While I can not speak for the quality of the other vendors stencils all of our stencils are made using automotive paint mask and not generic vinyl. We stand behind everything we make and if you have an issue or question with your stencil we are always available to help out.

Travis
[email protected]

I have some to order and been wondering the same thing.

Banksy...couldn't resist.

I can't speak for others but twisted has a great product and customer support is great

I have done several and I can comment on a few and make some recommendations to makers of stencils.

Pinball Pal: Did a EBD with stencils from them. Very thick and super great stencils. 10 out of 10

Twisted Pins: Great customer service and nice products but I was not too happy with the stencils.
I got Harlem Globtrotters one and they worked nice. The pattern was pretty simple so it worked good.

I recently did Space Station with stencils from them and they were not very good stencils. Way too thin and did not stick very well. What happens is when they do not stick they move around and by far the biggest issue is thickness. When they are thin they stretch when you smooth them out. It was a big mess and I was unhappy after spending days bondo ing the cabinet and prepping it to have these stencils fall off then stretch and warp.

I think Twisted Pins is a great company. I did send them a note about this via their FORM on their website but I got some bounced error when I submitted and did not have time to contact them. I am sure they would have worked with me on this. So my comments above are meant as general comments and hopefully they will use thicker and more sticky stencils. Maybe ask Pinball Pay what they used.

Classic Arcades - I ordered 3 of their stencils (6MDM, Star Trek, and Power Play). All 3 were incorrect to begin with, many obvious errors compared to original pattern. Never bothered using the stencils.

I eventually got a refund from them (many months later), but Jeff at CA is utterly useless at communication. Just search this forum, and you will read many complaints. Would never buy from him again.

Sorry to hear you had an issue with the Space Station stencils. We would have worked to resolve the issue with you and I see that you mentioned you tried to send it using the form on the site but it bounced back. Not sure why it bounced back but we will look into that.

As for the thickness of the stencils this is the first feedback we have heard from our customers in regards to the issue you mentioned. Since Mark from Pinball Pal is no longer around we have no way to know exactly what brand of mask he used. We are always looking to improve our products to offer the best stencil on the market. We will look into other brands of mask. Thanks for the feedback!

Travis
[email protected]

I've redrawn the art for the San Francisco that I'm restoring and have wondered the best way to do this myself. I have an acquaintance who owns a sign shop and he said that he can cut it out of self-adhesive vinyl. Does anyone have any recommendations on specific material to use or not use??

You don't want to use regular vinyl. Make sure it is cut out using actual paint mask made by companies such as Oracal or Gerber and you will have good results.

Awesome, thanks for the reply! I predict that the next thing I'll find out is that a minimum order of material will be enough to do 25 machines . . .

Most sign shops already carry it in house so they shouldn't charge you a minimum.

At the Chicago Expo I talked to Travis from Twisted and asked him why he decided to go into business and copy the efforts of people like Classic-Arcades and others. His response was that everyone else was making junk and he wanted a superior product on the market. He also said thanks to Matt and Rick at Planetary that they have more stencil files than anyone else. I've never used any stencils other than my own so I can only relay what Travis stated to me at the show.

Does painting your cabinet with new stencils decrease the value of the game itself or does it really matter?

If done right it increases the value since it looks like it came from the factory. Really hard to tell if it was redone, the only thing gives it away is it looks new.

Twisted Pins makes a good product, but be careful on what type of paint you use as base and following coats. Krylon
Fusion Paint tends to stick to the stencil itself so avoid that unless you want a tedious mess.

Had the opposite as it did not stick. Same paint I used on all the other stencil jobs that worked fine.

I think Twisted is a awesome company. I think the problem is most stencils are simple. Take for instance Strikes and Spares or Skateball. Pretty basic and thin stencils will work.

Space Station is pretty complex with the earth/clouds and it brings out the worst in the stencil. So a thicker stencil is needed.

I know its pretty much trial and error as Twisted Pins has lots of success with the other stencils and without feedback from users there is no sense in making a thicker stencil for some, etc.

So I they can make them thicker and from a pro painting mask material used by car painters, etc... then it will be a superb product.

I am happy with Twisted Pins and will get all my stencils from them as I am sure they are always looking to improve the product!

I have been a vector art designer for over 30 years and have an eye for detail. I am also one of the original CPR artists and reproduced the Bobby Orr POWER PLAY plastics, CFTBL speaker panel, Comet plastics and the upcoming Fireball backglass. I have restored tons of classic Bally and Gottlieb top titles since 2005 and my stencils are PERFECT. I then spend about 8 hours cleaning up nodes in CorelDraw to make all art CLEAN and CURVES SMOOTH with perfect bleeds. I correct all the bad art and mine look much better than any of the competitors out there. All stencils are cut on painters mask with a high end Roland cutter. My Precision cut STENCIL KITS are available for sale for many of the earlier games you see in my photo gallery on my website. you can also see some of my cabinet pics on the links below. Please contact me for pricing.

Thanks, Jeff
www.pinballpimp.com

MEDUSA
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/1981-bally-medusa-pinball-pimp-full-cabinet-restoration-gallery

POWER PLAY
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fs-cq-bobby-orr-power-play-1977-pinball-machine-pinball-pimp-restoration

Target Alpha
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fs-1976-gottlieb-target-alpha-pinball-pimp-full-cq-museum-high-end-restore

DSC00465.JPGDSC01172.JPGDSC01419.JPGDSC01761.JPGDSC01918.JPGDSC02222.JPGDSC02577.JPGDSC02684.JPGDSC04726.JPGDSC07337.JPGPB120042.JPG

Jeff, those look fantastic!

Sweet Geebus Jeff Thanks for making me realize I have done nothing with my life!!!!

Seriously, those cabinets look great! Looking to pick-up a set from you for Medusa.

Our stencils are cut out of Oracal 813 which is a 3 mil semi-transparent blue paint mask that works with solvent or waterborne paints. This is the same mask used in the auto body industry.

If we used a thicker mask it would only make for thicker hard edges between the colors. We haven't received much feedback in regards to the thickness of the material the stencils are cut out of.

I use ORAMASK 811 - 3mil Stencil Film which was developed for use on all paint and spray techniques on even surfaces. It's white dyed stencil film (special PVC, 80 micron), matt finish. Its high degree of stiffness makes it especially suitable for large formats

I also use a registration technique that will allow PERFECT registration of the 2 colors with no worries you will get the stencils lined up wrong.

TwistedPins helped me do a custom stencil for my Star Trek: Mirror Universe. For that I'm eternally grateful.

I'm a picky bastard; so keep this in mind... There was a signifigant difference between my portion of the MU design and the stock bally design. Let me explain.

On my cabinet; I had my own stencils. I designed them so that the colors were "stacked" properly so that registration issues could be mitigated. IE the yellow planetoid was a sphere shape... and the red/orange bands were overlayed on the full stencil. That way there were no issues with registration between red and yellow bands.

The head of the Star trek on the other hand was a stock bally design from TP. This had registration issues because each color was an exact copy as seen from the overall artwork. It didn't appear that TP gave much thought as to how the stencils stack. Example; the planet is a yellow base with red patterns on top. The TP yellow stencil had the red patterns "covered" so you only paint the "seen" yellow with their stencil. The right way (In my opinon) to do the stencil set would have been to provide the yellow base as a whole circle so the red patterns would register without issue on the planet. IE no blue background peeking thru.

This is my $0.02... it's possible that TP decided they wanted people to have the ability to only re-paint single colors. If so they designed the stencil correctly.

I'd still buy from TP; but I'd expect to need to tweak the stencil's with an exacto knife for it to meet my expectations/standards/process.

Does anyone happen to make a stencil kit for POTO? I have been looking and can't seem to find one...

I had a fellow pinball guy post this out on another thread:

The Pimp stencils (and of course all the attention to detail) are what makes Pimp's cabinet restoration one step above anybody else.

Here's a pic of "Pinball Pal" Fathom stencils. Basically nothing lined up on the second stencil. Specifically, look at the 'M'. I had to cut it and make my own. I also had to cut out almost every letter and realign it. Then, go over a lot of the lines with vinyl tape. It took two 8 hour days to get it setup for painting. I worked it out in the end, but it should NOT have been that hard.

P1010597.JPG

While I understand than NOT everyone has the talent or ability to clean up stencil art for every game like I do, I still feel the need to do the machine justice and make the art the best it can be before diving into such long projects. Artwork is the LAST thing you do/see in the restoration process, the part that you wait 100+ hours to finally see. I will never spend the time redoing the machine if I know that in the end I will be very disappointed in seeing shitty art.

I have never seen the artwork produced by Twisted Pins so I cannot comment on the cleanliness of art, but have seen MANY cabs painted with the old PINBALL PAL stencils and all were very badly designed. That's why I design my own. Here are some differences I found in Mine vs. Others.

medusa comp 1.jpgmedusa comp 2.jpg

Here's a few pictures of really bad PLAYBOY ART I pulled from google. See how bad the black lines are! They are supposed to be parallel. Also, notice how the registration if off. Most people would not notice this unless it was pointed out to them.

pb1.jpg

pb2.jpg

We do sell single sides or just one stencil quite often. There are lots of machines that just have one bad side or front and people aren't interested in redoing the whole machine.

I can tell you that there are 2 big name high end restorers who have been using our stencils for almost 2 years now so we must be doing something right!

We let our product speak for itself and believe that it is the best on the market and never will cut down another competitor regardless of their quality. From the pictures that you have posted Pinball Pimp I see that you do take pride in your work and it looks great.

Pimp's stencils look incredible. I know original stencils weren't always perfect, so this brings the games to a whole new level. It's great to see this attention to detail that can make our games even better.

Pimp. I'd like a set of Sorcerer Stencils!

I make my own and use the Oramask 813 with transfer tape. Laying it down without transfer tape makes for a difficult proposition in my mind. It is pretty thin and flexible. Using transfer tape makes it easy to correct minor misplacements before they become permanent. Also, I buy it at www.signwarehouse.com where I can get it in 10 yard rolls or 50 yard rolls.