Attempting my first pinball restoration. Been going through the full 40 something pages of this post and wow, the wealth of information is simply overwhelming. Would not have atempted without it. Thanks for sharing all this Vid!

The machine is an old 70 Bally which saw some better times and was probably maintained on location just enough to keep it going. Spent a few weekends fixing the electromech and had it going 100% a few weeks ago. Then we played it and now finally decided to strip the playfield to tackle a restauration.
My intent is to fully clear coat the PF for good play purpose. Certainly not expecting a perfect restauration. But I'm picky so I'll put the effort to get it best as a novice can.

So here is where I stand and here are a few problem areas I'd like some advice on how to deal with.

The is the stripped playfield, partially cleaned top section. You can see the demarcation line between the pop bumpers above which I have done my first pass of cleaning. The paint in that area, apart for the worn and discolored spots, is in good shape.

IMG_20150913_215227.jpg

Next are a few areas where the paint is not in such good shape. I'd like to get some advice on how to deal with this. I haven't done any cleaning there yet other than lightly swipe with a dry paint brush to remove loose dirt. As you can see, this took off some flakes in some areas.

IMG_20150914_075427.jpg

IMG_20150914_075705.jpg

IMG_20150914_075552.jpg

IMG_20150914_075447.jpg

IMG_20150914_075438.jpg

I'm guessing the flaking paint needs to be removed completly. Just the cleaning with ME and alcohol will likely remove some. Them maybe a light sanding to feather the edges, then clearcoat and on with paint restauration?
Just not sure how hard to push the flaking paint removal or if I should do it at all. Should I be aggressive or should I just leave the flakes that don't come off with ME?

The big ugly blue mylars have to go. I was planing on freezing them but on the last few pages of the guide there is a quick comment by Vid about how its better to use heat on some older PFs. Would it be the case here?

For all the other worn spots it will be a long tedious frisket, paint and decal job I guess. Looking forward to that! Any advice welcome.

Well I guess somebody had to make that call. Basically stop dicking around trying to make spot repairs, bite the bullet, ME over the whole PF. Don't hold back, whatever goes goes. Sand unpainted wood, then go for major repaint followed with good decal job. With the required clear coats in between.
Can live with that.
Will keep you posted with my progress as I go if there is interest. Not sure this thread is the best place to post this kind of info though. Will look around to see if there is a better place. Maybe a new thread.
Vid, thanks for the making the call on this one. Guess this novice restorer just needed that nudge in that direction.
As for your Playfield Restauration Guide well, it's awesome. 'Nuf said. Off to work.

On the topic of side rails. Once your PF is all cleared, and you need to reinstall the side rails which are Brad nailed from below how do you proceed without damaging the clear at the point were the nail will come through it?

Was on the prowl this past week searching for some 2PAC.

Turns out PPG’s Omni MC161 (aka Shopline JC660), which is Vid's recommendation of choice for novices clearcoaters, is no longer available in Canada since 2010 because of its VOC levels.

Vendor’s suggestion for a similarly priced and packaged product from the same family is PPG’s Omni MC262.

Spec sheet for both those products availble here under 'clearcoat'
http://ca.ppgrefinish.com/PPG-Refinish/Products/Automotive-Refinish/Omni

Putting both above spec sheets side-by-side I do see some minor differences. However, I’m not sure how those would affect application.

Vendor also offered PPG’s Envirobase EC800 as a product offered in quart packaging.
But it's an entirely different family of product and is quite pricy at about 3 to 4x the cost of the two above.

http://www.nedsautobodysupply.com/PPG_EC800_EB-800_Ultra_Fast_2.1_Clearcoat_12-2011_.pdf

Has anyone had experience with any of those alternative products.
All you Canadian restorers, what clear have you been using that you feel works for a novice clearcoater?

Hello Vid,

I believe my PF is now, as clean as it will get.
I've ME the whole surface to get the loose flakes of paint off.
In a few spots, I've ME a bit to much. But i wanted to reveal the original color for my color matching.
I've also scanned the whole thing.

IMG_20151004_192250.jpg

I've managed to get rid of the ball track to my satisfaction.
Still shows a wee bit in certain spots when wiped with Naphtha but acceptable to me.

And the shooter late is also fair.

I'm still debating if I will or not try to stain or shellac the wooden areas from which i have scraped off all of the old varnish.
Top, bottom and slingshots.
I cant really find shellac flakes. I might just leave as is.
Bugs me that there are a few area in upper PF with non-scraped varnish.
Color is different. May just decide to scrape these also.
Wood stain may be an option. Varnish is completely gone, so it would hold.
Would it look good under the clear?

IMG_20151004_192332.jpg

IMG_20151004_192341.jpg

IMG_20151004_192402.jpg

IMG_20151004_192407.jpg

IMG_20151004_192352.jpg

I've even started preparing my masks for the cabinet artwork.
But that's a topic for another post.

IMG_20151004_192700.jpg

Other than the above, here is what i think are my next steps:

-Drill out stripped screw holes, fill with epoxy and top with bondo.
-Fix larger divots with bondo.
-Sand Bondo flush.
-Scuff cupped inserts and small divots and fill with 2PAC.
-Lightly scuff PF with 800 grit to give the first coat some grip. (Scary! Is this correct?)
-Once dry, lightly scuff filled inserts and small divots with 600-800 grit also to give some grip.
-Mask holes and slots in PF.
-Bag and protect PF underside mech.
-Final wipe with naphtha and swipe with tack cloth (At local shop just before clearing).
-1st light coat of clear (At local paint shop).
-Pick up from shop (will likely be more than 24hrs later) and light sand the clear with 600 grit to flatten PF and to reveal dips.
-Scuff dips with 220 or 320 and eyedrop 2pac.
-Let dry (24hrs plus ?) and sand flat with 600
-Mask and paint.
-2nd coat clear (At local paint shop).

Does that sequence make sense?
I'm also not to certain on the grits to use in the various steps.
Maybe you can comment on that also.

Ill be using Onmi 262 as Omni 161 is apparently not avail in Canada because of VOC content legislation.
Any experience with that one?

Thanks

Vid,

Tried out the clear I just bought (Omni 262). Did the filling of cupped insert thing. Just want to report that I am amazed with the results. Up to now, it hadn't even occurred to me that my red inserts were clear (the yellowish ones are not). Just assumed that they were more or less opaque. Just barely translucent enough to illuminate when the light shun through them from underneath.
Here is a pic of one of the inserts before:

scan0001.jpg

And here it is after scraping of the varnish, sanding and filling with clear:

IMG_20151013_081746.jpg

That's my finger showing thru the insert!

Anyway, probably just run-of-the-mill result for you pros but quite cool for me.
Got me quite excited for the rest of the job.

I do have a question thought. Its now been about 3-4 days since i filled the inserts. The PF has been sitting indoors at a normal humidity and room temperature. It's dry and certainly no longer tacky. However it still seems soft. When I lightly press my fingernail into it, it leaves a mark that with time eventually disappears.

Can I expect this to harden more? Is this caused by the fact that this is a relatively thick layer of clear just taking its time to set?

I know i got my mix right because i used a graduated eye dropper to mix it since I needed very little. (4 for this clear).

Can I do my first thin coat of clear over those inserts right now? Or will that prevent the clear on the inserts from drying properly?

This is the little paint booth i built in my garage. Footprint is 6' x 8'.

IMG_20151017_121001.jpg

IMG_20151017_121028.jpg

The exhaust duct stretches out about 10' beyond the garage door into the driveway.

I run my air thru this condensing coil to remove all moisture. The coil is immersed in the blue drum full of cold water.

IMG_20151011_162003.jpg

There is a drain valve that you can't see at the bottom of the coil.

Now if I could just have the skill to shoot a nice even coat of clear....

See Saw PF is slowly moving forward. Gathered all my courage and finally gave it a first coat of clear.

IMG_20151101_151321_1.jpg
IMG_20151101_151329.jpg
IMG_20151101_151423.jpg

First time using a paint gun of any sort ... ever. Far from perfect with some light orange peeling and what I believe is a not so thin "thin coat" . But I'm happy with my first attempt nevertheless. Also happy to report that my small paint boot setup in my garage (see post previous page) worked perfectly. The extraction fan worked great and the only place you could smell paint was in the booth. No paint smell in the garage at all ☺.

I decided to sand down the pf with a dry wall sanding block. Used 400, then 320, finally pulled out the heavy artillery and used 220... Yeah I know, kind of went the wrong way but the finer grit wasn't removing anything significant. There were a lot of low spots mainly caused by all the missing paint (worn or flaked off) so I figured this sanding would help reduce these low spots.

Then gave have it a second coat. Same results (light orange peeling and maybe a bit thick) but the low spots improved a bit. Some of the shallower ones have disappeared and the crease around the inserts starting to fill up.

IMG_20151109_084007_1.jpg
IMG_20151109_084126_1.jpg
IMG_20151109_084025_1.jpg
IMG_20151109_084038_1.jpg

One thing I've learned regarding filling recessed inserts with clear is that next time, I will make sure the dropped clear spills over onto the PF a bit to avoid this crease around the insert.

So now I'm about to give the PF a second sanding and my question is this:

Should I give it a vigorous sanding and then a third coat to further reduce those low spots or should I give it a light sanding and start masking and painting and keep the filling of the low spots for the final coats? A third option may also be to give it a vigorous sanding (220) and work my way up to a fine sanding (400 or 600) and start painting. The finer sanding would be to prevent paint from seeping under the frisket. Not sure if this is really an issue or not.
If I decide to clear again, this coming weekend may be the last before it gets too cold.

I decided to go to full repaint because the PF was in pretty bad condition to start with. A lot of worn spots, flaked paint, planking and a lot of annoying pin holes in the top coat especially in the lower PF. Those pin holes exposed the base white coat and sometimes the wood base and were an eye sore.
You can see them a lot in the dark blues area. Cant see them as much in the red and yellow on this picture, but if you zoom in you'll see that they are there.

PF.jpg

Touch ups would have been quite exhaustive in my opinion and I don't yet trust my color mixing and matching abilities. I am afraid i may have ended up with a spotted PF.

So with a little encouragement from the people on this post I decided to go for the full repaint.
The art on this PF being mostly straight lines and solid colors also made itself quite suitable for this kind of restoration.

I just happened to stumble on this website a few days ago:

http://www.pinball-dreams.com/de/dienstleistungen/spielfeldrestauration/dokumentation/see-saw.html

Its a series of pics of the very same PF (See Saw) I am working on being fully repainted.
Pretty interesting and certainly a superb job.
Hope mine will be be half as good as that!

I notice that they made some stencils for their lettering rather than use waterslide decals.

// Error: Image 473676 not found //

I've been thinking of ways to do that and I'm looking for some info on that.
I have a method of cutting the letters in stencil paper (laser cutter) but the holes come loose (like the inside of an "O" for example) and I have to manually center it. Not good.
I would welcome any suggestions on how to do that?

text_sencil.jpg

So I'm now ready to start masking and frisketing. My question is in regards to the keyline between solid colors. Should I mask to the edge of the first solid color, say yellow, and paint the yellow then mask to the edge of the second solid color, say blue, and paint the blue and finally mask to the edge of the yellow and to the edge of the blue leaving only the old keyline and paint the black?
Or should I simply mask to the center of the keyline and paint the yellow, covering half the old keyline, then mask the yellow and paint the blue thereby covering the second half of the keyline. Then finally mask on either side of where the blue and yellow meet and paint the black keyline?

The former method seems to me like it would require quite a bit of precision when masking or cutting as your cut would have to be right on the color's edge. The second method does nor require that precision as any imprecisions would be covered by the new keyline. However it may prove difficult to mask a constant width keyline as both your cut lines would have to be perfectly parallel when frisketing for it.

How is that normally done? What's the best method? To me the second one seems like the way to go.

IMG_20151121_203659.jpg

Here is an interesting kelining detail between the red and the teal:

IMG_20151121_211541.jpg

You'll notice there is no black keyline. Rather, there is a darker shade of red keyline. It looks like a transparent red was used and was made to overlap the teal color.

Two approaches to recreating this.
Base coat with white. Paint the teal then use a transparent red and paint the red while overlapping the teal.
Or simply paint the red and the teal with regular opaque colors and then mix a darker shade of opaque red and apply it as a regular keyline.
I've also seen a case where that detail was dropped entirely and replaced with a black keyline.

Suggestions on the right way to proceed here?

That's how I'll do the keyline around the insert. Thanks.
But I'm still unsure on how to approach the straight keyline between the blue and the yellow. How would you tackle that in terms of masking?

Vid, have a look at the attached pic.

IMG_20151121_213533.jpg

This overlap is generalized at every location where red and teal kiss. No exception.

If you also look at places were other graphics are superimposed on the red/teal kiss, or where other colors borderthe red, there doesn't seem to be any overlap there while there is still a red/teal overlap.

IMG_20151121_214504.jpg

Looking at some other see saw PFs, I see the same overlap. I'm thinking this is likely not an registration error.

Assuming one would want to keep it that way any suggestions on how to approach this?

Anybody out there have a Canadian source for water slide decal paper. Shipping fees to Ottawa are hovering around $70 for a $23 pack at decalpaper.com.

In doing a complete repaint of my playfield, I have decided to clear and sand in between each color.
For more or less the same reasons you have described. This my first time restauring a PF with airbrush and createx paints, so as I get experience I may eventually skip some coats of clear. But for now, as a beginner, I find it easier to work this way. As an added bonus, I'm slowly filling all small pinholes and depressions in my playfield with each coat of clear.

Any issues wet standing around thé openings? Any chances of water sleeping under the clear in those locations?

With my HVLP gun set at 30psi, 1.3mm nozzle, I've been putting down very thin coats that are perfect for intermediate coats between each airbrush color. I've been using anywhere between 50ml and 70ml of clear depending on my skill for putting down a coat that day. My coats are not 0.004" thick however because of overspray. When my painting is done, I will likely use more than 70ml for my final coat in order to get that 0.004". I'm guessing 100ml.
I'm no professional paint sprayer by any stretch of the imagination, so your milage may vary.

Back a few dozen posts, I started this full restauration on a Bally 1970 SeeSaw pf. Been progressing slowly and now colors are all redone except for the red.
Trying to mix this red using Createx paints. And not having success. I find that the Createx red that I use as the base has a definite pinkish hue to it while the red I am trying to match has more of a slightly orange hue. Added some yellow to pull it to orange but that doesn't help with the pinkish hue.

IMG_20160719_204451_(resized).jpg

The bid blotch is the unmixed createx red while the 4 small blotches are red mixed with more and more yellow.

You can see this mix is not going anywhere. Any suggestions on how to mix this red?

Please note that the picture doesn't do the red justice. In reality, it is more ”orangeish”.
The red in the scans below are much more true to life.

scan0002_(resized).jpg

scan0001_-_scan0002_(resized).jpg

I used that same Zinsser shellac and then cleared it with 2pac and had no issues at all.
IMG_20160709_180309_(resized).jpg

Would you choose a water based paint (latex), or an oil based paint? Or either? Or something else?

I had the same issue in Canada with MC161 being unavailable.

The lower VOC equivalent available is PPG’s Omni MC262. Hardener is MH267 if I remember correctly. It's sold in liter kit and price is reasonable.

Don't know if this will help for Europe.

So all my decals are printed, cut and ready to apply on my fully refurbished and cleared See Saw PF.

IMG_20161015_223017 (resized).jpg

The clear coat has been sanded to 600 grit. It's definitely not shinny, actually it very mate but very smooth and uniform without a dimple in it. The end is close.

I've applied a few decals already as a test. The application when very well.

IMG_20161015_223132 (resized).jpg
IMG_20161015_223106 (resized).jpg

However, as can be seen on the pics, the clear border of the decal is clearly visible.
Of course, the sheen of the decal being different from that of the surrounding surface accentuates this border but on the head on picture where the difference in sheen is minimized, the border is still visible.
I don't think I should be alarmed about this as I believe i remember reading somewhere that this clear border will disappear when I clear coat over these decals.
But Im not quite certain.

I guess, I'm looking for some kind of confirmation that I'm good to go before proceeding further.
Hopefully, I dont have to trim the decals flush to the black text/keylines. I'll be at it forever.

Also for those round insert decals, I'm wondering if i should cut out the center?
Again I think not as this will make it difficult to apply and that center should fade into the clear but would like opinions.

Thanks,

All right, I'll get trimming then.

As for the shiny part, that's kind of a conundrum! Decals stick to shiny but the following coat of clear needs to be on sanded clear. So what would be the happy medium in terms of sanding grit that would work for both?

I tried to get the recommended decal paper but the shipping costs across the border are outrageous.
My local hobby shop store sells this one:

http://bare-metal.com/Experts-Choice-Decal-Film.html

Clarification on this. When you say a ”pool" under the decal, do you mean actually flood the spot where the decal goes with future, then slide the decal in place and then wipe off the excess or do you really just polish the area under the decal with future, wait for it to dry an slide the decal on?

Also, any silicone in Future? That would certainty not sit well with 2 part auto clear.

The Silhouette is an awesome machine. Here is an example of what it can do. All those stencils for my SeeSaw were cut on one.
Courtesy of @dr_nybble.

IMG_20161022_225933 (resized).jpg

Not sure what you're talking about....

Before:
IMG_20150913_184418 (resized).jpg

After:
IMG_20161211_160949 (resized).jpg

If you don't understand what you're looking at, PM me. I'll be happy to explain.

Happy Holidays to you as well.

I did indeed airbrush with Createx Airbrush black.
Very very thin coats. Petty much a mist. 7 or 8 of them. And cure with hair dryer between each coats.
You really have to resist the urge to lay down thicker ones.
Those mist coats will build up to a full coverage eventually but you have to be patient.
That was my error earlier in this project. I would lay them down thicker, maybe just 2 or 3 coats. The paint would often peel off when removing the frisket.

IMG_20161023_195746 (resized).jpg

IMG_20161023_201410 (resized).jpg

Inspect between each coats and when happy with coverage, stop and final heat cure.

Peel stencil off and enjoy. Not once for any of the text did I have any paint peel off.

IMG_20161023_201428 (resized).jpg

Wow! Quite the compliment, thanks.
It's been a long process. Your post #2381 which I dubbed "10 steps to a perfect playfield" pretty much kicked it of!

Learned an incredible amount of skills doing this playfield restauration.

The cabinet restauration was also interesting.

20160916_224023-COLLAGE (resized).jpg

And now, I am finalizing everything on the electeomech side of things.

IMG_20160423_154357-COLLAGE (resized).jpg

Kids and wife can't wait to finally play the game after watching me tinker on this project for over a year now!

I could not find the exact font either and eventually did not want to anyways. On my '70s pf, the lettering was not crisp and perfectly defined to begin with. Probably because of the process used to apply the black ink. Slight bleeding of the ink and all.

10X (resized).jpg

I wanted to maintain that same look as crisp and perfectly formed letters would have looked awkward on that era machine.

So I retraced every single bit of text.

Used Gimp first to to create a b/w raster image such as the one above.
Then used inkscape to vectorize and create a svg file that was used on the silhouette to cut it.

Seems tedious and it was! Until I finally found the best tools from both those software that got the job done efficiently. These softwares have so many ways of doing the same thing, you have to find the right way. I can't recall which one I used just now but if you want, let me know and I can check my notes and document the details later.

I've been using this quite successfully:

0762086_1 (resized).jpg

Available at Canadian tire for 5 CAD.

Used about a bottle and a half to fully clean and refurbish a pretty grimy playfield.

A little late answering this post but I had a few pics of how I proceed for mine.

IMG_20150913_205434 (resized).jpg

IMG_20150913_205746 (resized).jpg

Basically used a small pair of neddle nose pliers as a pry bar.
Levering against as thick as possible a piece of wood that I could slide under the rail.

Well, I feel for you! I ran into the exact same problem on my first restauration. It took me quite some time to figure it all but for me the solution was really quite simple.
The problem was that I would put down 3 or 4 of what I beleived were thin coats. Every time I peeled the mask off, I would have some degree of paint peeling just like you do.

Eventually, went to thinner and thinner coats. With heat curing in between each. No exceptions. My coats are now so thin they are barely just a mist and I can sometimes barely see any color on the first coat. It now takes me 7-8 coats plus to get full coverage.
It's time consuming for sure but when I peel the mask, all is good.

The heat cures (with a hair dryer) take as much and sometimes more time than the coats of paint. I feel this is important and it works for me.

Here is an example.

Before 1st coat:

IMG_20161023_175007 (resized).jpg

2nd or 3rd coat:

IMG_20161023_195746 (resized).jpg

Last coat:
IMG_20161023_201410 (resized).jpg

Mask removal:

IMG_20161023_201428 (resized).jpg

Hope this helps.

Have a completely depopulated Grand Prix pf. Only thing left to remove are the fin shank bolts for the pops and the flippers. Will be repainting and clearing this pf. Most bolts are well set and sit flush with the pf surface. However, a few were likely torqued too hard and their head has crushed through the veneer and is now sitting below the pf surface. Here is a picture showing both cases:

IMG_20180210_180717 (resized).jpg

1) for those are that are set properly, should I leave them as is and clear over them or should I remove them and reinstall after clearing?

2) for those that are sitting shy of the surface, I beleive I should remove them and remove any loose wood and veneer. I would then fill with Bondo, redrill, paint and clear. Is that the right way to proceed?

3) in regards to prepping the hole to receive the fin shank screw head, most references I see mention countersinking which produces a conical hole. However, the underside of these screws is flat. Should we not be counterboring instead which produces a flat bottom hole? And should the countersink/bore be done before or after clearing?

CountersinkVSConterbore (resized).JPG

Here is an other defect I need to fix.
Have a look at the vertical line on the following pics.

IMG_20180210_180821 (resized).jpg

IMG_20180210_180832 (resized).jpg

Seems to me like its the veneer that is split. Runs the whole lenght of the pf. As mentioned in my previous post, I'll be completely painting and clearing this pf. I don't think I should simply paint and clear over this split. Afraid the crack would eventually just propagate up through the new coatings. Veneer on either side of the crack could curl up or something.

Any suggestions on how to deal with this?

Repairing my shooter lane. Bottom was badly chewed up. Sanded and filled. Avoided sanding the sides as much as possible. Trying to remove the least amount of wood possible. Picture shows where i stand right now.
20180306_080509-COLLAGE (resized).jpg .

Should i try to get better contact by building up the bottom and filling the gap or is this an acceptable fit and im just being picky?

That's an interesting question.
In my case for the top side, so far, i always took detailled notes when dismantling and i repopulated in the exact opposite order.

For the bottom side, dont think i will be able to do that. I stripped right down to the ground wires for the first time on this GP im working on. So although the staples holding down the ground wires are amongst the first things i pulled, they will never be the last thing i staple back down. It will be impossible to get in there even with a long nose stapler. In fact, I will likely have to desolder the sockets from the old wire, set them i place, staple the new ground wire in, install all the remaining mech and resolder the harness back on to the ground wire. Looks like its going to be a tedious job and require a lot of wire marking to make sure the right wire gets resoldered in the right spot.

Ill be curious to see how Vid or anybody else do it.

Vids suggestions are spot on.
Went thru the exact same problem.
Read my post #3824 in this topic for additional tips to solve your problem.
Worked for me. Never peeled paint after that.
Kind of like an epiffany.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration/page/77#post-3496256

It's all about being patient and putting down very thin coats.

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.

Molotow paint markers.

00001IMG_00001_BURST20180731221206_COVER (resized).jpg

Opaque, deep black and compatible with clear.
Around the inserts where just a center line of black is missing, go free hand. On straight, i use a ruler. You can mask for other shapes.

Echoing both lb1 and polyacanthus comments. White under yellow only. And VERY thin coats only. With a blast of hairdryer heat set between each coat.

No issues blending white into white. Just make sure you feather one section into the other.

Not sure why you would be working section by section though.
When doing this kind of work, 80% if the labor is masking.
So mask the whole pf but the white and spray the whole area at once.
Dont forget:. Many many many thin coats and heat set all of them. Be patient and dont get lax and start making your coats thicker.

By the way, white, i find, is the hardest color to use in an air brush. The pigments are quite big and make the paint quite thick compared to the other colors. This constantly clogs your nozzle not to mention that this acrilic paint dries up pretty fast on the needle not helping the clogging issues at all. If its the first time you use createx white, don't get discouraged with that. You'll be clearing you airbrush quite often.
If possible, start with another color to get some practice.
Or test on scrap. Black sprays nicely, you can try out with that one first.
IMG_20180923_193254 (resized).jpgIMG_20180923_220123 (resized).jpgIMG_20180924_200811 (resized).jpgIMG_20180917_213603 (resized).jpgIMG_20181012_214739 (resized).jpg

Right, good question. My experience is with Createx Airbrush Colors.
When i first started using these paints, I definitely had major issues with peeling. I corrected my technique with thinner coats and curing. Problem solved. But i cant really say which of my corrective actions really solved the problem. . I like to think its the combination of both...

Yeah, and dont try to make a stencil for border only and then try to place the letter within that border.
Think of a regular font (in red) painted over its bold (in black) version.

This is what i have been using succesfully.

https://www.amazon.com/Original-Frisket-Masking-10-Inch-4-Yard/dp/B001F6J18K

Used it on a couple of complete PF repaint. Works fine.

Seconding lb1's answer. Clearing will definitely "clear" them!

Well, I'm a little late in the game here and you've received pretty good guidelines on how to proceed so far.
So I'll just add the following on a few topics.

Clear coat between each colors:
I used to do it all the time. With a good sandown after each clearcoat. And I remove probably 80% of the thickness of the coat by sanding. More labor for sure. But I have setup a small well ventilated paint boot in my garage so it helps. I do some eye dropping on sunken inserts at first and it I found that that was never perfect and if not filled right would still have some low spots at times or ridges on the od of the insert. Plus, there are always other low spots left and right on the PF. Especially if the original artwork is quite bad. Spots down to the wood are lower then the surrounding paint and that's a pretty large low spot to try and fill with eyedropper. So these multiple coats of clear with flat sanding in between (I wetsand by hand using a drywall hand sander) gradually flatten out all that surface. Never flat after the first coat, but gets better and better after each application and sanding. So far my playfields turned out very good and perfectly flat.

Note that I started this paragraph with "used to". Well, I still kinda do the same thing. The only difference is that I now learned to gauge how many of those coats I'm going to need to get my PF nice and flat. I'm also better at drop filling the inserts without leaving gaps or ridges behind while not overfilling them (and having to wait days for them to dry). So when I judge that I can, I will do two or three colors before clearing. Just to save time.
I never had that 3D effect mentioned but that's because I stand down so much of the coat I just put down everytime. I end up with very thin coats. I am aware of that potential 3d effect and keep an eye out for it though.

Painting to the edge or not:
I'm good enough with an Xacto that I usually cut frisket right to the edge of the color I and painting. Or maybe overlap by a tiny almost unperceivable amount. Your PF has a lot of straight lines. So use a steel ruler to cut. Try it that way, you'll see it's not that hard to be that p re precise. Good music with a nice cool glass of beer and off you go. You just need patience.

Text:
I tried water slides. Didn't like them at all. So I have so far been using two methods: cutting masks (aka stencils) on a silhouette cutter and airbrushing paint or dry rub transfers. Both yield great results.
Stencils are a lot of work but allows you to do any color of text.
Dry rub ons is less work, more expensive and you are generally limited to white or black text. You can do colors but you are then into more money and issues in trying to get the exact color match. Other problem with dry rub ins is that they are thick. Forcing quite a few coats of clear to flatten everything out in the end.

Still not sure which method I like best.

Keylining:
Key lines around inserts are dealt he with just like text. Stencils or dry rub ons. Since circles are a little harder to cut, I will be less careful when masking the color around the insert and cut it roughly thus letting the new color cover the insert's old keyline as sethbenjamin suggested. The new keyline will trap the color when you apply it.

For straight keylines, I do them by hand using Molotow's One4all acrylic paint marker #127HS (google it). Its a 1mm nib. I buy a few spare nibs as they work better when new. These pens work great. I use a staight edge as a guide.
On my last repaint, I added straight 1/32" wide lines to my dryrubon transfer order sheet. Didn't cost anything more and used them to do most straight keylines. Had a few curved lines added in there.
It generally worked, but the jury is still out as if I really found that better than the paint pen.
For random curved keylines, unless it's just a small touch up on part of a line, I will mask it with frisket and spray paint. A bit labor intensive, but I haven't found any miracle way of doing otherwise.

That's it.
Enjoy your restoration.

Paints:
I use Createx's Airbrush line of paint and try to stick to Opaque colors only. I would use transparent or semi transparent but just when mixed in with an opaque color. And keep it to a minimum. Sadly Createx's Autoair line of colors are all transparent or semi transparent. That's too bad cuz they have a more colors. Autoair can be mixed with Airbrush so can use them with an opaque Airbrush color when mixing.

Airbrush:
I have a few air brushes to spray my colors. I will use a simple Badger 200 the most. But thats just me being a little snobbish cuz I also have a $10 one from Princess Auto and it works fine and is a lot quicker to clean up than the Badger. In fact, the Princess auto one works a lot better when spraying white which is just a major PITA to spray. The titanium oxide pigments used to make white are really coarse compared to other pigments and that results in clogged nozzles all the time. It's so bad (in my experience anyway) that I tend to tell newcomers to airbrushing with Createx Airbrush colors to not try their hand with white first. Will just discourage you and want to make you throw your airbrush thru the window. Practice with black first. That one is easy.

I've learned 2 things from my early spraying days when my paint would peel off 50% of the time when pulling frisket:

1) Thin layers only. Very thin. Like, you-can-hardly-see-the-color-on-the-first-layer-when-you-spray-it thin. Don't become impatient and start spraying thick. I can have up to 10 thin coats before I get the correct coverage. Some might say I am overdoing this. Maybe. There might be happy medium with thicker coats. But it doesn't take me that much time to do it that way that I don't feel I want to spend time trying to find that optimum thickness. If I were living off restoring PFs, I probably would analyze that to death. But I'm not. It's just a hobby. So my recipe works. I'm sticking to it.

2) Heat cure between each layers. Nothing crazy. I use a hair dryer on high and blast the paint till its warm to the touch. I paint and blast and paint and blast etc so often that eventually on smaller areas, the wood gets nice and warm and keeps its heat so that heat curing takes less and less time.

Since I've been religiously adhering to the 2 above rules, I can peel frisket without worry and I mask over painted aread without fear of pulling up the paint.

A few other things that also help are: good cleaning with naphta prior to spraying, insuring the clearcoat you a are spraying over has a nice sanded surface (400 or 600 grit I'd say).

I had a similar discussion some time ago.
Have a look at the chain of posts starting with this one:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration/page/130#post-4895614

There is a discussion about white base coats and also a few pics.

I must admit I have never used dilution. Cant remember why. I kinda may recall reading or hearing something about losing adhesion. But you seem to say it will help it. Odd... I'll take it that this is what you have been doing and it works for you. I'll give it a try for sure.

Does that much dilution affect color and opacity of the paint?

Here is my setup.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/vids-guide-to-ultimate-playfield-restoration/page/51#post-2760584

Just right for a PF.
A bit tight for a cabinet but it works.

Well both options are good. But id say the first one is better.
However, I would use that only in extreme cases where the keyline and adjacent colors are completely gone (basically down to the wood, large area) and there is no keline left on either side of the worn area that would allow you to interpolate the missing segment of keyline in between.
In most cases, there is enough keyline left that you can interpolate the missing bit. So what i do in those cases, is that i will butt my two colors right up against both edges of the keyline. With a straingt edge, a french curve or free hand. This may sound like a difficult thing to do but really, with a nice and sharp blade, a steel straight edge and good lighting it isnt difficult at all.
Whats the point some woukd say? Well, It saves me having to redo all those keylines. I just need to do touch up the missing bits after all colors are down. The few full repaints i did qhere in fact not full repaint really because I saved maybe 80% of the keylines!
The pic below shows a full repaint in progress. Only color left to paint is the red and the keylines.
If you look carefully, you will see mising segments of keylines here and there. They will be touched up last using a Molotow 1mm black paint pen.
The keylines around the inserts will be either rub-on decals or painted using stencils cut on a Silhouette cutter. In the latter cases, i definitely run the colors under the keyline. When i cut the frisket around the inserts for the color, i can do a rought cut. That's quicker and fairly easy to get right as the insert keylines are quite thick.

Hope this helps.

IMG_20160709_181405 (resized).jpg

I'd slap some Frisket across the entire playfield to cover the building and I'd cut out the entire section of bricks. All straight lines so would be relatively quick with an xacto and a straight edge. Just a bit of free hand around the top of the windows, shrubs, hat and sword tip.
Then airbrush white.

Then from a properly scalled, scanned and vectorized image of the wall portions, id cut myself a mask to mask out all the grout lines and would spray the purple bricks.
Nothing complicated, just time, patience and ressouces. You need a bit of computer skills for the vectorizing and need access to a scanner and a vinyl cutter.

Some with a different point of view may question why you want to repaint at all.

I scrape the old varnish off. With a scrapper. Its precise enought you dont need masking.
And the scraping leaves a superb patina on the venner.

Then i use amber shellac on the bare wood. Gives it a beautiful golden aged color.

Series of pics below show before and after on two different playfield. One of the playfields (Bally #See Saw) had a pretty ugly arc. Had to work it a bit with the scrapper. Took a few coats of clearing and sanding to make it flat again but worth the extra work.
The second one (Williams #Grand Prix)was better but still had an arc on it.

Here is a link to using a scrapper:

https://www.google.com/search?q=scapping+wood+video&oq=scapping+wood+video&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i10i160.8794j0j7&client=ms-android-google&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#

And here is a link to the shellac:

https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/zinsser/interior-wood-finishes/bulls-eye-shellac?ls=00701&lc=Amber

IMG_20150912_103429 (resized).jpgIMG_20151004_192332 (resized).jpgIMG_20151004_192352 (resized).jpgIMG_20160221_233906~2 (resized).jpgIMG_20180215_212619 (resized).jpgIMG_20180215_221629 (resized).jpgIMG_20180513_220141 (resized).jpg

How did you go about clearing the repair? Did you mask just the area you has scraped off and drop clear or did you sand the clear around and drop (or spray?!?) on the scrapped insert plus overlap on the existing sanded clear?

And after that, guess you had to sand down flat and repolish?