Here ya go. Just another $90 tool to add to your cart! Probably WAY better than trying to use plastic, though.

http://www.sterlingtoolworks.com/store/#!/Sterling-Roubo-Curves/p/52063286/category=12516967

This is a reply to a post way back on page 39; has anybody on here used rubber washers underneath their posts? I don't know if they'd just smush too much to be effective, but the idea of a rubber pad between the post and the pf surface is appealing.

http://www.treasurecovepinball.com/shooter-lane-repair.htm

Dear GOD.
Personally, I can live with a bit of discoloration in the shooter lane - certainly preferable to distorting it irreparably!
Curious to know if anyone has used Cliffy's shooter lane protectors. Every game gets worn in that same spot, seems like sort of a no-brainer, assuming they fit properly. I've had good experiences with all the Cliffys I've used so far.

I fixed up a badly neglected Sorcerer for a friend of mine, and added about a dozen t-nuts to the playfield - surprising, some of the places where threaded screws were used, but I suppose they were only planning on a 2 year life span for these games...

I wouldn't mess around with trying to use wood screw posts where someone has tried an epoxy repair which has already failed once if there's space for t-nuts. However, you should be sure to A) use a good, sharp bit, ideally a brad point, and B) If you have a drill press, drill a hole through a plywood block which you can then use to maintain a perpendicular hole through the playfield. Back up the cut with a scrap of wood so that the "exit wound" is clean.

Big "oops" on my part...I was given a Rollergames project pin (woo hoo!), and know a local finisher who had an opening in his schedule and was able to paint my repro cabinet as well as hit the playfield with a preliminary coat of clear. Great! In my haste to get it to him, though, looks like I missed a couple of slightly raised inserts. The rest of them are great, but these 2 are just up a bit. But...now they're cleared over. If I heat them up and clamp them back flush, obviously it will crack the clear around the inserts. I could leave it alone if it was going to be too problematic and chalk it up to the price of education, but would definitely want to fix it if it isn't too late. Advice?

Would you recommend scoring around the insert perimeters first? I can't believe I missed those.

New question: flourescent Createx paints. I've got a few spots to do on Rollergames (lots of flourescent green), so I bought a 6 pack of flourescent colors as well as of the basic colors Vid recommends. I tried spraying a pop bumper ring, but the coverage seems much thinner than the opaque white. (I then proceeded to kind of make a mess of things but peeled the paint away so I can start over once I cut a new frisket template...)

Now, it is true that I had just finished up with my white painting and washed the airbrush out, so it is possible that there was enough moisture in the brush that it thinned the paint, but the consistency of the paint also seems noticeably thinner out of the bottle. Best advice for good coverage? Also, the green out of the bottle dries darker than what's on the playfield (I knew it wouldn't be a perfect match, just thought I'd shoot some and see how it looked); would adding a small amount of opaque white help accomplish both ends in one move?

I knew it be smarter if I just asked you before sinking any additional time into more paint and frisket...
Frisket mask/spraying base white over yellowed areas went beautifully, I'm happy to report.

See if there are foam pads behind those spot targets. They're often missing or worn out and lead to cracked plastic like you have on the orange one; you may be able to keep the others from breaking.

One avenue people might want to consider for "subbing out" your clear coating - I do work for a large cabinet shop that has an in-house finisher. I showed up with my cans of 2PAC and the guy knew just what to do, no questions asked, he did the preliminary clear on my playfield as well as priming and painting a reproduction pinball cabinet and backbox for $50, and told me to bring the pf back when I was ready and he would do the final clear coating (and level sanding) for no additional charge.

So, find out if there is a cabinet shop or furniture refinisher in your town. Those guys work with volatile finishes every day and are set up to work with them safely. Plus they know how these products behave and will probably need little to no explanation of what you're looking for. If your local professional is a nice person, they'll probably think it's kinda cool and want to help you out.

So I have a couple of tricky waterslide repair spots to take on. Happily for me, they're not super-visible so if I don't nail it, it won't jump out. (The most major wear spots are in the areas where you can't get in easily to wax? You don't say!) But I'd like to try my best to get it right.

I could use some coaching on the sequence of this. I have scans of another playfield, so i can generate waterslides from those. First, the wear by the J in the J-E-T rollovers. The halftone dots there are orange (it doesn't read that way in the photo, but they are), so a waterslide doesn't work in this application. I'm assuming Ill just airbrush a yellow fade for that part. The blue-on-blue line art, however, is a different challenge. Should I use a waterslide to re-establish where the art goes, then put down frisket and slice through the decal? Will frisket just lift the decal off when I pull the frisket to put down a second piece of film for the second color?

I suppose I have the exact same questions about fixing up the back of the "#5" skater.

IMG_6938 2 (resized).JPG

IMG_6912 (resized).JPG

For the skater, waterslide decal to re-establish the lines and the number 5, then spot clear, then back to frisket and airbrush?

Thanks Vid! All in all, so far at least, this process is a lot less work that it sounds like in your description. No doubt I'm not working at the level that you would be, but your instructions have made it really easy to work along and get good results. If I can make it though the waterslide process, this project will be ready to clear.

The CPR website recommends allowing 6 weeks before repopulating a playfield, which seems excessive to me. If we're all using some variation on the 2PAC that you have recommended (I got mine at the local NAPA; it isn't the specific variety you mentioned but essentially the same stuff), is that really necessary? Not that there's any real rush, I'd just like to hear what you typically recommend.

Thought I'd share my progress with you all.

The nastiest repair job on this Rollergames was the down-to-bare-wood ball wear to the left of the J-E-T lanes. I used a combination of VID's methods plus a little bit of ever-so-steady detail brush painting to perform the repair. First, I used frisket to mask off all but the specifically damaged area. I airbrushed a fresh layer of base yellow. Then, I used a very fine detail brush to re-establish the blue-on-blue stripes. At that point (and after a couple of other spots were prepped, which I'll describe next), the playfield got another sealer coat of clear. Once I scuff sanded the area with 1500 grit, I was ready to apply a waterslide decal which was prepped in Photoshop Elements. I had to take it to the copy center as I only have a b&w laser printer; I had them print it a bunch of times as I haven't done waterslides in years and figured I might want to have more than one shot at it.

It worked pretty nicely! If I was to do it over again, I would have painted a larger area with the base yellow and covered a larger area of the halftone dots with the waterslide decal. However, if you go on IPDB, you can see that this area of the playfield is almost completely concealed once the game is reassembled, so the extra effort involved isn't strictly necessary. (File under: "amateurs ruining playfields", LOL)

Anyhow, have a look. Pretty satisfactory result, I think. Interestingly, playfield scans I was sent by a fellow Pinsider show the same ball wear, but not to the point of paint loss. So the repair shows that mild discoloration, but I can totally live with it.

IMG_6938 (resized).jpg
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IMG_7019 (resized).jpg

A little less tricky, but still varsity-level to the first timer restorer, was this worn-to-bare-wood spot. I decided to repaint both the white and the florescent pink using the frisket and airbrush method. Frisket really is very good stuff; I was able to preserve much of the black line detailing with careful xacto knife work.

After the paint repairs were made and the area got a sealer clear coat, I then printed a waterslide decal of the black line details that I lost in the paint repair. The #5 on the skater's back I painted in by hand (a white Molotow paint pen would have been easier, if I had one), and a few black line spots I drew back in with a black Molotow paint pen.

(A word about Molotow pens: they're great. I saved hours of work on inserts using one. I shone a halogen work light up through the playfield - a little glarey, but shows all the light leaks - and simply drew in the areas that needed touching up. The seams between the inserts and the playfield surface were very easy to touch up, and I even was able to fill in worn spots on the lettering this way. Once cleared, you really REALLY can't see where the paint pen was used.)

See photos for "Skater #5" repair:

IMG_6984 (resized).JPG
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IMG_7043 (resized).JPG
IMG_7045 (resized).jpg

Vid, you probably mention this somewhere in your guide by I can't seem to find it - how many finish coats of clear do you typically recommend? I'm going to ask my finish guy to knock down sand between the first and second coats, then use his discretion if he thinks it needs more between second and third coat. Should I ask for more beyond a third?

^^ He can call me that because he is, in fact, my brother.

Thanks! Just dropped off the playfield to the finisher, should be all set tomorrow sometime! Then...I get to try to put all this stuff back together...

The last thing that I needed to address on this restoration was another halftone repair and replacing some worn/missing insert lettering.

The "Atomic Whip" kickback lettering was worn through, as was the art above it and the "special" insert lettering. I had repaired the red scaffold image to restore the worn paint back when I was doing my other paint repairs; after airbrushing, I went in with detail brush and Molotow paint pen to touch up the missing black outline on that art.

Next step was to frisket mask and lay down some grey in the area to be halftoned using decals.

I had too-hastily had this playfield seal coated with clear, and so had to cut through the clear to scrape off the lettering. That was accomplished quite quickly, though, with a chisel used as a scraper. But it meant I now had to have my finish guy shoot the playfield again with a thin coat, to cover the inserts and to seal down the paint work on the repairs I posted about above. (At least the white areas were now sealed over and protected.)

I now had to apply waterslides of the half tone dots. The nice thing about this particular repair was that the spots that needed repair are bordered, so I didn't have to worry about covering a large area. The less nice thing was that these stickers were so tiny that they were pretty hard to handle and position. To make matters worse, the scans I took them from didn't overlap , so I had to actually put two partial stickers together on the upper triangle. Amazingly, I was able to get it seamlessly aligned.

I had hoped to finish up these repairs yesterday, while I was doing the other waterslide work, but when I applied the insert decals and turned on my lamp behind the playfield, I realized that my printer simply wasn't laying down enough black to make the stickers truly opaque. It really looked bad, so, lesson learned: take your decal paper to the copy shop and use their much-nicer-printer-than-yours to do this part. I had the "economy" modes turned off but it still wasn't good enough. So this morning I went up the street and paid a guy $1 to reprint my insert decals. Came back home, and in 10 minutes had finished up with the decal work. A onceover with my trusty Molotow pen, some last-minute scuff sanding on any spots that looked too shiny, and the promise to myself that this was a perfectly reasonable place to "call it" (perfectionists be damned, this thing's gonna look and play great once I'm done with it), and it was back over to the finisher. With any luck, it will be all set and ready to start re-populating after tomorrow.

IMG_6915 (resized).JPG

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Somebody is gonna get on me about the fact that I didn't go as far as I could have on these halftones. And they're right, I didn't. Had I realized how easy it was going to be and how successful I would be with these repairs, I absolutely would have done the whole thing over. But, it's my first time trying this, and now I know for next time. Already scheming on my F-14 Tomcat restoration; mine is in decent shape but should have the peeling mylar removed. Now that the inserts are available from PPS it's kind of calling out to be done. Now that I see that I can do this work successfully, it makes all the sense in the world to go ahead and do a restoration rather than shell out for a whole new playfield, as nice as I'm sure those are.

Regarding mylar: I can definitely see the wisdom of adding some mylar to known wear areas and have no problem with adding some here and there (particularly in the spots that you aren't going to get to to clean and wax as often - like the JET and skater spots on this game). Pinball Life sells pop rings and a couple other high-dollar, purpose specific pieces, but I'd like to get some adhesive mylar sheeting that I can cut to the specific purpose I need. Is there any reason not to use this:

https://www.amazon.com/mil-Blank-Adehsive-Backed-Mylar-Cutters/dp/B017S0HFCU/ref=sr_1_2

Yeah, I wondered about that. There is also this stuff:

http://www.staples.com/Avery-Letter-Size-Self-Adhesive-Laminating-Sheets-3-mil-50-pack/product_262691

I didn't see sheet mylar on Marco, just the playfield cutouts. Seems to me there must be a totally usable product without it having to have the "pinball seal of approval". On the other hand, 50 sheets is a LOT of mylar...

Ah - found it:

http://www.marcospecialties.com/control/keywordsearch?SEARCH_STRING=mylar+sheet

I'd still be interested to find the same mat'l in a roll, but for a single project, this is probably the way to go.

OK, the Rollergames playfield is on the curing rack at the finisher's.
The first topcoat since applying the waterslide decals went on yesterday. I stopped by to have a look, and noticed a very mild "puckering" or crinkling around the edges of the inserts. It wasn't terrible, but you could see that it wasn't perfectly smooth around the perimeter of the decals (sorry, I should have taken a photograph). However, I knew I wanted my finisher to give it a level sanding anyway, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
Today I went in to have a look, and the crinkling was almost 100% gone in every spot. The only place I could still see it a little bit was on the pink "skater #5" repair spot. And even there I had to look for it. I'm going to put some mylar over that spot in the end as well, so...bullet dodged, I suppose.

He offered to buff out the surface for me as well, which I'm inclined to take him up on.

My two remaining questions at this point:
1) I don't know how long he left between the the thin coat over the decals and when he proceeded to spray the full coat. I'm assuming he perhaps didn't wait long enough as he knew to go light initially. Is there an ideal time window?
2) Is there any reason I should *not* have the playfield buffed at this point? How long should it cure?

Thanks - I'll post pics of the finished playfield when I get it back!

I did everything according to Vid's recommendations. Next time around I'll remind the finisher to go lighter on the initial coating.

Vid, should the first "dusting" coat be allowed to cure to X amount of hours before going for a full coat? Just want to be able to give him specific feedback for next time.

OK, so my finisher was weirdly reluctant to buff out the finish for me. He might have done it if I'd pressed him to do it, but I didn't want to push. It looks very nice, but I'm assuming once buffed it will lose the "waviness" in the reflectivity and become more mirror like. I could just live with it as-is, but once you start rebuilding the game, you'll never get the chance again. So...

I already own a variety of random orbit sanders, including two Festool rotex sanders which feature a rotary mode as well as random orbit mode. They make buffing pads for these sanders; what do I need to know about how to proceed? (Apologies if this is covered elsewhere on the thread, I haven't found the info if it is.)

Interesting. The clear I purchased at NAPA cured very quickly (within 24 hours). I remember Vid mentioning something about Canadian products possibly being different (stricter regulations about VOCs, maybe?), as CPR always recommends a 6 week waiting period before repopulating one of their playfields.
May warrant further consideration, as people in different countries may be using products that require varying degrees of cure time.

On my restoration, I used both depending on the application. Early in this thread somebody did a series of tests for opacity using a number of different paint pens. Molotow was the clear winner; I got the smallest one I could (1mm tip, if I remember correctly) and used it to very efficiently draw back in the key lining around the inserts. I was also able to touch up the printing on the inserts using the pen. Once cleared, it looks absolutely perfect. I found the pens to be a lot easier than a brush, though a detail brush certainly has its place as well. If you have shaky hands, the pen may be the way to go for you.

This drove me crazy as well. In Photoshop Elements, the image doesn't necessarily display at 100%, even though the file size/pixel count is a 1 scan. I worried over this for a long time before figuring it out; when I opened the pshop file in Preview and chose to view the image full size, it was fine, the perfect size.

The other thing to be aware of is, when printing, the settings must be correct. I took my files to Staples for printing and got the decal print all cut out and ready to go before realizing that it was *slightly* smaller than it was supposed to be. Went to the cool local copy shop next time and they got it right away, made sure settings were good, and I was out of there in 5 minutes with all my decals ready to go, printed the correct size. (I printed out a test on regular paper at home and had them print out a test for me to verify that the size was correct; probably an unnecessary precaution at the copy shop but it was cheap insurance against wasting another sheet of waterslide paper)

I was going to just have the copy shop print color decals I needed and do the insert decals myself, but my home laser printer was not nearly opaque enough. It cost like a dollar or two to go to the copy shop and the decals were nice and black.

I suppose if you are really committed to doing things to the nth degree, you could do as Vid suggests and make 3 holes. I suppose it would depend upon the application. I added t-nuts to a number of star posts on a Sorcerer a while back, as the original wood screws weren't holding well anymore. My technique was pretty simple - in order to be sure the hole was perpendicular to the playfield, I used a drill press to cut a guide hole of the same diameter as the diameter of the t-nut post through a thick piece of material (in my case a piece of 1" thick plywood. You could screw together a couple small blocks of 1/2" or 3/4" plywood, or if you had a *flat* piece of solid wood available, that would work also). Now chuck the drill bit into your cordless drill, slide the block over the bit, and line up the bit with the hole left by the wood screw. Slide the block down onto the playfield and hold securely, and slowly drill through the playfield. A brad point bit will cut more cleanly and is probably a good idea if you are cutting through clear coat. It's a good idea to have a block held firmly to the underside of the playfield so that the bit keeps cutting when it comes through the back of the playfield - this will give you a very clean exit hole.
Ideally, you will clamp down the guide and backer block, or have a second pair of hands available to help you. It really isn't as hard as all that sounds.

If you're adding a t-nut to a high-tension or high-collision area where the extra wiggle room between the diameter of the tnut post and the thread of the playfield post would concern you, follow the same procedure as above, but use a very small drill bit initially. This will center the hole through the playfield from the existing wood screw hole. If you are going to recess the base of the t-nut, now is the time to do so. Use a (sharp) forstner bit and go slow, it will take only a few rotations. After that, while still on the backside of the pf, use a bit the diameter of the tnut shaft to go halfway through the playfield. Now go to the topside and drill your final hole to just clear the dimension of the playfield post's threads. Personally, I think drilling 2 different diameters in a 1/2" plywood playfield is probably overkill (particularly where there is a star post spreading the load), but I get where Vid is coming from. I would think adding a cut washer (and ideally a lock washer above it) underneath small posts would be standard-issue best practices at this point. That would further minimize deflection, and strengthen my argument that 3 holes is one hole too many.

When inserting the new t-nut, place a wood block against the top side of the pf and use a C-clap or F-clamp to press the teeth of the nut into the plywood underside. The extra deep C-clamp Vid uses for setting inserts may be necessary depending on far from the edge the t-nut is going.

I'm a big fan of adding t-nuts. They're cheap, and if manufacturers had been looking to build games to last for decades they would have used them a lot more than they did. To me it's playfield bulletproofing, much like the bulletproofing we do to keep our boards from failing on us.

Good luck! Once you install your first one it'll go quickly and easily.

Hey all - perhaps a bit off-topic for the thread, but just thought I'd post an update about my work for lo those many months ago; I finally got my Rollergames playfield reassembled. I'm currently about 25 minutes' work away from either A) playing the bejeezus out of the game, finally, or B) discovering that my work has now entered the "figure out what the fuck is wrong with it" stage. In any case, we're looking good:

RollergamesReassembled (resized).png

Last winter I took on my first playfield restoration on a Rollergames pin, and, following Vid's advice to the letter, I was able to get it very nicely restored and playing like new. Now that I've been through the process, naturally I want to restore *all* my pins. My Diner is generally in nice shape, but the thing that is crying out for restoration help is the art around the large playfield inserts, which was wearing badly when I bought the machine. It's a diamond coat playfield, so it's worn decently, but it could definitely use a heavier protective layer. Because the art overlaps the inserts, I'm at a loss as to how best to address the problem. I'd appreciate hearing your ideas:

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Good god, if *you're* saying it's hard to restore...
My first idea was to use shoot clear, waterslide decals to restore the line art, shoot clear over those, then do paint to fill in missing areas. I think I would just accept "close enough" rather than drive myself around the bend with it. Had initially thought of cutting out the art over the inserts altogether, but that seems like an invitation to madness, the more I think on it.

I'm lining up my projects for winter, and am taking a deep breath before attempting to restore my F-14 playfield.

I'm resigned to replacing all the inserts; was there ever a resolution on what plastic primer is easily available? I remember way back in this thread people were having trouble locating it or a suitable alternative to the 3M primer Vid recommends.

Also, PPS has, in addition to a complete set of inserts, also a set of insert decals which are precut peel-and-stick. You can get them non-laminated, which is great. I'm wondering if anyone has used them? Would you recommend them? Presumably they are a bit thicker than paterslide.
I'm fine with printing waterslides, but there is a LOT of careful cutting involved by the time you replace all those arrows. Time savings is worth considering.

So, nobody got back to Pinball-Pat's question about restoring a Pinbot playfield...
My take on how to handle the lower playfield art would be to frisket off the black between the colored "orbit" lines and just paint the little star dots in free hand. You could go crazy and try to make waterslide decals off of scans, but that seems like a disaster waiting to happen. Scans as reference to get the look as close as possible maybe the way to go, though.

My own Pinbot is well-loved, and I've been considering taking on a restoration. The big problem I'm grappling with is, some previous owner applied the big decal to the always-destroyed area in front of the visor. It is peeling up at the corners, and I'd like to try to remove it and repaint (or paint and waterslide for keylining) the area. I hesitate because I have no idea how tenaciously that decal is going to hold; last thing anyone needs is to pull up all the paint or even part of the veneer with it. Too risky?

Agreed. It's incredible to me that manufacturers found it more cost effective to use that ridiculous woodgrain-wrappered laminate stuff instead of solid stock, that material must have been made CHEAP. I regret not having replaced them on my first restoration, but yes, if you have access to a jointer, planer, and bandsaw, it super easy to knock out new rails. So often they are simple black; you could get totally decent results with primer/paint/clear sprayed out of rattle cans.

I would add that if you are using a liquid wax, stop that right now. Liquid waxes gunk up star posts and I know from Vid's thread on the subject that many of them contain silicone, which can contaminate the playfield and create fisheye if you clear it later. Furthermore, liquid wax products simply do not build well; when I was new to the hobby, I used the dreadful Mill Wax, but switched to using carnauba paste wax, and as soon as I did the difference was immediately obvious. The game played faster and more "like new".

I waxed everything on my first restoration project, as Vid recommends. I can tell you, my Rollergames was fantastic for a few weeks, and then the side "magnet freeze" ramp shot started to fail repeatedly. The ball just wouldn't make it around the ramp, period. No amount of tweaking the flipper, etc. made any difference. Finally, I put down some more wax on the main areas of the playfield. Voila! Magnet ramp shot worked perfectly again.

A friend of mine recently opened up a pinball arcade. We got together with a few other friends to talk about starting up a tournament a few weeks ago. I showed up with a container of Blitz 1 Grand wax, and told them to stop playing for a few minutes. I waxes half a dozen games, shot the shit for a bit while we waited for it to haze over, then buffed it out. All of a sudden, the Grand Lizard ramp shots were much more "gettable" and gameplay on everything from his Gottlieb Genie to his AC/DC were playing more fluidly and fast.

Not trying to pick a fight with Neo, but wax is your friend.

Yeah, what would *that* guy know about anything?

2 Questions:

1) Vid, did you use the canned air method or the heat gun method on that F-14 at the beginning of the thread? Prepping to start my F-14 restoration; figuring what worked on yours is likely to work on mine as well. (Happily there aren't a lot of warning signs about the game having been stored in a wet environment.)

2) Any reason not to use this epoxy for installing new inserts?

15128676624431516261959788966024 (resized).jpg

Seems Createx may have changed their formula somewhat from when Vid first wrote about them.
It's OK - I had to figure out on the fly that my grey was gonna dry down a LOT darker than what I mixed it at. Remember, these paints dry FAST when heated, so come up with a mix ratio (and write it down!) which is lighter than you intend to end up with, use a small brush to spread some onto a thin bit of plastic or glass, hit it with a hairdryer and see how close you get. It'll take some trial and error, just like the whole rest of the process, but it can be done. Might be something to mention in Vid's original post?

They're still excellent paints, the ease of mixing colors and the coverage you get shouldn't be undervalued.

If it were mine, I'd plan to strip down the playfield entirely before installing that new upper playfield, get the playfield clearcoated, then do a nice repainting job on the blue areas/re-establish the keylining, etc. If the game has mylar...well, I know you *said* you didn't want to get into a full restoration...

On the other hand if the game is otherwise in very good shape you could mylar over the rough area as a temporary measure (mylar probably not a bad idea even if you clear it), play and enjoy the game knowing you aren't making the worn areas worse, and you always have the option of a restoration down the line sometime.

Professional cabinetmaker speaking: You want a plug cutter. Not a countersink. A countersink is for creating a pre-drill and recess for a screw and screw head. Boring out a broken screw is a completely different operation.
http://www.leevalley.com/us/wood/Page.aspx?p=32320&cat=1,180

You put the cutter into a drill press, carve into a wood block, pop out the plug. The cutter produces a plug which is slightly tapered, so that as you tap it into the hole it seats tightly, creating a decent glue bond. You clean off the extra length with a sharp chisel. I use this method on leaf hinges if one of those tiny screws shears off. It's a pain in the ass (time consuming), but really the only workaround there is.

A word about using those screw extractors: you need to use a wood block as a guide. If you try to just cut into the area around a screw with one of those things chucked into a drill and no way to guide it, it'll get ugly fast! Bore a hole the diameter of the screw extractor into a piece of plywood, which you can clamp in place over the spot you need to bore into. Now you can make a clean, controlled cut - crucial to being able to plug the hole in the next step.

I would add to this, it really is best *not to have to extract a broken screw in the first place*. Always, ALWAYS pre-drill where you are going to drive a screw. If you are driving a screw and it starts to feel like a struggle, STOP. Back out the screw and pre-drill with the next size drill bit. These sorts of wood repairs will work, but it's always preferable not to have to resort to them. Be mindful and take your time. If you don't have the right bit, go to the hardware store and get it. If it's 1 AM and the store is closed, Pinball Karma is telling you to stop for the day.

Yeah, sorry, wasn't intending to shout down your advice.
If you need to install a wood screw and want it to sit flush with or just under the surface, a countersink is the go-to. Like standard drill bits, they vary in size according to screw diameter and head size. I find that the ones you find in hardware stores rarely offer more than the standard #6, #8, and #10 wood screw varieties, with a countersink for the standard deck screw sized head. But for installing new wood rails, a DeWalt #6 such as you can find at Home Depot will probably fit the bill fine.

One day I'll team up with Vid and he can put some all-caps-with-arrows captions on photos of my plug cutting tutorial...

Sand with 120, then 150, then 220. Use a wooden block or one of those black rubber 3M sanding blocks to back up the paper so you sand the surfaces nice and flat without rolling the edges.

Lacquer isn't sold in flakes, that's shellac. Shellac has its place, but don't use it here.

Lacquer dries VERY fast, and it is VERY noxious. If you're going to use lacquer, do it outside on a warm day. Apply it with a sponge brush and chuck the brush when you're done (but don't use the crappy ones they sell at Home Depot. The ones at a proper paint store tend to be denser foam.)

That said, lacquer will give you a very shiny, very visible layer on top of the wood. On an older game, you may want to use something which builds more gradually. Wipe-on polyurethane is nearly impossible to screw up; you apply it with a foam brush or even a rag, and keep building up layers to until you like the look. You don't want to use too little, as it won't seal the wood. But it will give you good protection without looking like there's a plastic barrier between you and the wood.

Take the rail off. It's probably filthy under there.

Does anyone have scans of a PinBot playfield? I'm currently restoring one, and the outlane insert lettering has yellowed, as these were not covered with mylar. Also some worn art will be easier to restore with waterslides off a scan than trying to repaint.

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Hey Vid, quick question which seemed to make sense to post here as it may be helpful in general to clarify: I'm restoring my F-14 playfield, and have all the new inserts installed. It will get its initial clear layer this week, at which point the paint repairs start. My question is, can I save a step by doing the paint apps and the decal work both before the next clear coat, or is it definitely better to lock down the paint repairs in their own "layer" before moving on to decals? Of course I'm fine with doing it in separate stages, just didn't want to be doing that if it wasn't really necessary (seeing as I don't spray clear at home).

All the decals I'm doing are going onto the inserts, not the paint. But, sounds like keeping the steps separate is the safest route, so I will plan to stick to that.

A mistake I will not make again: when installing inserts, the smaller arrows went in with no effort; the first few I did actually ended up with the wide end just a hair below the surface (easily filled with clear). Because of this, I didn't reckon there was any need to clamp those down while curing (unlike the large chevrons, which were a snug fit and needed pressure to go in evenly and stay put). Well, turns out a few of my clear arrows down by the flippers rose just a tad. Not a lot, and generally just on one side, but enough to raise concerns about eventual keyline wear. So, TAKE NOTE: things can move while the epoxy is curing! I wouldn't have thought so, but apparently it can happen. So clamping a block over *all* inserts while curing is a good idea.

I wanted to correct this if at all possible, of course. Using a heat gun, I warmed up the underside of the insert until the insert face felt hot to the touch (corresponds roughly with when the plywood underside starts to look toasty.) Quickly, while the epoxy is still gummed up from the heat, I clamped a small block directly on top of the insert. The epoxy isn't soft enough that you can press the insert down by hand; you have to clamp it down and leave it until things are cool again - the longer the better.

Vid showed us that 12" black C-clamp from Hazard Fraught Tools early in this guide. I went and bought one, and it is a good tool to have for installing the inserts. However, its construction doesn't allow for much pressure. For hard to reach spots, I used this Vise-grip style clamp made by Kreg tools. It applies lots of pressure even at a 12" reach and is saving my biscuits right now.

Of course, I'm just crossing my fingers that the inserts don't rise again once the clear goes on...

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Use a *sharp* chisel, held at 90 degrees to the playfield. Use it as a scraper, pulling the flat backside toward you. Go slow, and use a narrow (1/2") chisel, nothing too wide as you don't want to scrape the paint around the insert. Shoot clear before applying the new decal; you want the decal to be in between 2 layers of clear coat.

I think they've been available for about a year or so (ironically, around the same time those nice reproduction playfields came out...)
You may be a bit less happy once you start down the endless path I'm on!

OK, so...I went on eBay and bought myself one of those nifty HP Scanjet frame scanners - still in the box! Awesome!
Buuuuut.....the software is so old at this point, no Mac can run it. (It's Power PC, and OSX hasn't run that type of software in several generations.)
Would be GREAT if somebody had some sort of plugin/workaround...until I can find a solution, I've got myself a useless piece of landfill fodder. Argh, hate this kind of thing.

Sadly, didn't work.

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Guess what scanner the HP site has no driver software for?

Dang it all.
Just asked a techy friend for advice; he seemed to think just getting a cheap old Windows computer like pinheadpierre suggested is the path of least resistance.

One of these days I'm gonna team up with somebody at a graphic arts shop that has a big-ass scanner and just do a single, full scan of every playfield I work on...

Exactly. Need to buy or borrow a PC just for this purpose. I'm *so* out of love with Apple computers at this point.

The link BorgDog posted is good. Kreg's version has a larger swivel pad, which is nice for covering the back side of larger insert cutouts, but that's easily solved with a block of 3/4" ply underneath as well as above. I can't find a link to the Kreg clamp, possibly they stopped making that model. But the Irwin is otherwise identical and will do the job. Those large arrows take some significant pressure to seat; that HF c-clamp just can't apply the force you need.

Holy crap, do you have a separate thread for this project? My brother will go out of his mind!!

OK, so: I have installed new inserts in my F-14, have had an initial clear layer sprayed down, which was level sanded and then recoated, I have done all my paint apps, had another layer of clear put down, and while the finisher was at it I had him eyedropper in extra clear in the spots around any inserts which were still a touch low.

I just finished level sanding the whole playfield down with 400 grit on a rubber backed drywall sander, got everything to a very nice, even, matte finish, but...the white touch ups I did around the slingshots actually burned through. Pretty sure this is due to the edges of the sanding pad hitting all those holes right around the slings, but it's made me nervous about doing my waterslide decals (the next step before the final clear coat). It seems to me that there should still be plenty of clear on the playfield; burn through was isolated to the slings and everything else looks and feels very smooth. It *seems* to me that it should be safe to proceed, but I'm writing in here to see if I have your permission to go ahead.

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Got my F-14 ready for final clear today.
A word on waterslide decals: I had to make several attempts to get decals that were anywhere near dark enough from my local print shop. Possibly a hoby shop would be better for this, as they might "get" what you're after more immediately.
One way you can go is to have your decals run through the printer *twice* to bump up the opacity, which worksa dn results in a blacker decal, but you can get very minor misalignment on the second printing. As a chronic obsessive, I am of course now wondering if I should have used the double printed sheet I had rather than the single printed one, but screw it, I'm committed now.

Next time I may just have to invest in a better laser printer at home. Sucks to have to run around and waste decal paper trying to get something very specific from a printer that isn't really about this sort of thing. No slam on the people at the shop, it's just an unusual request which falls outside the realm of what they typically do.

Vid has posted tons of good pics of F-14 restoration, but I'm posting these as an illustration of why you don't need to worry too much about what the immediate outline around your inserts looks like. The keylining is fat and will cover the rough edge/paint loss.

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Shooter lane: I wasn't happy with the result of my frisket and airbrushing attempt, so I tried another method. I used a small brush and simply applied a few layers of transparent sand color to the dirty, ridge-y area so common on sys11 games. This softened the ugliest area somewhat and to my eye was way more acceptable than the hard edged line I was getting with my prior attempt. Once the rails and a Cliffy are reinstalled, this will look plenty acceptable to me.

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I haven't done this yet, but one could take any flat bed scanner and remove the lid. I bought one of those old HP jobs on eBay but cannot for the life of me find software to enable me to use it. Others don't seem to have been shut down the way I have been, but FWIW, a newer scanner, even if you have to bust off the lid, might be way easier to deal with at this point.

None of the drivers worked on the old Windows 7 computer my mother in law was throwing out. And there are zero drivers for Mac, of course. Would love to be able to *use* the damn thing, but I sank a couple hours into the project a while back and got frustrated and haven't revisited it...

OK, soo...I'm doing a playfield swap for a friend. He bought this CPR playfield in January, and I have left it wrapped up, safely tucked away until I was ready to work on the game.

Took it out today as I'm getting close to being ready to start the swap, and wanted to pre-wax the PF.
Then I found cracking around 4 or 5 lower playfield inserts.
I'm assuming at this point it would be stupid not to add epoxy behind all the playfield inserts. My friend doesn't tend to be quite as obsessive over details as I am, but in my estimation, the most "correct" thing to do next would be to lightly scuff sand (grit?) and have it re-cleared, as I'm guessing the clear will just crack more once you start actually playing the game.

Thoughts?

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I figured that would likely be your counsel. I was really surprised what a thin clear layer they put on these CPRs, at least this one. (this is my first time working with one up close.) But then I suppose they're only doing one pass as opposed to three for a restoration project...

Oh, for sure, wasn't intending to knock the product at all. Just was hit with the sudden realization that my only context for seeing new playfield finishes is on my own projects, where there's a base layer, paint layer, and decal layer - so there necessarily ends up being a heavier protective finish than if everything is on one level and can be coated in a single pass.

I'd heard about insert issues on early CPR play fields and hadn't thought much of it, but I guess the concerns were for real. Seems inserts are a likely failure point on any game given enough time - from now on, I am going to be adding epoxy behind all inserts of any game I work on. Cheap insurance.

Very cool! What was involved, just removing the plastic housing? Was thinking about doing this on my home scanner, if it was reversible.

I would add to this that you can take a similar approach on many playfield art color repairs. I'm totally comfortable saying that I've never matched a color 100%; for starters, playfield colors change at different rates depending on, for example, whether one portion of the playfield had mylar covering it. You're likely to find that a color used throughout the playfield is significantly more yellowed at the top of the playfield or in an outlane area than in the main lower playfield which had mylar protecting it (mylar apparently provides some degree of UV blocking.) So, you might need to mix two variations on the color depending what part of the playfield you are matching.

If a color occupies a large area but with a lot of contours to follow, sometimes it's wise to find a spot where the color is a thinner line and just frisket to that spot. You can either feather out the transition with the airbrush or just let it be an actual edge if it's a very small area. Once the playfield is under glass and lit up from above and below the playfield, minor imperfections in how a repair blends or in how well you matched the color vanish to the player's eye.

I just tried to take a photo of this, but it's so subtle you can't really see it.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cleaning-and-waxing-pinball-machines-vids-guide#post-2655687

Read what Vid has to say on playfield cleaning here. As others have stated, ME+Alcohol clean by dissolving the old varnish topcoat. You *must* wax after using them:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cleaning-and-waxing-pinball-machines-vids-guide#post-2655687

Novus is a plastic polishing compound, and way wetter than you want to be rubbing into a plywood surface. Use it to polish plastic.

Presumably paints changed somewhat over the course of different years and production runs, but if I was Williams, I wouldn't put extra capital into deliberately formulating slight variations on grey, no matter how much Python swore he needed it
They probably were using the same formula for paint colors during spans of years (you can see how a lot of sys 11 games have a comparable "palette", then things start to look differently comparable in the 90s as styles changed).

Mylar would seem to offer some amount of UV protection. On games I have pulled mylar from, the colors under the mylar are more vibrant and much less yellowed. I suspect this is actually the varnish topcoat yellowing more than the paint. If that is the case, you'll be able to even out the grey with a *careful, slow, and gentle* magic eraser + alcohol rubdown. Alternately, you can do airbrush paint repairs, but you will find that you'll have to add a bit of yellow to your grey to get a good match in places that weren't under mylar.

I'm almost completely finished populating that Black Knight CPR playfield. On your advice, @vid1900, I waited at least a week after the remedial additional clear coat had been applied.

My question now is, how long do I wait before shooting a ball all over the playfield? I've been diligent about pre-drilling and reaming the hole to cut away the clear, and all going pretty well. However, last night I had to move a post, and could see where the number "5" from the bottom of the post had actually imprinted itself in the clear. This suggests that the clear is still curing.

I know CPR says 6 weeks, curious to hear how long you typically allow before the game is ready to play.

I'm gonna need some scans for Agents 777, if anyone has made them. Was *very cautiously* removing slingshot mylar with heat gun and plastic razor, and was initially pleased that it seemed to be lifting the top coat with it.
I *just touched* the area with alcohol on a shop towel and it obliterated the art.
Yikes.

Not sure how I'll make this look passable again, aside from making tiny dots with a paint brush...

Mylar around the pops came right off without so much as a scraper. Whole playfield's top coat is a crackly mess, so lots of ME time on this one. I'm gonna try to scan the other side before removing the mylar...

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PinRestore sells it for $1/ft. You can also use copper foil tape or regular wire (though regular wire is rather a bit of work with all the daisy chaining involved.)

Tomass brought up on another thread this issue some people have had with clearing over sys11 play fields. @vid1900, I haven't heard you mention this in this guide or elsewhere. What can you tell us about this?

Something to be aware of: I was installing new GI bulbs in my F-14 today, and on a few of them, the force of the upholstery stapler was enough to put a couple of hairline cracks in the clear! The gun runs at 90 psi but in the future I will back it off some, maybe try 75 and see it it's sufficient.
Fortunately the cracking is all in areas that are not where the ball travels, so I will probably just let it be and file this lesson away. Thought I'd share though, as a warning...

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Anybody else on here have issues with frisket leaving sticky residue behind? I don't remember having this problem on my first project, but lately it's been an issue. I thought it had to do with the very humid summer we were having, but I have a new roll of Frisket brand masking and it's still happening. You can get it cleaned up with Naptha, but that also dissolves the paint unless you can remove the residue with a q-tip and take it very carefully. Seems like such a dumb problem to be having. I didn't buy film that was "high tack" or anything like that.

It's really weird, man! And a hassle. The stuff I'm using currently is actually *low* tack. And it's fairly tough to remove (you know how it it, get an x-acto edge under it and pull with tweezers) so I can't imagine using a higher tack version. I'm stuck swabbing the residue with q-tips but it's a real dumb time sucker.

Yep, Frisket brand. Sucks!!! I can get rid of the residue (worse on inserts than on the rest of the playfield), but it is a hassle. Appreciate the tip on Grafix brand, will try that next. There is no art supply story anywhere near me so it's all online for me. Wouldn't have anticipated this sort of PITA...

Well, shoot. A guy might've imagined that the Frisket film made by Frisket was a safe bet...

Another irritating little issue...I'm printing from a Mac, and whenever I need to print a partial image for a waterslide decal, the printer driver wants to place the images smack dab in the middle of the page. This is incredibly wasteful of waterslide decal paper, and I cannot for the life of me find a workaround. I'd like to, for example, make color variations of halftone dot repairs and print multiples of the same thing on a page. Anybody have an insight into that?

Yeah, you can't do that in Preview. However, you *can* do it in Pages. Have to import the graphic to Mac's word processing program, and THEN you can move it around within the page. What you *cannot* do from within Pages is tweak the color. So, if you're doing what I am doing and creating a decal of colored half tone dots (and want to make a few different variations to see what is a really good match), you have to create multiple copies of the same image, each with its own color tweak, and then import those to the same Pages document. Then you can fill a sheet of waterslide decal paper with many copies of the repair decal.

Hope this saves somebody else some time...if anyone knows a more streamlined way to do this, I'd be all ears.

Oh, cool, didn't know about that.Will give it a try today, thanks for the tip.

I probably should have kept this problem to myself as it may not apply to a lot of. Other people. But, in the interest of clarification: I'm using p-shop on an old laptop that can't drive my laser printer. Adobe won't let me update or transfer my old copy of P-shop and I am unwilling to pay big $ for something that I already own which does the job. However, I do have to transfer the pshop files onto my other computer before printing them. That's where/why the problem turned up.
Import image(s) to Pages and put them where you want them. All set.
Somebody eventually will find themselves having a similar problem...

NOW we're talking. I've done some projects that didn't involve photoshop at all, and others that do, so paying every month for it didn't make a lot more sense to me than buying it outright. Being able to use it on an as-needed basis is perfect. I didn't know that was an option, thanks for letting me know!

Hey Vid - I'm almost finished restoring this Agents 777 playfield, but have just run into a ghosting insert problem.
I don't spray clear myself but have a pro finisher up the road do it for me in his booth. He's been droppering in clear around any low spots or indentations around the inserts, adding a bit more as needed between coats. I was working down a slightly heavily built up spot, when it kind of went milky on me. Maybe it wasn't fully cured (was applied ~24 hours ago); now I can press on it and see the air under it move around.

I've been using the clear finish that NAPA carries; I'm operaring under the assumption that the average clear that is not the old Diamondplate will be less hot and will make for a decent repair, following your "slice and inject" method, but I thought I'd check with you ahead of time. Making things a bit trickier is that fact that this ghosting isn't restricted to the insert itself, the blister is somewhat amorphous. Looks like, for whatever reason, the drops didn't bond well with what was underneath (it was sanded with 400 grit). Was it just the heat from me trying to sand it down, possibly before it was fully cured?

Didn't see this problem coming, but it wouldn't be a restoration of I didn't have to endure at least one nail-biter...

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Better to surgically slice it away rather than inject underneath it? (I'm pretty certain there isn't any silicone contamination.) Just want to be sure I'm following.

It seemed to separate when I was sanding it down. Using 400 grit, did I cause it by working it too much at once and inadvertently allowing it to heat up? I've gone around to the other droppered places and sanded them down as well, taking care to do a little bit and then back off so as not to have a repeat of this problem. The rest of them are fine; I *really* took it slow.

You can cut Frisket around the circles and arrows, as well as cutting out little rings to re-establish the keylines.
I'd probably make a waterslide decal of the lettering (maybe some of the smoke/shadow details as well) and just shoot new white over the existing. You'll have to feather out the paint at the periphery since the smoke/explosion graphic doesn't have any hard edges. Set the airbrush to a very fine spray and go slow, do it in several very light passes.

Depends how close a match they can get to the color of the current state of the background paint, and how good they are with cutting frisket and feathering out the airbrush. Definitely a case to be made for knowing where to call it good enough, though.