(Topic ID: 98767)

Yo! (Another) Taxi!

By UvulaBob

9 years ago


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  • 52 posts
  • 17 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 7 years ago by UvulaBob
  • Topic is favorited by 17 Pinsiders

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  • Taxi Williams, 1988

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There are 52 posts in this topic. You are on page 1 of 2.
#1 9 years ago

Inspired by Whridlsoncestood and Richthofen, I'm charging ahead with restoring my Taxi as well. I don't have a playfield rotisserie yet, but I do have four quick-release clamps that I've attached to the corners of the playfield while I strip it down. Much like this guy:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/post-your-rotisserie-however-you-spell-it#post-1448948

As I make progress, I'll add more pictures here: http://imgur.com/a/f22pF

Here's what I've got to start with. The cabinet exterior is in great shape. I'm inclined to believe that this has been home use only for the last 20 years. It's been in a smoker's home, though, so everything is covered with an awesome layer of Marlboro lung dust.

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And here's where the playfield stands after about 2.5 hours of work:

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#2 9 years ago

your pics are great for anyone with questions about their game.how is the playfield on the clamps? g.l. joe

#3 9 years ago

Each clamp holds a corner of the playfield, and then the whole thing sits on the table, like this guy's:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/post-your-rotisserie-however-you-spell-it#post-1448948

I would recommend putting all four clamps on and then lifting the playfield up and setting it down, rather than putting on two and trying to lift it up and attach the other two. Things can get a bit wobbly that way. I still might end up putting together a rotisserie.

#4 9 years ago

I figured it would wobble when you are cleaning the playfield. thanks for the info. joe

#5 9 years ago

The cleaning will come once everything's taken off both sides. And by everything, I mean everything.

#6 9 years ago

Top side of the playfield is now almost completely bare. All that's left are the flipper bats, the pop bumpers, the outhole kicker and this one post that's hard to get out until the Marilyn bank is removed. Once those are done, I'll start documenting and ripping out the backside stuff.

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#7 9 years ago
Quoted from UvulaBob:

Top side of the playfield is now almost completely bare.

Scary hand.
What's your plan for the playfield? Is there a swap planned?
-mof

#8 9 years ago

I think this field is in good enough shape that it can be restored. I don't know how bad the discoloration is between the lower playfield that's had mylar over it for years and the uppper part, so we'll see. It'd take a lot of internal justification for me to drop 600 bucks on a new playfield over this one.

#9 9 years ago
Quoted from UvulaBob:

I think this field is in good enough shape that it can be restored. I don't know how bad the discoloration is between the lower playfield that's had mylar over it for years and the uppper part, so we'll see. It'd take a lot of internal justification for me to drop 600 bucks on a new playfield over this one.

Can you even find a repro Taxi pf for $600?
-Kyros

#10 9 years ago

Probably not. I kind of just had that number in my head. It's probably more like $900 and/or your firstborn son.

#11 9 years ago
Quoted from UvulaBob:

Probably not. I kind of just had that number in my head. It's probably more like $900 and/or your firstborn son.

There are a few out there. I think asking is usually $900 without the firstborn.
-mof

#12 9 years ago

Is it wrong that I would consider creating and selling my firstborn in lieu of the $900?

#13 9 years ago
Quoted from UvulaBob:

Is it wrong that I would consider creating and selling my firstborn in lieu of the $900?

Not at all. Those pfs look amazing.
-Kyros

#14 9 years ago

The stripping down is complete, except for the ground braid and the GI sockets they're attached to. Since I'm not doing a swap, I'm thinking that it's not really worth the effort of pulling those staples up.

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I've hit it with the magic eraser and it's improved it a bit, but it's still pretty grimy. It doesn't come out well with a flash under indoor light, so I'll take some more pictures tomorrow in the natural light.

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So my question is this - and I may start a new thread. After I get the mylar off the lower playfield, I'll need to do some work on the road coloring. If you were in my position, would you try to match the un-yellowed playfield and hope the border isn't too noticable, or would you airbrush the whole thing to keep it all one color? What about the parts nobody sees, but might reflect light? Would you airbrush those a nice bright white?

I should try to find a picture of what a new or completely restored playfield looks like.

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#15 9 years ago

Kruzman just posted a Taxi PF for sale.
-mof

#16 9 years ago

check out taxi resto started on the restoration page it looks great. joe

#17 9 years ago

Taxi is such a fun pin and definitely worth restoring.

Whridlsoncestood has the nicest Taxi on the planet!

GL with the restore.

#18 9 years ago

I think it will be much easier to paint all the gray. It will look more consistent. For $900 I would definitely be restoring that one. It doesn't look too bad.

#19 9 years ago

I spent a couple hours yesterday taking the mylar off the lower half of the playfield. I bought three large cans of compressed air, and went though a little over one, so yay for spare cans. I then used some Goo Gone Spray Gel on the leftover adhesive, let it soak for a few minutes and then dumped some flour on it. THat let me roll the adhesive right off, though it took some elbow (finger?) grease to get it all off.

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All the inserts look like they're in good shape, so I don't think I need to pop any of them out.

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So now I have to figure out how I want to go about airburshing this bad boy. I think I'm going to hit all the yellowed white parts with pure white, which is pretty easy to do. The hard part is going to be getting the road to be a uniform grey. I feel like I have two options. I can either delicately trace around the various taxis and such on the road and shoot the whole thing with grey, or I can cover the entire thing with grey and apply decals. Both choices have their pros and cons, and to be honest - I'm leaning towards the latter.

If anyone reading has done this kind of restoration work before - how did you handle shooting large amounts of a single color onto an area with intricately-outlined things (like giraffes riding in taxis) on it?

1 week later
#20 9 years ago

Do not paint over everything and use a ton of decals. Its not going to come out right.

Check my other thread here on a high speed:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/high-speed-full-restoration-started-whridlsoncestood-112512

Your best bet is to painstakingly cover the playfield with frisket and cut out all gray areas and repaint with fresh gray. Do the same with the white. Makes things look 100 percent better. At least with taxi you don't have a thousand dashed lines to cut out.

Invest in a swivel blade x-acto knife for the intricate areas. Straight blade and a ruler for straight areas.

-Jimxacto-swivel-knife-ex1.jpgxacto-swivel-knife-ex1.jpg

1 month later
#21 9 years ago

It's been a while, but I've managed to get everything I need to lay down a thin layer of clear and then start my first pass at airbrushing. To start, I did the easiest stuff first - the large areas of white.

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I'm not at the point where I need to decide what to do about the road. Can you elaborate more on why the multiple decal approach is a bad idea? I really feel like hand-tracing every single thing on this road and then hand-touching up the interior colors is going to end up being a magnificent pain, and I'm trying to figure out what amount of "not looking right" I'm willing to deal with in order not have to match nine other colors on this playfield.

1 week later
#22 9 years ago

Hi. I did not see this thread before. Glad you are taking your time and giving some love to an old Taxi. I just did the same for a Pinbot in a similar condition. Got an amazing result.

I concur with Whrid. You're going to want to paint the entire areas of gray, just like you did with the white. That's really the only way you can get a perfect result.

I am curious if you know what a Silohouette Cameo is? I just got one last week and am very high on the potential this machine has to do exactly what you need to do here. I started a fan club you are welcome to join!

Seriously, if you have a flatbed scanner and are willing to spend some time on it, I think you could get a mega-good result. There's a pinsider named rufessor who did a Bally Playboy in a similar way. The masks you need to create are less complex by comparison.

I will help if you are game...

Dan

#23 9 years ago
Quoted from Curbfeeler:

I concur with Whrid. You're going to want to paint the entire areas of gray

Actually, he recommends the inverse. He recommends that I trace around all the art on the road and spray grey around that. I'm not sure what he would do once that's done, though. WHat I'd have left is a bunch of grey valleys leading into dirty and faded tow trucks, taxi cabs and police cars. I'd either have to frisket all of those things and spray those colors as well, leaving all kinds of little peaks and valleys of airbrush paint, or I'd have to hand-touch-up all that stuff, worrying about brush strokes.

Jim, if you're still reading this thread, I'd really like some more input on why the "spray everything and put down decals" approach would potentially yield such sketchy results.

#24 9 years ago

As far as valleys are concerned, I had the exact same fear on my Pinbot, and it just doesn't happen. Your clear is thick enough that you won't see it. If you don't believe me, check out Doot's thread. He paints THICK with a brush and the auto clear is just so good you can't tell.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinbot-restore

You're going to be spraying with an airbrush, and by comparison the height of your layers will be much less.

There's a thread by pinsider Lonzo on a BTTF that rarely gets love any more, but he's masking with a product called Oracut 813 and gets terrific results. I've had great luck using Badger's blue label (upc 47459 00600) in 8.5 by 11 sheets for areas I cut and Tamiya's thin modeler's masking tape for lines I need to follow very precisely. Jim recommends a type of knife, and Vid1900 has recommendations for various products that work well for him.

I'd honestly just encourage you to buy some products, try them out, see what works for you. If you press too hard, you could risk cutting into your artwork, but that is really all you have to lose.

My offer still stands if you have a scanner and want me to help you test out masking with something cut via cameo. You could scan a taxi or the tow truck, for instance, and I could mail you a cut mask. It would at least give you a good idea of what does and doesn't work (at least for you).

Dan

#25 9 years ago

To emphasize that there's really no wrong or right way to do something, so long as it works for you....

Check out this masking tape job on my pinbot. Hey, got the job done!

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2 weeks later
#26 9 years ago

Decals are for things that are too intricate to touch up. Your idea is just painting over tons of perfectly good arttwork. Trying to get colors to show up right on a water slide decal is trick. Lots of work there. Have to do it on white decall paper not clear and then clean the edges of the decals ones down with paint to cover the white edges that will show. The reason you are painting the grey is because its all different colors right now. All the other black details and such are fine. You can try the decal everything approach but you may fiind after you spray the grey and then clear it to put the decals on top and they don't work out as you planned you almost have wasted the playfield. You can't go back.

I would try masking everything first. It takes time but a ruler helps a lot with those white lines in the roadd.

Pardon all the typos. Batteries are dying in my keybod andt misses somekeys and doubles ottherss.

-Jim

1 month later
#27 9 years ago

How's this coming along? I just picked up a Taxi and I'm going back and forth about removing the mylar and touching up the playfield. I'd love to see your results.

#28 9 years ago

I'll be honest. I've stalled out on it because I'm paralyzed with indecision. I really have no idea how to go from here. Jim made a good point about covering up the already-present artwork, but a lot of the little taxi cabs and other art is split where the mylar used to be. One side is relatively clean, and the other side is coated is faded, yellowed and dirty.

If I were to go the mask-and-spray approach with the grey road, I'd then have the arduous task of matching and hand-brushing nine different colors at various places all over the board. He's right that matching colors on decals can be tricky, but it would save me from color matching and painting. It's time I think I'd rather spend at the keyboard and printer than with a paint brush. I got out of painting Warhammer figures because of all the paint mixing.

On top of that, I'm still not sure how to approach handling the clear passenger inserts. The decals would have to overlap both the clear inserts and the painted road, which means that there needs to be clear under the entire decal. But how do I make sure that the grey for the road doesn't bleed through the clear inserts? Maybe I need to print up one copy of the inserts on clear and one on white and try to do some kind of thing where I cut the clear part of the inserts out and then add the white-backed parts around the edges, like some kind of frankendecal.

I also didn't know going into this that clear coat had a certain working temperature range. Vid has said that anything below at least 60 degrees could turn misty, though I'm seeing temperature requirements as high as 70 degrees. So I either put this off until March or I get a radiator or two for the garage.

All of this adds up to pretty much zero progress, much to my chagrin. Oh well. I guess I bit off more than I could chew.

4 months later
#29 8 years ago

Pinsider Gov has offered a downloadable mask for the grey area on his restoration thread...

#30 8 years ago

Definitely paint the entire grey area. I just restored a Taxi, pf wasn't in as poor a shape as yours so I got away with only painting the white - I used mylar on the entire pf because I don't have spray/paint application access.

Anyway, someone already restored a Taxi and used what Curbfeeler is talking about - they cut black plastic masks for all of the artwork (taxis, on the road, road lane markers, etc.) and they are an *exact* fit. Even the tiniest leaf from the tree at the entrance to the right ramp is covered effectively. Then you just spray down a grey color, peel off the masks and wha-la! Done. There's a thread on here for THAT Taxi resto also.....

Best of luck,

Nate

2 months later
#31 8 years ago

OK. I'm back!

Summer's here, and that means it's time to get this thing done. I pulled off the white I applied earlier (for some reason I can't remember) so here's where the playfield sits now:

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I'm working on a plan to make the five passenger inserts look their best, and I think I've got an idea. I got a Silhouette Cameo off of eBay for 200 bucks and will be printing and cutting my decals onto some sticky-backed shipping labels. I'm going to stretch some frisket across each of the five inserts, apply the labels on top of the frisket and use my hobby knife to carve out the areas that I want to lay down white on. This white will service as the backing color for the clear decals I'll eventually be applying.

I may be able to create my own stencils using the Cameo, so before I do any of what I just said, I might give that a shot.

For example, I'll carve out and pull up everything but Gorbie's head and tie, leaving a headless-Gorbie-shaped stencil to shoot white onto. I'll do this for all five passengers, and then shoot grey over all of the roads. I'll flatten everything out with a layer of clear, apply all the required decals, and then build up my final layers of clear. I'm not aiming for perfection, here. I just want it to look nice.

If anyone has a better idea, then please let me know. Otherwise, I think this is a good approach. I have about three months to get all the way to the final layer of clear, and then Seattle gets below 60 again on the regular.

#32 8 years ago

Sweet. Love Taxi restoration threads.

#33 8 years ago

Ha nice to get a shoutout. I definitely shouldn't inspire anyone! I mostly spent my way out of problems and had a lot of help (cabinet decals and paint done by someone else, had underside reassembly help from pinside user Linoleum).

I think the waterslide decals came out great on the Fire! restore that's also documented here on pinside. It sounds like its just very difficult to get right.

1 year later
#34 7 years ago

Another winter come and gone, and it's time for another shot at this thing.

Because there's such a clear dividing line between where the mylar was and wasn't, it's pretty apparent that I need to airbrush the road to get it a uniform color. The main holdup has been trying to figure out the best way to get the passengers to look right (since they're partly opaque and party clear), as well as figuring out how to make the really dirty art assets (such as the convertible on the lower left) look right without needing to hand paint anything.

After enough thumb-sucking and hand-wringing, I've decided that I can't make this thing look any worse than it already does. So, I need to pick a plan and just effing do it. And that plan is to spray gray over the entire road, and then use decals in all the different places for the assets.

I stitched together all of my playfield scans and took some time to fill in all the spots where paint is going to go.

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For the passenger and cab inserts, I'm planning on silkscreening white in the shape of the asset as a whole, using StencilPro HighRes silk screens and Nazdar 5500 ink.

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I haven't fully decided on this yet. I may yet decide to give a try to stencil-cutting with my Silhouette Cameo, putting that stencil on transfer tape, transferring it to the playfield, and airbrushing white Createx on there. Since I've already ordered materials for both processes, I may as well just go with the one that works best for me without worrying about spending unneeded money. I've already spent it.

Once all the paint I need to apply is down, I'll put a layer of clear over the whole thing. I'll then put clear decals on top of the white ink left behind by the silk screen/stenciling. I want to do it this way, because clear decals with color printed on them laid on top of anything other than white will look like a mess, color-wise.

For the other art assets, such as the tow truck, the cop car, and all the other stuff, I'm deciding between printing them on white decals and doing that, or going the clear-on-white approach there as well. If I print on white decals, I have to make damn sure I cut right next to the black line, otherwise the white edges will show up. That seems like it could be obnoxious.

I know this all sounds like a huge to-do, but it's the best plan I have after hemming and hawing over it for a year. I've asked for advice around here, but pretty much all I get back is "Yep. That playfield is a mess. Good luck!" As I said, it's difficult for me to make it any worse, unless I'm doing it Hank's way.

#35 7 years ago

Since you removed the decals on the inserts anyway, have you considered sanding the whole thing down, and just applying a new overlay, and clear coating it?

#36 7 years ago

Do they make those? How much would one cost?

I suppose I could make my own, but it would probably be a real PITA to get it printed. Plus, applying it is probably a nightmare.

#37 7 years ago

I do not make them, but I understood they are commercially available. Sometimes you could just get the design files, but I guess then the PITA is getting them printed in the exact scale. I know someone who did it to a Highspeed, looked brand new. If you don't know it, you can't see it.

Edit - this seems a nice source to start from: http://pinballmagic.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=6&chapter=0

#38 7 years ago

I picked up some Oramask 813 stencil film and Clear Choice AT60n transfer tape from U.S. Cutter here in Redmond. I used these materials to cut some outlines of the five passengers, so that I can shoot grey around them on the inserts. Then, I can silk-screen white on top of the part that didn't get grey'd. After all the other painting is done, I'll put a layer of clear on the playfield, sand it nice and flat, and then put clear decals over the spots where the white silkscreen is. This will allow the opaque colors to pop more, while maintaining the clear parts of the passengers' faces and such.

The Oramask works well in my Silhouette Cameo with the blade set to 1, and the transfer tape is more or less useful in applying the Oramask cutouts to the playfield. The AT60n is the low-tack version of this tape, and I wonder if a higher-tack version might be easier to work with. As it is, I have to slowly get the Oramask onto the tape using a poker or the flat of a razor blade, and that makes small, floating things (like lettering) difficult to move easily.

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#39 7 years ago

I tried my hand at using the Silhouette Cameo to cut out the llettering for each of the passengers as well, but this low-tack tape is really difficult to work with on cuts that tiny. I'm asking Vid in the Ultimate Playfield thread if it's a bad idea to lay screening ink on top of heat-set Createx paint. If it's not, then maybe I'll save the screening for after the grey (and any other colors) are set down on the wood itself and I've put a layer of clear down to seal it up. Then I'll screen white ink on that, lay down another layer of clear, then put decals on that.

#40 7 years ago

Because it's a terrible idea, I decided I'd give screening a practice run on some crappy plywood I had lying around. I airbrushed some Createx black paint on the plywood, set it with a hair dryer, waited ten minutes or so, and then tried screening some white Nazdar 5500 ink through the StencilPro screen that I made earlier.

It was certainly a learning process.

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I suspect the reason it turned out this way was because I didn't make sure the screen was tight enough against the wood. If I'd made just a single pass, it probably would've turned out fine. I'll give it another shot this weekend and see if it turns out better.

One problem with the Nazdar ink is that it seems to clog up the screen mesh pretty quickly. So, unless I can figure out a way to clean this stuff off of the screen, I only get one shot per screen. Good thing I have five sheets!

#41 7 years ago

I made another Gorbie screen and tried again, with much better success. I made sure the screen was flat as possible against the wood, I flooded the screen with ink, and made a single pass with the squeegee.

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Not too bad. It's not quite fine enough, but that could be due to the wood itself, or the thick Nazdar ink I'm using.

Speaking of Nazdar ink, this 5500 screen printing ink is a real pain to clean off of my screen. So much of a pain, that it completely ruins it. I'm not sure I like this. I have a friend who uses Speedball acrylics for this kind of thing. Vid says he's never seen anyone use Speedball, and there was another guy in the playfield resto thread who insists that anything water-based (even acrylics) will destroy playfields. That's interesting, because Vid recommends Createx airbursh paints, which are water-based acrylics. Maybe airbrushing paint onto a playfield is different than screening it.

Anyway, my friend insists that he's never had a problem with Speedball acrylics. If it means I get to keep my screens after I use them just a single time, I may go that route.

#42 7 years ago

I drove up to a craft store in the University district of Seattle toady to pick up some white and black Speedball scrylic screen inks. Vid and other people have expressed doubt about their suitability for use on playfields, but I've got a friend who uses black Speedball ink and says he doesn't have a problem with it. I figured it's worth testing, at least.

It's certainly thinner than the Nazdar ink, evidenced by the little air bubbles left behind when I lifted the screen. It doesn't seem any thinner or runnier than the Createx airbrush acrylics, though. Indeed, the thinness of the ink is possibly what helps it get through the 200 mesh StencilPro HiRes screens I'm using.

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I don't know if it sets with heat like the Createx paints, but I figured there wasn't any harm in hitting it with a hair dryer for a few seconds. After that, I printed a color Gorbie on a transparency.

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I'm super pleased with the results. It looks like I may need to treat the lettering as a separate decal from Gorbie himself, but that's not a big deal. I think this plan might actually work!

#43 7 years ago

I've masked everything up, I've mixed the grey I'm happy with, and tomorrow I'm going to spray it down.

For masking, I used blue tape, paper bags, leftover Oracal from my cutting, and frisket. If you see areas that look like they're going to get covered in paint, but shouldn't be, it's because they're masked with frisket.

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I decided to mask everything on the road so I at least have the option of pulling it up afterwards and deciding which assets look fine with new paint around them and which ones are beyond saving and need to be silk screened and decal'd.

#44 7 years ago

I'm not technically past the point of no return, since this paint will come off with enough work. But it sure feels like a milestone in the two years I've been brooding over this thing.

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The paint is all heat-set. Now I'm going to let it dry overnight and see if I made it awesome or ruined it.

#45 7 years ago

Lookin good... I like your tenacity.

#46 7 years ago

I'm following closely, I have a similar project in a Highspeed playfield, grey road with white lines and cars to recreate. Thanks for documenting your restoration.

#47 7 years ago

The spray job is complete. I decided I didn't like how dark it dried, so I added some white to the mix and sprayed another coat. Maybe that was too much paint, because some of the masking had a tendency to pull up the edges of the paint while I was lifting it off. I'll have to ask Vid about that.

There's also the matter of the masking pulling up chunks of the clear coat that I put on this thing a year ago. I'm pretty sure I did something wrong back then. I either put too thin a layer of clear, or I sanded it too thin, or something. I'm asking Vid about that too.

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IMG_3151_(resized).JPGIMG_3151_(resized).JPG

Regardless of the cause, I think the plan going forward is going to involve cleaning all of the paint off of this thing for another round of sanding. From there, maybe I put another layer of clear down before airbrushing, maybe I don't. Again, I'm waiting for word from Vid on what I should do next.

For posterity, though, here's what the playfield looked like for a glorious few hours, before I realized that it was all built on a foundation of crap. OF CRAP.

IMG_3152_(resized).JPGIMG_3152_(resized).JPG

2 weeks later
#48 7 years ago

I spent last weekend re-clearing the playfield. I waited a day, sanded it down with some 220 and then 440, and put another coat on after that. I sanded THAT coat down with some 220 and 440, and here I am - ready to silk screen the outline of the passengers.

I'm using Speedball Acrylic ink with StencilPro HiRes stencils that I made using black-and-white on transparencies. I printed two copies of each transparency, lined them up, and taped them together. This ensured that no light would leak through when exposing the stencils.

After trying (and failing) a few times to lay down the ink properly, I finally got the hang of it. I then printed out the color version of the decals onto transparencies, as a test.

Here are the results:

IMG_3168_(resized).JPGIMG_3168_(resized).JPG
IMG_3169_(resized).JPGIMG_3169_(resized).JPG
IMG_3170_(resized).JPGIMG_3170_(resized).JPG

Hard to see are the little tiny bubbles that the Speedball ink leaves behind. Maybe I'm not pulling the screen away fast enough, or maybe that's just a property of the ink. I tried thinning it out just a bit so it wouldn't be so goopy, but the line between too little and too much water is razor-thin. Besides, the little bubbles aren't nearly as noticeable at arm's length when covered up by a transparency/decal.

If the goal is to get the thing to simply look better than it does right now, then I think we can call this a big step on the road to success.

I had to split the Santa Claus transparency into two parts, because I couldn't get it to line up properly from top to bottom, through the words SANTA CLAUS. I bet that if I had to, I could cut other decals in half along a small point (like the cloud coming of the exhaust pipe of the convertible) if I end up having the same problem with other decals.

I'm excited!

1 month later
#50 7 years ago

Summer's winding down, and I'm busting my ass to get this thing done before it gets too cold. Vid says that anything below 70 degrees might cause the clear coat to mist. I have a hard time believing that, but I'm still trying to get it done, since mid-September is when the Good Time officially end here in Seattle.

My experiment with silk screening was a success. And by that, I mean I learned enough about it to recognize that it's not for me. The ink is just too opaque, and I'm really bad at doing right each and every time. However, I decided to just waste a bunch of Oramask trying out all kinds of settings on my Silhouette, and found that a blade setting of 1, with a speed of 2 and a thickness of 5 or 6 seems to give me the best results. Weed a bit around the inside edges so you have something line up with and then use some AT75n transfer tape to put it down.

The benefit of airbrushing is that the ink ends up much more opaque, and so makes the colors really "pop" more when the decals are over them. The biggest risk, though, is that the Oramask can pull up the edges of the paint if you're not REALLY careful when pulling it up. I haven't really perfected a technique yet, other than trying to pull "away" from the paint, rather than "up and over it". For long lines, it doesn't hurt to run a really sharp exacto along the edge first.

After all this experimentation, the result is that my playfield now looks like this:

IMG_3250 (resized).JPGIMG_3250 (resized).JPG

Tomorrow, I clear coat. Then, I'll put on the decals, and do the final clear sometime in the next week or so.

The finish line is in sight!

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