Bobby Orr's Power Play
Bally, 1978
Gilligan's Island
Bally, 1991
Space Jam
Sega, 1996You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider vec-tor.
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Quoted from Joey_N:I have a Stern - Dracula playfield that I'm finishing and redo-ing some touchups on - so I can fill in an entire area and put the text on top, rather than mask or paint around the existing text.
My dilemma is - how do I find the fonts that halfway match the original text? I've tried those find your font sites, and no luck. Should I just redraw the letters as I would an object? Thanks..
Have you tried Helvetica Medium and Franklin Gothic?
Quoted from simplykind:Check this out. Some idiot CUT the barcode out of my HS2 otherwise excellent shape playfield.
That was during the Wiliams mafia days operators of games
could only buy Bally /Williams games at certain areas to only
certain distributors. The bar code was a way to track who bought
what where and to penalize either the operator or the distributor
for selling and/or operating a game in "out of zone" local.
Quoted from simplykind:Check this out. Some idiot CUT the barcode out of my HS2 otherwise excellent shape playfield.
That was during the Wiliams mafia days operators of games
could only buy Bally /Williams games at certain areas to only
certain distributors. The bar code was a way to track who bought
what where and to penalize either the operator or the distributor
for selling and/or operating a game in "out of zone" local.
Quoted from simplykind:So they would literally dig it out of the clear coat? If so, you'd think they would do a better job of it.
You are dealing with operators, not artists.
It's what's in the cash box not what is on the playfield.
Quoted from La_Porta:the most pathetically thin coat of clear
One must remember, the manufacturers were pushing out four to six models
a year. The pinball life expectancy was five to six months to a year or so.
The games were never meant to be around this long. They were built for a
moment in time. They call the process engineered obsolescence.
Quoted from tonycip:Is that some kind of conversion?
Stern made football versions of Striker Extreme.
I believe same "football" playfield artwork and your
choice of football team backglass.
Rams, Dolphins, etc, etc, etc.
Note: original half circles were removed from the sling-shot kickers. Then, the mylar either
3mm or 7mm was applied; most likely from Wico.
It was the only way to go back in the 1980's, it was very cost effective.
I would be cautious with the removal of the mylar because it will pull up what is remaining of the art work.
Quoted from DropTarget:Any suggestions on how to do them? Decals, repaint, printed on photo paper and covered with clear film?
Sharpy! blue.
Quoted from arolden:I am getting frustrated as they do not dry the same colour as when first applied.
It took me three weeks to get the colors right on a Williams backglass.
(the flesh tone was a B$tch to match) I had to make the color a lighter shade
than what was visible and let it dry. It took me about sixty tries to get that color nailed.
Quoted from TopMoose:I thought the issue would be with the sunken inner rings.
Keep the "sunken" inner circle clean.
Quoted from scampcamp:would you have an idea what to use for a shim?
Fishpapper... From the electronic store.
Quoted from plankalkul:vid1900 or anyone who might have dipped their toes in this water.
Considering removing gorgars eyes to light them up from under the playfield.
1.) what kind of “insert” could I use for this? I assume that a sticky clear decal would be too unstable to hold in moving the machine and coil shaking?
2.) I searched but did not find anyone who has done this.. if anyone has seen this or a custom small insert work on another machine...
I don’t really have anything to cut plexiglass cleanly and because this is such a small insert, ... ugh.
Also it’s got jc660 on it now, and I have at least two more layers of clear to put down on it, so nows the time
Thoughts?
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Maybe get someone to do a 3D plastic print of the eyes in a tall stack
formation and have an L.E.D. light it up.
Then, all you have to do is cut the eyes out... ;very tedious work.
Finally, push the new inserts from the top/bottom of the playfield till flush with the top of said playfield.
Might have to be a round nickle size base plate with two tall eye shaped towers.
I first would experiment on design and figure out what works best and what causes the least
damage to the playfield.
Their is available hobby plywood you can use to experiment on.
Quoted from ktownhero:Has anyone ever just covered a whole playfield in mylar in lieu of clear? Like buy a sheet, apply it, and cut out the appropriate areas so you have 100% coverage.
I did many years ago... Down side the Mylar bubbled up in long streaks. The company had it stored
folded over and the Mylar wanted to go back to that configuration.
Quoted from mark532011:if I am touching up areas of paint, what is the consensus on "mistakes"? For example, on this Ice Revue, the clowns red shirt is outside the lines. Is that deliberate by the artist and should be replicated? Is that a printing error and should be corrected? If you asked the artist would they want it cleaned up?
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The joys of hand cut Rubylith film.
Quoted from vid1900:Plug with bamboo skewers, dipped in glue.
I had a hobby guy till me about a technique of using small round doweling...
The ship model builders used the metal drill bit holder as a template for making
small round wood rods.
By using a drill, and feeding the round dowel through the holes in the metal drill case holder,
you can make smaller diameter wood dowel rods.
Quoted from lb1:That's interesting. So if I understand correctly, you hold the original wooden dowel in the drill mandrel as if it was a drill bit, and you run it through the hole in the metal case that has the right size?
Yup. I had to repair a animation scene, and it had lollypop sticks has wood bracing that broke.
I was able to use small round doweling to get the right size and repaired the unit.
I have used the same technique to fix bad holes in playfields and to fix holes I did not like
in reproduction playfields. Finish off the repairs like vid1900 does.
Quoted from PinballAir:This line on the edge of the factory mylar is a small amount of dirt under edge of mylar.
Anyone have any tricks to clean it without cutting back or removing mylar?
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I have used my finger nail, along with a soft rag with cleaner, to remove the glue grime.
Quoted from sethbenjamin:Since setting myself up a while back with a Silhouette vinyl cutter, I’ve taken to redoing key lines and insert text with the airbrush.
Disadvantages are that it probably takes longer to do it this way. Advantages are that you can lay on enough black paint to cover nicely in one pass, and you can reproduce artwork which crosses over the insert and playfield in multiple colors pretty sharply. (That is to say, as in the example here, a true black background and a truly opaque red line would be harder to achieve using clear waterslide decal paper. White paper isn’t an option here unless you are OK with changing the look of the inserts, but I wanted to maintain the actual print-on-plastic look.)
I’m certainly not the first to use this technique but it seems worth mentioning here.
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Black outline and lettering is cut and it into position, masked, sprayed.
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Red “pinstripe” stencil applied and sprayed after black has dried.)
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I did these only two at a time because positioning all four would have been very hard to do accurately.
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Here I am about to lay down the second stencil for the red.
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All four inserts with both red and black details reestablished.
Use *extreme caution* when pulling the stencil on fine details like this. Even on a well scuffed playfield, chances are good that fine lines like this can come up with the stencil. I lost a tiny bit of the 4x line, and cheated by finishing it with a detail brush. There will probably be a little crinkle in the next coat of clear which will need to be sanded out, but it will otherwise look fine when all is said and done.
Nice Cyclops.
Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:Just picked up a beautiful Fathom in a trade with a beautiful original playfield protected by vintage aftermarket mylar. At some point in time someone overtightened posts so the mylar is pooling near them. Should I pull all the mylar and put down a playfield protector or could I get away with trimming around the posts with an xacto knife. Other suggestions?
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I believe the plastic Mylar is clear shelf paper. It was popular back in 1988/1993.
Wico sold heavy Mylar that was too thick 5mm.. then 3mm. Shelf paper was the
thinnest, but would shrink and pull-up around posts over the years.
Quoted from kevmad:Please help! I was screwing in a post into my new Sorcerer playfield (CPR), and the post sheared off, leaving the threaded part in the wood!! The post on the right is what a new post looks like, the post on the left is my sheared off post. How do I get the broken threaded part of the post out of there??? I pre-drilled the hole before screwing in the post. I did notice this CPR playfield wood is harder than what I am used to. Please, help, I"m about to cry or scream or...
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I would try using a good quality drill bit... put masking tape around the area...
Drill down the middle of the post.. hopefully it would crumble...
I am experiencing the same problem... I used multiple size drills to do the holes and
used dry soap.. it is a wood lubricator. scrape the minipost threads against the soap then screw
into the wood hole... use caution... I hope this helps.
Quoted from joshmc:Added 50gm of this to 200-250ml methylated spirits (4 to 1 ratio). I stirred it, shaked it regularly and 24 hours later, most of it is still undesolved. Any ideas?
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Don't you use heat to melt the shellac? Wiki says to crush to fine powder then add
alcohol.
Quoted from PinFixin:What would you recommend to fix these enlarged hole?
This is on my future spa on probably the highest stress area on any pinball machine. A mini post bolted through the playfield right in front of the flippers. These things get pummeled quite a bit. I've read that people say Bondo is too soft and to use Qwikwood, and then others say Qwikwood isn't for use on playfields and to use Bondo, and HEP uses Bondo. One of those answers is completely wrong for this application but I don't know which, or if there is something else?
I wanted to fill with something to remove the hole, then drill a hole for a #10 mini post bolt, and either go into a t-nut (preferred) or just a washer and nut underneath. Or would you guys recommending something different?
Pics:
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I'm even open to the idea of thinking outside the box and putting a different, newer style post there that would hold up better to the onslaught, but not be any larger in diameter to make the shot more difficult.
I use new doweling pieces.
1) Plug hole with tight dowel. May need supper glue instead of wood glue.
2) Redrill new hole..slightly smaller than mini post.
3) Use dry soap on mini post to rethread wood hole.
4) Finish with mounting hardware.
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Walnut Creek, CA