I think that playfield restoration is a niche area that I think will be an area of high demand. Artwork touch ups and clearcoating is an area that has not catered for the demand (in Australia). Certainly, there are those that CAN do the work (Like Gavin), but he can only do "so many" playfields before the back log starts.
I've of the opinion that you MAY find more work in the playfield restoration area, because many collectors and hobbyists are waiting for a professional service to become available. I would be interested to know if you intend on providing playfield restoration services on older machines, such as EMs - which were originally more of a lacquer than a clearcoat. So they are not a high gloss finish.
Backglass restoration - again - another niche area. From the typical Williams Red fade (Flash) to the cracking of the wafer thin ink on GTB System one backglasses. Even backglass sealing - as a service ?
Just some ideas - I feel that playfield restoration as a "stand alone service" will be time consuming and laborious, but there is a potentially huge demand for it.
I agree 100% Nino. Tim is blessed with artistic skills and I believe that playfield restoration work will become his bread and butter as there is such a demand for it locally. Once the PinTales standalone services are up and running, I'll be linking and recommending both his and Gav's services.
Between the three of you guys, and with others that can clearly do similar work (Mitch as an example), it will enable pinheads to not have to rely on overseas services, that can take years. I know that when I source machines, I check to see if a repro playfield is available, because I have no artist skills whatsover. Personally, I'd like to learn, but there's no way I could ever reach the acceptable standard. So I work to my strengths. Ironically, I can repaint a cabinet, but I would much rather have a professional do my playfields - and I have a heap of work currently lined up with Gavin already. Unfortunately, he only has one set of hands !
EMs will be an interesting learning curve, and I believe Gavin has done some research on this with his "Bank A Ball". High Gloss clearcoats on EMs is not acceptable in my opinion. I'd rather see no clearcoat. They did things a little bit differently in the "old days", and subtle things like thinner paint and a yellow tinge on an EM adds to the character of the machine. Tim / Marty - if you need to "Study" an EM playfield I have plenty of EMs in storage !
