Lets just call this a cautionary tale to newbies. Spent a lot of hours reading inside forum advice on various issues that have helped me immensely. Tackled a Bally playboy that had a beat up cabinet but watched the videos from Jeff at PinballPimp and it turned out great (many thanks Jeff!)
Just got a bally strikes and spares that had lots of wear on the play field. Not up to a full playfield swap so thought I would try touching this one up. After reading virtually ever post on techniques to use I took a shot.
As the title suggests, maybe I should have read a bit more. Searched everywhere to get recommendations on "out of the bottle" colors but everyone suggested I try mixing. Not being an art major my amateur attempts at acrylic color matching didn't exactly match. The color difference was made even more noticeable when I had the bright idea to clear coat the PF (obviously another poor decision on my part)
I did try several paint pens by craftsmart that I got from hobbylobby and found the yellow and black were perfect color matches . The red was close but allowed me to trace all the small red letters so they looked good.
Again, should have read the part where someone said "don't use polyurethane clear coat" as it reacts with certain touchups. Including the perfectly drawn black lines that bled EVERYWHERE. Looked like my wife's mascara on our wedding day!
Needless to say these are just rookie mistakes. Going to sand it backdown to bare wood and start over. Did I mention that I'm looking for a PF overlay?