outside into direct sun has kicked up the surface temperature of the playfield to 106F and rising in just 15 minutes. NOW I can really smell the solvents.

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The nose knows!

Nice job! I had sprayed mine inside my shed, which gets pretty hot even with the windows open in the sun. I think that's the only reason why I didn't have a similar outcome as you did.

Should there be concern about fading the colors in direct sunlight?

Only if it was going to live out there long term. A few afternoons in the sun won't hurt decent quality pigments like these.

I havent done a lot of clearing in my very short career (1 playfield....). But the one i did turned out great.
I have never mixed and sprayed more than 2-3 fl-oz in one session. Generally more like 2. And always gave it a week or two before next spraying session.

But a lot of sessions with sanding in between. Probably 8 or 10.

I am a BIG proponent of many very thin coats. Weather its clear or paint.
Works for me.

What's the best way to tackle a hairline crack and some ghosting on an insert?

It's a first run WW CPR playfield and had additional clear done by HSA. It sat in my closet for the last 4 or 5 years so it's fully cured.

I guess I exerted a little too much pressure when I was re-populating the topside and it cracked the clear and ghosted the insert. You can see it starting at the disc and it traveled up to the top of the insert.

Whirlwind Insert (resized).jpg

Hi guys!
I have a wh2o with some planking and raised inserts w minimal paint loss.
My goal is to clean it up as best possible and put a playfield protector on it to prevent future wear and tear.
My question is what is the best way to get this grime out of the planking cracks?
I took one of the cracks and used novus 2 w a magic eraser... which helped a little but not enough.
I do have some namptha i could try, but was curious on suggestions.
Thx guys! U rock!

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Yes, it's definitely hard stuff, but looks gorgeous compared to my other CPR PFs. I was surprised it craked, but then again that insert is so close to a weak spot on the PF.

But thank you for the suggestion, I have sent them an email and hopefully I can get a small sample to try and repair.

Vid is , as usual , right . You could try some white paint in the cracks first . This way the actual final color will cover the imperfections much better .

Vid u agree on the white paint down first?
Also cleaning the playfield and painting the cracks... do u think that just putting a playfield protector over it is the best/easiest/cheapest way to handle the situation?
Thx again!

vid1900 curious about your thoughts on technique in regards to airbrushing. If you take a look at a situation like this:

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You'll see there is pretty typical wear and tear around the lower right edge of the apron. My instinct here would be to:

1) Scuff up with 800 (maybe wet?) for the entire apron
2) Clean w/ naptha
3) Mask off everything but the burgundy area around the outside of the apron white stripe
4) Mix paint to match (Createx) and airbrush everything unmasked
5) Cure with a heat gun
6) Repeat 3-5 for every worn out area
5) Spray with matte clear (possibly sand w/ 800 again, clean, and spray again, depending on how it looks.)

Reading through your thread, a couple things concern me. First, I notice other restorers often replace an entire color. That seems impossible given the Bally script and tiny black lettering around the middle of the apron. Second, if I re-do the burgundy...I probably have to re-do the black and the white striping... and at a certain point, you fall down this black hole of repainting everything but the black lettering. That's fine but then you're left with these rectangles around the lettering, right?

I just want to hear how you might approach this. Before reading this thread I might have painted the worn out areas with an airbrush and NOT replaced an entire color, just the worn areas, then cleared to finish.

Rub on lettering? Water slide (might show edge)?

my inexperienced 2¢

Well, similar to decals, you can paint and clear over sometimes and really reduce the edge effect. What bothers me about doing that, though, is my lettering and paint around them is absolutely perfect and unworn. It would be such a shame to lose it.

Just to clarify: Are you saying that the waterslide decal would dissolve, leaving the ink behind, making it flat...or that you shouldn't clear over the decal?

You think this would be a better approach than mixing Createx opaque paints? Not dissing The Home Depot's color match technology, just the paint.

Just to add in my two cents, see my post in my resto thread below to see what I did:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/la-portas-firepower-rejuvenation/page/4#post-4190584

I really scraped back around those areas to make sure there was no remaining flakes or rust underneath.

Just my luck, my apron is a unique color totally different than any other color on the playfield, rails or cab. Still, I can bring it in and paint match it as an option to get close to the color and clear over the latex.

Great post, thank you. I think my current plan is to stare at it for a stupid amount of time and decide what to do next. I'm fine doing some detailed masking. Any reason not to use frisket vs. masking tape? If I can't blend in a color, I'll probably have to re-do the graphics/lettering, which shouldn't be too difficult.