The Aussie Pinball Arcade
Aussie Pinball Forums => Technical Matters => Handy hints and tips => Topic started by: Wotto on June 10, 2009, 06:12:09 PM
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Just a little bit of work on TOTAN today.
The main 'cross-wire' was tarnished and all the gold was worn off.
I have made 'Sydney enquiry's " about gold-dipping before and most chrome shops were telling me I had to travel way out west to get it done - and it wasnt cheap.
So I decided to compromise and try something myself - if it failed , well I was no worse off than when I started - if it worked - then it was a cheap easy fix.
So I simply rubbed it back - got a can of metallic gloss gold spray paint and sprayed 2 coats.
I then went over ot with 2 coats of a brush on 'clear that has a resin in it so hopefully that'll create a harden outer surface - I then sprayed a final coat of gold over that ( the idea being - if , over time , the top coat wears away , then it will wear back to the hardened clear coat and that will still be protecting the original gold spray under it).
Anyway - it turned out Ok and looks heaps better than the old worn cross-wire.
Heres B4 and afters ...... I am guessing for a home use machine that this will last quite a while !@#
I also started work on the left 'orb' hole near the captive balls - it looks better already but I need to get the paint a touch darker for the next 2 coats.
(http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/3121/12438056.jpg)
(http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/8890/afterr.jpg)
Next up I will be replacing the Skill Shot ramp ( man does it need it ! ) and re-decalling the apron.......stay tuned.
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Looks pretty good, be interested how it goes over time.
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Looks pretty good, be interested how it goes over time.
Yeah - its better than how it was - so I am happy with that .......for now.
Time will tell on the durability I guess.
Obviously I wont tell anyone if it completely stuffs up in a short time :lol :lol :lol
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Hey wotto - Keep a keen eye on what Mark and boys are bringing over from IPB - You never know what might pop up !
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Bit more work today.
Wasnt rocket science or anything tricky or even special - I just thought I would keep sharing it for anyone that’s interested or any other TOTAN owners to see.
The Skill Shot ramp on this machine was beaten up , tarnished and badly tack welded back together in spots etc like I guess most TOTAN machines would be. I bought a new ramp to tidy that section of my TOTAN up a bit.....
I copied Ed Chuengs idea and installed some plastic tubing over some sections of the ramp to stop the balls getting damaged, I only covered the main spots where the ball lands unlike Ed who covered everything. I also put some clear contact at the back wall to protect it and the old ramp had a crappy plastic guard on the left side , I cut that down by about 10mm and rounded off corners and made it a better overall shape with clean edges.
I also took some images off the PF plastics and put them over the plain targets that sit in the Skill Shot ramp.
Heres what it looked like yesterday
(http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/8168/ssrampinstalledb4.jpg)
Heres the 2 side by side with plastic tubing glued on and new side guard cut .............
(http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/7549/newstarted.jpg)
Here it is re-installed this arvo......
(http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/2074/ssinstalledafter.jpg)
I installed a new Genie as well as a new red spinning disc under the lamp today and re-sprayed the 'shooting star' spikes gold as well.
Tomorrow the apron re-decal starts as well as an attempt to fix this broken plastic. Its half broken already and has a clear piece ( not standard ) under it right now. It is also part of ( joined ) a main large plastic from the left side of TOTAN and has a clear section above an orbit.
My plan is to re-create the broken section as a free-standing part and cut the clear section off the main plastic so its gone forever. I did this on a Time Warp once and it worked out fine.
Heres the broken plastic...
(http://img32.imageshack.us/img32/3443/plastic.jpg)
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Looks good mate ^^^
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it doesnt look out of place, and a pretty good match for the other gold on the machine
Maybe if it wears try enamel baked in an oven for a harder finish?
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Nice work, Wotto !
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You always seem to impress Wotto !
Looks great ....
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Really nice work Wotto...as usual...
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I'm done with using lots of words to describe your work. RSI has set in. So I'll just use one word from now on......MAGIC
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I have a TotAN that I intend to restore after my White Water so I'm watching this thread with a lot of interest.
Thanks for sharing your tips.
I've already picked up quite a lot of very useful info so please keep the posts coming as you progress.
Great job so far by the way. ^^^
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Fixed a buggered up plastic today.
On the left mid section of TOTAN there is a captive ball behind a solid ball.
There is a large plastic that runs along the left of the PF and then has a clear section connecting it to the blue /flame image that covers the captive ball area.
As this image will show you - mine had a few 'issues' :lol
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/2540/plastic2o.jpg)
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6522/plastic1.jpg)
Note the blue/flame image is half missing.
So I decided to turn one plastic into 2 seperate pieces.
First I cut the clear section away from the yellow side with a jigsaw and a fine blade and glued the yellow pieces back together with a piece of mylar cut to shape under it as well
The top section of this PF plastic is held down in place by 2 screws close together when installed and not clearly visible, so the hairline 'crack' that shows up on it after glueing is not at all visible anyway as there is a ramp over it. I also cut a piece of 2mm perspex to the same shape as the top section of this ( down to the orange strip ) and installed it underneath so that if a stray ball flys toward it somehow ( doubtful - but you never know ) then it will hit the lower 'guard' plastic before it hts the pieces I re-glued on.
Note the little Space Invaders model cabinet pre-cuts used as 'rests' :lol
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/7356/plastickixedyellow.jpg)
Next up I printed an image of the blue / flame plastic that I got from Balls of Steel - beware , the scans there are not to size and do need modifying in Photoshop or similar - for this I had to add some of the blue section at the top and elongate it all just a little.
I printed a crappy copy for a size check and then used that to stick the the protective film on the perspex so I could cut my shape from it.
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/7522/newplastic1st.jpg)
Once I was happy that all fitted I printed a quality shot and stuck it to the underside of the plastic.
I had to cut all the 'white' out as well as cut the small flames out and stick em on independently.
Turned out OK.
The blue is a pretty good match to the PF under it and there is no light under this so I was just able to print it on normal gloss card - bit dodgy , yes !@), but it works fine for unlit PF plastics and is only the 2nd time I have done it that way. If there was direct light under this I would reverse print on clear transparent film and then white back it and do it properly.
(http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/8109/finalqwz.jpg)
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Looking good mate - Are you going to touch up the area where the captive ball lives ? Or maybe arrest the wear with a bit of mylar ?
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looks great
yes I have heaps of bits for TOTANS
mark
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Couple of things done this morning...... I had to wire in a new target up near the Genie as he one in the game was the incorrect style , the only ones I had were green , so now I had different colour targets around the PF ( green, yellow, white ) - yes I am a little bit pedantic and I like artwork so I decided to grab a shot of one of the temples on the PF and stick it on these 3 targets.
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/5459/bztarget.jpg)
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1845/genietarget.jpg)
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/5258/leftarget.jpg)
This also leads in to the next bit of work done today, which was to re-decal over the Genie 'mode start' area.
The last shot showed you the wear already existing in that area , there is already mylar in this section so I decided to cut around the bottle shape and then I would be able to 'lay' the new decal in place of the removed mylar and that way the PF level would be the same/ similar........well it came of easy .........but took the original art under it away COMPLETELY!
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/2692/ohshitj.jpg)
I already had the decal for this area so I wasnt at all worried - the trouble is that I hadnt tried to remove the new decal from its backing paper to check it before I started removing the mylar......so I start to peel the 'backing' off and I discover that the bloody thing is printed so that when you remove the backing paper that the sticky side is on the face of the bloody decal ( in other words - all done backwards ) Now I could be wrong here and I am still trying to work out why they would make a sticker with the sticky side on the sticker face !@#- did I not think this through correctly !@# If I did something wrong here I will be embarrassed and humbled......but I cant think what
Not only that , the colour match for the blue was pretty bloody way off as well as you will see in the following shot.....now this has to be said "who checks and sanctions this frickin stuff"- quite obviously - NO-ONE #@# ( and yes it was bought from an authorised re-seller ).
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1172/badcolourmatch.jpg)
So call me Mr Compromise......I mylar over the face of the new decal, I then lay a sheet of mylar inside the big clear circle insert so it gets more level with where it now needed to be......and I glue the thing down to the playfield.
Before I did that I cut the green ( whats meant to be blue ) out from under her arms in order to lessen the appearance of the wrong colour in this area and allow more white light to shine through
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1061/greenunderarms.jpg)
And here it is done - it came up OK but took 5 times longer than neccasary due to the modifications required to make it all work.
(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1709/donei.jpg)
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I think I have a similar decal and try to find it and check out the colours. From memory the blue is blue. Got it from mr pin
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I like your target decals better than these.
(http://i613.photobucket.com/albums/tt212/elkor-alish/totan.png)
Good idea.
It's coming together nicely.
Are you going to re-do the insert decals too?