Vid's Guide to Ultimate Playfield Restoration

What a sad day.
After completing my first clear-coat project with a great result it was time to clear my next project.
The weather is getting colder and it is raining a little today. I think there is also high humidity.
But I have planned to do it today so thinking about how well it went last. I was sure that this would be the case this time as well.

But damn I was wrong...
I sprayed the first heavy code and sad down and looked at the result, there where lots of small "bubbles"? Can't tell if it looks like air or water?

So:
1. To the people here thinking about rushing your clear before winter or having another reason to try and do it while the conditions for clear coat is not 100%. _DON'T DO IT!__

2. Vid, what can I do? Should I wait for it to dry and then sand it down? If How much should I sand it?

I share my stupid mistake so others might not be tempted...

Thank you, I was actually starting to get "haze" in the clear (after maybe 4 min), so I quickly moved everything to a warmer place and the "haze" has now disappeared again. (pfew)

What grid do you think I should use? The playfield has only gotten one thick coat.

I really really hope this is the case...

amazon.com link »

This look like a good purchase for someone using an airbrush say five times every 10 years!!!!???

Vid -
Quick question NOT related to CC'ing!

Was asked by someone how to clean the underside of the playfield of the black grit/grime from years of playing. Light sanding?

Roger that!
I have just looked at the playfield here 6 hours later. Now it looks like hundreds of mini "craters". So I don't think the bobbles are trapped anymore. Does it make sense?

Good 'nuff. I'll give it a try.

There is like 1-5 craters pr. 1 cm2, they are about 1mm in width. When you say "fill craters with clear" you don't mean with drops right :-O I hope you mean a light coat? Or am I wrong?

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I don't want to speak for the man, but he has (just a page or so back) assisted me with the very same issue. What you need to do is cut the bubbles open with a sharp XActo blade and with an eye dropper (actually three eye droppers - one for the clear, one for the harder and one for mixing and applying) you fill those bubble craters. You should be doing this same procedure for leveling areas around inserts and whatnot, which are almost never level with the playfield and almost always have dugout areas around them on older machines.

I have them all over the playfield. I was just only able to get few of them on the photo by getting the right angle and light.
So doing it by "hand" would be impossible...

Vid is absolutely right! I had a playfield come out much like your picture when I pushed the clear in low temps. Thankfully 95% of them sanded out. You might get just as lucky!

Should I sand until I see nothing or can there still be a small crater? What happened to the last 5% ?

I have them all over the surface of my PF too, and did with the last coat as well. Look a few posts up where I state my concern that they will never end. Eventually, you get to your final coat and you can't have bubbles in that one because at some point you would like to be done clear-coating that particular play field. See what Vid's replies were to that - very helpful as always.

Most of mine, if not all, are very tiny and close to the surface. The little ones will sand out, the slightly bigger craters have to be filled by hand. It may be a pain in the ass, but never say it would be impossible to fill them. You may not a have a choice, and since you have invested quite a bit of time and expense into this project already, spending a few extra minutes or a couple of hours to get this part right is a must.

Hi Vid,

Back again and tried to take some better pictures of this area I want to fix. It looks like someone tried to repair the pop bumper area with some kind of hardened resin/clear, but just kinda dripped it on in sections.

There's a bigger section with slightly raised resin over where the playfield was worn to wood, and a smaller section with an even higher raised almond shaped bump.

So I'm not sure how I should go about trying to remove it, i.e. sanding or some kinda chemical maybe. Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

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Vid's covered the sanding here, but for the last 5% I got out the 2PAC and the pipette's to fill 'em in one drop at a time. Live and learn. Never made that mistake again, and part of that reason is due to the fact that I follow Vid here on his restoration guide.

Now I'm expanding my horizon's by delving into Air Brushing instead of Acrylic brush fixes thanks to Vid.

Ok, I live in the south but I'm still hoping to spray clear in a tent-like paint booth outside the garage in moderately cool conditions. I can heat it but it would be tough to maintain 60-70 degrees over several days. If I spray outside and move the pf in the garage and/or the house, it is still curing and offgassing and can therefore stink up the place, if I understand correctly.

How long should the cleared PF smell bad/contaminate the environment once a coat has flashed off?

Ok here is the start of my 8x8x8 paint booth. It may be a little over kill but I had a 4x8 shelf prior to keep things off the ground, so I figured why not 8x8 area.
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What's a good strategy to use when disconnecting all of the wires? I'm about to do a total tear down and restore on a game that's really beat up, but in absolutely terrified about taking everything off. I plan on taking tons of pictures, but I don't want to rewire everything incorrectly.

Having just done this on my TZ, I went the 'lazy' way -

Started with the switch matrix wire harness and used scotch tape and a permanent marker as I unsoldered. Used the tape as a 'flag' for each connection. Then removed the harness and started with the light/GI harness, etc.

Now, in three months or so when I reassemble, I'll let you know how well that worked.

Wipe the connectors and coils down enough that you can see the wire colors decently. Take as many pictures of wire colors and connections as you think you need . . . . then go back and take three times as many pictures.

Fellow lazy pinsider reporting in.

Took a JM apart a few weeks ago and didnt mark a single connector. Lots of pictures so I can see all the colour wiring.

Starting to investigate the air bubble issue. ( https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration/page/31#post-2045280 )
I am now in a warm and nice place. So I was filling up inserts with clear and there where starting to come air-bubbles again! This time it can not be the temperature.
So what is it?
1) The clear is "bad".
2) Applying to much product can course air bubbles? When I got air bubbles the first time my first layer was heavy (Last project I did light coats first) And when filling inserts there are also a lot of product?
3) Something I can't think of?

EDIT:
Or could it be me shaking the product too much?

I don't know a lot about this, but s it possible the clear is soaking into the wood, causing air to be pushed out into it?

Did your unmixed clear ever freeze? You will have problems if it has.

PA-LEEZE tell us you aren't shaking it up.

Never shake Auto paint, Never Ever shake clear, Don't even mix it too aggressively....makes bubbles.

Sorry, sorry should have said it earlier. It is Spraymax 2k. So it is a can and it says shake it for 2 min etc.

Oh, wish you'd have said that earlier because I would have chimed in. I've had that as well in my SprayMax application on my F-14. I did a really successful application on my pinbot at 70-80 degrees a few months back and now using heaters and trying like heck to stay above 60 degrees I've seen these tiny pin-sized craters. They sand out fine. Mine actually look like dust at first glance, and for a while I was dismissing them as such. I am applying a little thicker on F14 than I did on Pinbot, so those are the only two differences. Temp and thickness of the coat.

To be fair to Vid, I really think it makes sense to start a new thread for all things SprayMax2K and post experiences in there. Vid details step by step how to shoot clear using the "big boy" way, so if you choose to be a half-ass cheapskate like me and buy rattle cans, it's kind of unfair to post in his thread with your issues.

When I was doing my homework prior to trying SprayMax, I PM'd several guys who'd used it. There are a few of us on Pinside--enough to start a club. So I just started one ...

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/the-spraymax-2k-auto-clear-in-a-can-club

...which I hope will be a place to go for success and fail stories and all things SprayMax.

Sound fair?

Dan

EDIT: Added link to my post's stub

Thank you, I will continue with my questions there.

This bubble issue may be the same exact one I was asking about earlier. I don't think I ever shook the clear and no matter what I did I always let it set. But I certainly swirled it heavily, meaning once both parts were in my measuring container, I swirled the container to get a nice whirlpool going to mix it.

Is this a bad idea? If so, what is the appropriate way? My assumption (no need to get into cliche's about that word) is that the two parts should be mixed well or I would be spraying something that won't harden properly in all areas.

Incidentally, I am using Shopline JC660 and the fastest hardener.

Here's your problem. I'm not sure why a fast hardener is being recommended. Hardeners are designed to work in specific temperature ranges. A hardener that is too fast will start to cure before the solvents have time to escape. Solvent popping can and will occur.

Hey Vid, a good friend of mine is a craftsman cabinet maker and he wants to try his hand at clearing a playfield. I talked to him about 2pac and your thread. He wants to use a conversion varnish. Do you have an opinion on this?

Thanks

Great info Vid thanks!

I'm sure he uses it all the time in his work, but it is clearly not the right choice here.

Hey Vid,
I'm not trying to diss you here, but someone has been feeding you bad information and you seem to be passing it on to everyone here. Paint manufactures go through great lengths to produce many different products that work in a variety of different conditions. They make all of these products so that the end user gets good results. I know of no universal temperature range hardener(at least that I would use) being made. PPG doesn't make one. You may get away with a very light coat over your inserts and decals, but after that you should switch out to the proper temperature range product.

Here is the product Shopline catalog from PPG;
Clearcoat
JC660 Rapid Spot / Panel Clearcoat
Hardener
JH6670 Fast Topcoat Hardener 55-65°F (13-18°C)
JH6680 Medium Topcoat Hardener 75-85°F (24-29°C)
JH6690 Slow Topcoat Hardener 85°F+ (29°C+)

You do have a very good theory, but in practice people without a short wave IR curing lamp may have troubles with solvent popping.

Lee, you seem very tuned in the technical aspect of the product, but I would tend not to argue with the man who has been using said product for this very specific use for some time now and with a great deal of success.

When it comes down to it, in this forum, it only matters how the 2pac works for clearing a playfield -- with glue variances, material variances, paint variances and decals.

I just read your post Vid on UV Cure.
Here's a good video to watch on how they UV Cure a Guitar.

Vid - two questions on touchups:

1) For tidying up the upper part of the inside of a cabinet that has some scuff marks (the part that is visible during gameplay - it's black on my machine), do you recommend airbrushing black with the Createx or is there a better approach?

2) For inserts with small amounts of scratched white paint (eg. Dr. Dude's Dude-o-Meter), is it OK to just touch it up with white Createx between clearcoats rather than having to get a decal made (since I can't print white)?