Ron Kruzman

[email protected]

Ron is fine.. also check in with Christopher Hutchins at High End Pins..

This is not a homey recommendation, but they also seem to do nice work, too..http://www.hsapinball.com/HSA_PINBALL/Home.html

Most of the known restorers use one of these 3..

Yes kruzman told me he was book as well. So Went to hep or christopher Hutchins just got mine back from him. and wow looks amazing well worth the cash. Use him did not take as long as I thought and amazing work and fair prices. Imo

I can do it and turn it around in 12-15 weeks.

Chris Kruger

[email protected]

Captain Neo

http://www.pinballplayfieldrestoration.com/

Another vote for HSA. Great communication, turn around time, and overall quality.

+1

I used HSA recently on an Embryon, work was outstanding and delivered quicker than promised,
I highly recommend Brian at HSA

Seen Chris' Work....Very good. Would highly recommend.

But you can't go wrong with HSA.....

Just curious, why the long lead time on these jobs? Is there really so much demand for this service?

lots of time consuming work goes into restoring a playfield, multiple layers of detail painting,sanding, curing and then the clear coat layers with more curing, sanding, etc. multiply that by everyone wanting this service.

I would like to make clear, that I am booked solid, on restorations, and I am not accepting any more. nos/new restoration clearcoats are no problem.
So I am accepting any nos/new reproduction pf's for clearcoat. No problem.

I send my restoration overflow customers to neo.

It takes so long because to do a quality job, it takes over 100 hours of painting with little brushes for a total restore.

I would like to make one point clear. and I cant say this loud enough!! when it comes to playfields Pics mean absolutely nothing. My friend john bought a spectrum pf that looked like a million in the pics. in real life, it is an abortion that I doubt anyone would bother to install. It looks like brushed thin paint on top of 6 coats of clear. I can make the worst pf look great by taking 100 pics and using 5.
I know it is hard to assemble, but what you want to do is put different peoples work physically next to another's.

another thing I wanted to say is the post above me by beadwindow says it perfectly concerning the time. Not to mention if a restorer has no jobs he is working on, or lined up, and can do yours the day it comes, guess what?

lastly since I am throwing my opinion around, keep in mind your wage at work, when you get upset on how much a good restore costs. that is the restorers job and occupation. they should earn at least a living wage (even the worst of them)

cheers, ron kruzman

HSA's work.

image.jpg

Ron is 110% on target! I get a lot of requests and they say "it isn't to bad or it doesn't need much work". The point is when you have damage in a color you have to paint to a logical line. Think of painting the hood of your car, if you had a tiny scratch can you just paint that? Hell no you can't, you have to paint to a body line, with a hood that's the entire hood. Then is the color going to match perfectly??? Maybe yes, maybe no. If not you have to paint further. Then the time to color match. There are no color palettes available so you have to paint and hope you mixed it right. If not sand it off and start over until it's right.

Then when doing the final clear you hope like hell it clears well and won't know for sure until you polished it out. It might have to be reshot, cured and sanded again.

Then the cost of clear has gone crazy in the last few years.

Materials+ time+unknown variables = high cost, time and risk for guys doing this.

I didn't even touch on the skill it takes to repaint and repair. If you think it's easy, give it a shot.

I tip my hat to Ron, Neo, HSA, and HEP. As with most things pinball, if you suck or charge to much you won't last long here! We can do quick turnaround bc we only do a few at a time and it's a part time hobby. We don't take more work than we can get done quickly. I can say I have never had a customer less than 100% satisfied since we started doing this. We have done somewhere around 20-30 playfields I suppose so not the biggest but we do very good work (per customer comments) at reasonable price in 12-15 weeks.

Chris Kruger

I think it took us about 30-40 hours to frisket and airbrush Crescendo, and it's an uber-simple playfield, and it's very clear the work is amateur even though I think it looks great for what it ultimately is as a first attempts. I'll never even attempt a modern game that's not a solid color field...lol... you guys can keep that one.