Has anyone tried this HVLP system?
http://m.harborfreight.com/high-volume-low-pressure-spray-gun-kit-44677.html
I already have two small compressors and really don't want to get a third, larger one just for spaying clear.

Okay - I have read through this thread at least a couple times but still find myself wanting advice on which direction to take with a Comet project I just embarked on. The playfield is worn in areas where it was not protected by mylar. The mylar is lifting around the inserts and also at an edge above a sling as well as a lot around one pop bumper. The whole thing is also crazed - little zig zag cracks in the clear that I fear go all the way through the paint.

I am proficient at touch-up work and have successfully spayed a prior project with automotive clearcoat.

Clearly the mylar lifting around the pop needs to come all the way off.

My main questions concern the rest of the mylar as I understand that system 9 can be prone to paint loss upon removal, and then the crazing. I keep asking myself WWVD? (What would Vid do?) Of course, the opinions of others are appreciated and welcome as always.

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Thank you, Vid!

I have removed mylar via freezing it with an upside down can of air. Is the heat method better in some way?

Thank you, sir!

I just verified this myself. That tiny gap is enough to throw the focus off. I then proceeded to ruin the scanner by attempting to mod it to lie flat on the glass. The good part about engaging in such folly is that it makes the current high price of the hp scanners much easier to swallow.

It works fine. I have a similar unit to shoot clear with because I didn't have any other use for a large compressor and didn't want to dedicate that much for space in my small work area for a compressor. Mine didn't come from hf though. Can't remember where I got it.

Hey Vid - what the heck do you think happened here? My white fields look totally wrinkled. This is createx opaque white under 2pac. What should I do to fix it? Sand flat and try again? Was the white too thick or did the surface not have enough tooth for it to bond properly? I am flummoxed and want to avoid repeating my mistake.

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Or could it be that I got too heavy too fast with the clear? The mist coat looked so rough that I kept spraying until it smoothed out for fear that I would end up with a sixty grit sandpaper texture to the clear.

It happened everywhere where there was fresh, unsealed white paint. Very small repairs in black and purple were not affected. I had sanded the entire playfield with 600 grit prior to painting. I heat set all of the paint with a hairdryer on high 20 minutes after application and applied the clear two days later. According to my infrared temp gun, my hairdryer method gets the paint to about 115-120F. I hold that temperature for about a minute in each area.

Here are more examples:

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Kinda sorta in little chunks. Interestingly, just realized that the THICK red (way thicker than the white) in the shooter lane was not affected.

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I was beginning to think the same thing myself. No problems until I got this 16oz bottle of white from Amazon. I am suspicious that it might be a fake or something along the lines of what you suggested.

Good question. Looking back through my orders, one of my createx orders was fulfilled by amazon (a starter set of opaque). The others were fulfilled by Hyatt's All Things Creative.

I am ordering my createx paint from dickblick.com from now on as they have decent prices and are listed on the createx site as a distributer. I have always gotten genuine top notch stuff from blick in the past for other art supplies.

I am thinking that I will brush out a sample of all of my current stock of createx onto a sealed wood panel, heat cure it and hit it with some clear to see what happens color by color. The white is definitely going in to the trash. Now that I am suspicious, I cannot use my current stock without worry but do not want to toss so much paint out.

Evercoat 2740 with 2844 medium activator. Initially I thought my application of the clear was to blame (my technique is certainly in need of improvement) or perhaps the clear itself (maybe too hot as you suggested) but the fact that the red, purples and blacks were not affected makes me suspect something is amiss with the particular jar of white I used.

Besides practice, is there a way to guage when enough clear has gone on for a lock coat? It seems like laying down too little increases orange peel but spraying more can rather quickly become too much.

Red is a primary color. Adding white will only shift it towards pink. Adding yellow will only sift it towards orange, etc. There are a number of natural and man-made red pigments. The createx opaque palette is fairly limited and has only one red. If I were you I would get some of the 5408 florescent red and see if you can get the red you need with it alone or by mixing it with the opaque red. If you still can't mix it you might need to branch out into the numerous transparent reds in the line.

Was there any acrylic lacquer used in between coats? Acrylic lacquer can adversely affect white in exactly this way (only some brands - createx being one of them) as well as any mixes tinted with white.

Dollars to donuts that's your issue. You'll probably need to sand down the wrinkled white, seal it with 2pac, repaint the white and clear again.

Good move. Actually I should have said to sand down anything that had previously reacted - likely everything that had any white mixed into it.

Do you need to thin that paint to airbrush it? If so, what do you use and in what proportion?

THIS! I can speak from experience they it is a PITA to accurately reduce the size of an insert. I did it once and although I succeeded, will never do it again - especially now that Vid has pointed out the obvious better route. I wrapped a wood block with sandpaper and clamped it to the work bench. I then sanded the insert by rotating it against the block, doing my best to apply consistent pressure and stopping every 360 degrees. Never again!

Yup. Works fine.

Don't bother with the Sharpie. It will eventually fade/discolor horribly whether it reacts with the clear or not. They use a fugitive colorant. At best it will end up a puky brownish color down the road. Stick with products that use actual lightfast pigments.

Hey Vid - I understand doing the shooter lane sanding and magic eraser work (which is essentially a form of sanding) prior to shooting a lockdown coat but I don't get the keyline prior to lockdown part. It would be risky to use vinyl stencils on a playfield that has not been locked down and freehand keylines are never going to be as good as stencils. Could you explain your thinking on this? I don't understand.

Is there an online source for lacquer for folks like myself who live in laquer free parts of the world?

Why not find an inexpensive project machine (or two) to cut your teeth on and then tackle this one? Having now done two restorations I can attest that you will make MANY mistakes. Starting off by using Varathane would mistake number one in a series of unfortunate events. If you don't want to obtain a different machine to practice on at least paint yourself some scrap plywood and learn how to shoot 2pac on it so you can at least start off on the right foot. Don't try to modify the steps in this guide while attempting to restore something that you care about. You will be happier and have better results practicing on other stuff before messing with a keeper.

I feel like the "opaque" createx paints are just somewhat more opaque than colors that they do not label as such. All of their yellows are transparent whether or not they label them as opaque. Always lay down a bit of white under yellow. Tinting (adding white to) any color will increase its opacity. Fortunately, lots of playfield colors are mixed tints.

After a playfield swap and two restorations (with two more waiting to be done) I have redirected to build a black pipe rotisserie. Do you spray clear with a playfield on the rotisserie? If so, what about the areas covered by the clamps at the top and bottom edges?

Oh duh - gravity. It really does work well on most things (except Sir Issac's hair)!

Wow - that's a long time! Body shops have usually told me to wait 30 days for wax on auto body repairs. Is what we are doing here different or are you must being abundantly cautious?

No wax - interesting. Fresh wax does play weird sometimes. It's also true that it takes care to avoid gunking up the star posts (and no matter how careful I am it seems like wax eventually winds up on a post or two). I've heard rumors that some people don't wax but I kinda thought they were mythical creatures. I think I would always have a paranoid voice in the back of my mind mumbling playfield doomsday type stuff if I didn't wax.

So how long do you wait to repopulate and play? I've been waiting 30 days.

Another game changer for me! Thanks. (Yes, I am using professional automotive 2pac that says it is ready for buffing within hours of application.)

If anyone is curious to follow along and see how all this information translates into practice in the mind and hands of a newbie playfield restoration practitioner, I have started a thread documenting my Comet project. https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/comet-restoration-project

I have two previous projects under my belt. Both of them turned out well, but not without LOTS of mistakes along the way. This time I decided to "do it in public" with a restoration thread. I hope folks will chime in with tips, suggestions, warnings and alternate approaches.

I would like to offer up a BIG thank you to Vid once again for his generosity in sharing his knowledge with everyone here.

If the bottle in the picture is your starting point you'll never get there. The bottle of green in your picture is clearly a tint (contains white). The green on the playfield is a dark green on the bluish end of the spectrum. Try starting from scratch with primary colors using a warm yellow and a deep blue. The tinyest bit of a deep red on the blue side of the spectrum might be useful to push the color towards gray if need be.

I bought a used laptop running Windows 7 on EBay for $40. I use it as a dedicated scanner machine.

How do you degloss the low areas of the textured paper between coats of clear?

I would think that would be fine for airbrushing but not for 2pac. HVLP guns really are that - high volume. I use a 22 gallon compressor (approximately 83 liters) for clearcoat. I always make sure the tank is on a fresh charge when I shoot clear. I always make it through a full coat without the motor kicking on, but without much air to spare. The compressor usually kicks on a quarter of the way through cleaning the gun.

This one:

https://m.harborfreight.com/21-gal-25-hp-125-psi-cast-iron-vertical-air-compressor-61454.html

Cheapo HF. I may regret it on the durability front someday but if you wait until it's on sale and use a 20% off coupon the price is hard to beat. I think I paid around $130 out the door. So far so good for me 2 years in. I hunted Craigslist for a better build for awhile but gave up as nothing good ever came up.

If you were painting something big it probably wouldn't keep up but for airbrushing it's more than fine. For clear, you just need the tank full and pressurized. The motor won't even kick on while you are spraying clear on something as small as a playfield. For larger projects or running pneumatic tools bigger would be better.

If that's a nail holding it on, I would carefully wedge a three inch steel putty knife between the metal and wood under the long edge of the piece and lift/pry ever so slightly being careful to neither bend the metal piece nor gouge or dent the wood. You only need that nail head to lift a tiny bit in order to slip the notched end of a mini flat bar under it to finish the job.

TEKTON 3305 7-1/2-Inch Utility Pry Bar https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NPT67A/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_HybKAbJSJP1Z7

Sometimes it seems like you've written a guide for pretty much everything. I won't be surprised if someday I stumble across "Taking a Leak - Vid's Guide".

Seems to me like pinstripe tape would create a raised line that would affect the direction of a slow moving ball, or am I mistaken? I have been masking keylines and airbrushing them.

It depends on the brand and your ink. I use Lazertran inkjet paper with an epson r3000 shooting k3 ink. That's high end ink with a 100+ year archival stability. Your millage may vary with lower end ink/equipment.

Hey Vid - how long do you let your final coat of 2pac cure before repopulating? I seem to remember reading or hearing somewhere that repopulating too soon can allow the star posts and such to form depressions in the fresh clear. What's your experience/opinion?

Short answer: naptha.
Long (but much better answer): https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cleaning-and-waxing-pinball-machines-vids-guide

Though not a big deal, if you fill them it turns out nicer and you won't have to scuff inside all those divits for each successive coat of clear.

Vid is kinda like Banksy that way.

When I started my Comet restoration thread, I was kind of nervous about the rather massive potential to screw up in public but vowed to do it anyway. (No making a mistake, fixing it behind the scenes and then moving on without including it in the documentation thread.) I figured this was the best approach to both receive helpful feedback and to act as a cautionary tale for other newbies to avoid similar pitfalls. Well folks, I officially have a major screw-up to report. Check this out:

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That's a dome in the clear that formed around a post 24-48 hours after installing it. There are also some lesser points of failure where the clear formed a halo or partial halo around posts.

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One of the interesting/horrifying things was that in some places where there are multiple posts that get rubbered as a group, the clear was slightly buckling but only on the sides of the posts that were facing each other as though the force of the rubber pulling on the posts which were snug on the playfield had actually pulled the clear in that direction.

When I discovered all this I immediately removed all of the rubber and loosened all of the posts to remove any tension. Then I said, "##!!@%**!!" and walked away to consider my folly.

I am thinking that the clear was not cured fully enough to handle pressure and tension being applied to it in such a focused way, but I'm not sure. I'm new to this.

My current thought/plan is to depopulate the topside again, mix a tiny batch of clear and inject it with an insulin needle into the areas that failed but maybe there's some other glue or technique that would be better than an injection of clear? After whatever the fix is, I plan on walking away for as long as necessary for the clear to be hard as a freaking rock before repopulating again.

Vid - what would you do?

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 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.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of three weeks.

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.

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.

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

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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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.

Molotow makes a pen you can load with your own paint?

This is realistically as close of a matching guide as one can reasonably expect. Note though that even this is really just matching a less ambered/faded version of a color. The old clear coats turn somewhat amber and therefore shift the underlying color even under posts where the paint has rarely seen the light of day. Short of having a time machine to go back and see what the colors looked like on day one, we are all just doing our best to restore to a convincing approximation the original spirit of the design.

Well now, that would be mighty handy to have access to.

Zooming in on your picture I suspect you'll never match that grey because it has actually worn though or nearly through creating a random multi-colored tone that the eye optically reads as grey but is actually grey specks interspersed with various wood tones. I would mask off anything complicated (cars, etc) if still good and totally repaint the grey with as close a match as you can make. Then replace any details you covered up with paint (using vinyl masks cut from scans) and/or waterslide decals.

Question for Vid: what is the haze described here? Some dirty, dissolved clear that was left behind during cleaning/removal? Alcohol + M.E. = no more original clearcoat (except what does not fully wipe up in the first passes), right?

Sniff it when it's warm. I got duped by a cold playfield that didn't stink and had to perform a major salvage operation when my star posts under rubber tension wrinkled the clear.

I picked up a dirt cheap laptop running XP. It drives the old hp scanners just fine all by itself with the native scanning interface. Look on Ebay or in thrift stores. Pretty much nobody wants a computer that old, so they go cheap.

Yellow and reds are primary colors (along with blue). You cannot "make" them from other colors, you can only shift them lighter, darker or towards their secondary colors. Get yourself a variety of reds, blues and yellows. The six color starter set is not enough. Branch out into the wicked line or other brands if need be. You'll find that there is a wide world of reds, yellows and blues out there.

In the world of airbrush paints that's mostly true, though in high grade art paints the are definitely pure reds ranging from light to dark based on mineral grading and chemical processing. Cadmium red light, medium and dark, for example, are pure pigments (with processing differences) with decidedly different hues and tonal values. Then there are synthetic red pigments such as alizeran (very dark and transparent), thalo reds, synthetic red oxides (and the natural red earth oxides), all of which come in a wide variety of hues and values.

It might get out the swirls. It won't if they are in the paint itself. Depends on how much of the original clear was left when they occurred. Either way, my understanding (please correct me If I'm wrong) is that ME+alcohol = you need to clearcoat the playfield or at least install full mylar after a thorough waxing to ensure that the mylar is removable since whatever clear is left will likely be gone when you are finished with the ME.

For what it's worth, my Comet had full mylar in the lower half of the playfield. Upon removal of the mylar, the grey on the lower half was a bit lighter than the top half but not nearly as light as your Cyclone. Mostly the difference between my mylar protected grey and the exposed grey was due to greater yellowing of the factory clear in the upper half. Once cleaned thoroughly with ME and alcohol they were about the same.

What brand are you using? I tried some "original frisket" awhile ago because my usual brand (grafix) was out of stock. The "original" left adhesive residue behind. I returned it for a refund.

I ALWAYS wear a properly rated minimum half face dual cartridge respirator when sanding anything. Why not?? It takes ten seconds to put it on. Even for bare wood...because there's no good reason not to. I also take care to contain all sanding residue as completely as I can to avoid contamination of myself and the workspace. For me, for clear, that means wet sanding with a half face respirator, disposable gloves and immediate wipe up/disposal of the slurry multiple times throughout the process followed by a thorough cleaning of the work area. I also immediately shower and wash any clothes I was wearing if I don't wear disposable tyvek coveralls.

I suspect this is why some guys shoot a layer of adhesion promoter before the first coat of clear.

A white base is helpful. It doesn't have to be bright, stark white. A light mist will do. Keep your paint layers THIN. Thinner paint layers are less prone to lifting and do not express their edge as much when cleared.

I stopped applying heat as well. Learning to airbrush better and apply the paint super thin is the key to success. Applying heat while your vinyl mask is in place also increases the risk of increasing the bond between playfield and mask, thereby increasing the risk of pulling up precious layers of paint or clear.

Paint thin to win!

Definitely get it flat for your work. Do it in a way such that it doesn't flex again during or after your work. Too much flex during or after your painting can cause ghosting of the clear. I think I remember Vid suggesting screwing the rails to the underside of the playfield to give it support. I suggest when you are done, replace them up top one at a time so that the playfield is still supported on at least three sides during the process. Paint restoration takes so much time that I've decided that you can't be too careful. These simple precautions are a drop in the bucket timewise.

Lonzo's idea is best. With his suggestion, the playfield is totally supported at all times.

Nice custom repaint - clean and one of a kind.

Totally personal choice. For a game that I plan to keep for myself I ask, "Will it bug me later?" For a game I plan to sell I ask myself, "Is the buyer going to care about this / is it worth the effort?"

Or clamp it to your rotisserie, turn it upside down and paint/seal the bottom (which is now facing the floor) with a foam brush. Any drops will naturally fall away from the playfield. You can do the areas covered by the clamps after you flip the rotisserie back right side up and remove the clamps.

If you have access to a scanner and a vinyl cutter, making stencils for this kind of thing is fairly simple.

I usually repaint the entire word with its center (body) color about halfway into the keyline area to allow for a little wiggle room when I come back and paint the black keyline. This, of course, means two separate stencils. You can adjust the overall area of each in photoshop or other graphics program of your choice.

Sounds like your print interface is changing the scale of your scan.

Don't try to clearcoat a sticker prior to application. I wouldn't mylar playfield stickers either. You're already adding a raised edge by going with stickers. Mylar would extend the life of the sticker but also increase the thickness. I would scan the sticker set prior to application so that you can easily make yourself waterslide decals in the future. Playfield stickers should hold up a good while if they are decent quality and you keep the playfield waxed and your balls fresh. When the stickers wear out, apply new ones or do a playfield restoration with paint, waterslide decals and clearcoat.

I always cover new target stickers with mylar to extend their life since thickness isn't an adverse issue on targets.

Haven't done it personally since I always clearcoat my work, but I know that this is perfectly doable. Be sure to wax well before applying so you can more easily remove the mylar down the road. I would think though that if the playfield is old and kinda flakey that even with wax you risk potentially significant paint loss if/when you remove the mylar in the future. Note also that if you have done touch up work mylar will protect it but won't give the color saturation pop that clearcoat does.

If you're overwhelmed with projects and don't want to spend the extra money right now I'd leave the playfield alone for the moment. Swap the playfield with a new one later. I too think you're already deep enough into this that it doesn't make sense to cut a corner on the most important part.

Fade factor would depend in large part on the print type. I can't speak to the long term performance of black laser toner but I would not trust color laser toner to last since we are talking about synthetics that are not manufactured for archival stability. All inkjet prints will fade unless you are using a special art printer shooting archival pigment inks (what I use because I happen to have one on hand for other purposes).

The other factor is the waterslide material itself. Will it turn amber in 20-30 years? Maybe, maybe not. UV light exposure levels will be a variable and a potential factor. The fact that the material is sandwiched between two layers of automotive clearcoat would seem to virtually eliminate oxygen and ozone as factors.

All of that said, I use waterslides. There's no other practical way to restore some super fine details. I get incredible, vibrant results in both black and color with Epson K3 inks. I predict there will be no deterioration of them in my lifetime.

Blobs and drips sounds like either your pressure is too low, a clog in your brush or paint which is not intended for airbrush work. It does take practice. A good airbrush, clean airbrush paint (I filter mine through a tiny doubled up scrap of cheesecloth when filling the brush cup), proper pressure (I find around 25psi with my dual action iwata and createx paint is a good setting) and a light touch on the trigger are key.