mrpilkington polyacanthus Sorry for the radio silence on this thread. Been busy with my other project: StupidPinball.com ----- I was able to DIY repro the red Snowball/Santa's little helper plastic. I cut out the lexan, scanned my original piece and touched up the scratches/marks in Photoshop, reverse printed on clear adhesive vinyl, then attached to the underside of the lexan. The inkjet printer on vinyl results in the red being a little more "washed out" than the original piece, plus, you can see the inkjet lines. I notice it, and it bothers me, but nobody else notices until I point it out (which I should really stop doing, honestly!) Red GI LEDs would help "minimize" the wash out. I think a thermal color printer onto vinyl would be a better medium, but I don't have easy access to one of those. I do have easy access to an inkjet to vinyl rig...so path of least resistance (and cheapest!) is my go-to strategy on this first DIY attempt. Plus, it's for my own collection so I'm not as worried about it. If I were to ever sell it (unlikely) I'd probably look into doing another with a thermal color printer. Not too worried about it at this point.
I still need to do the Kwik-E-Mart piece...which is why I started this DIY repro plastic project in the first place! Plan to do that piece with the same technique as I did the red piece.
Let me know if you want me to whip up another red piece and send to you (either/both of you). Again, it's not perfect, but an huge improvement over a busted up/cracked/missing plastic.
Let me know.
~Brian
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