One of my new aquisitions.. GTB 1960 Dancing Dolls.
This game has obviously been untouched or cleaned since it was made in 1960, its also been in storage and is absolutely filthy.
Ive been through the game and got her up and running 100% so now i can take off the furniture and clean her up.
With the furniture removed she looks like this... 50 years of grime
Now i went through this PF with some Magic Eraser.. she really is in VERY good shape.. unfortunately, the ME took off some paint around the pop bumpers.. this happened in ONE stroke - she was cleaning up really nicely and just ONE extra wipe did this... be warned on these old PF's ME can eat them in a flash.. so the ME has now gone and im back to the micro fibre cloth and nifty - works and is safe
Now i am forced to do some touch ups - i WAS pondering on doing some but this now seals the deal for me.
So heres my problem - just how far do i go??
Ive decided that minor touch ups only - where paint is thinned or chipped will be restored, im also restoring to a natural patina - in other words matching the yellowed and aged PF.
Bumpers can be tricky - painting a circle is not easy - your hand will NEVER do it justice.. only way is to make a stencil. I use Corel Draw and a vinyl cutter, but in all honesty there is nothing stopping anyone from doing this - a steady hand, a compass and a craft knife will cut your template....heres mine - i make 2 of each - one is for the black lines thet get done later and other is for the block colour. Vinyl used is SPRAY MASK blue - has anti leaching qualities on the edges and is a low tac film
Mask is applied EXACTLY ensuring all edges are firmly down
Colour has been matched and is now airbrushed on
If you look carefully at the original (worn) paint, it has been worn down on the left hand side more and the original bright paint is showing through - on the right hand side is the old patina. I was crafty with this one - i matched the original bright paint and applied this - allowed to dry and then what was left over i mixed with a yellow ochre to obtain the stained "antique" colour. An old PF will change colour through itself - what matches at the top will not match at the bottom. This gives me real headaches sometimes. So what i did here is apply the antique colour unevenly over the bright colour - it matches the whole PF this way.. when you do solid block colours they tend to stand out like the dogs bollox and so i remind myself that im RESTORING to a 50 year old machine - NOT factory new.
Result is this
.
The other pop bumper is even more yellowed and so paint is once again tinted to suit
Ok so now im restoring this PF to what will be a stunning 50 year old beauty.. where the post have been screwed down has torn int the paint - these are all over the PF.. is not really a worry, but it does protrude outside of the posts and looks ugly - a quick touch up makes all the difference
from this
To this
Im actually "filling" with paint on these and so it takes many applications. You can see where ive been here - not because the colour is wrong but mainly because where ive cleand has left no shine on the PF.. if you wet the area ( bit of spit!)youll see better results - remember, when its waxed THIS is what it will look like
The are has not quite filled yet - few more and it will disappear altogether.
Better example is here - these old PF's get little white dots all over them where the paint comes off in tiny circles - over time these grow to BIG circles and the PF is quickly ruined with ball play. Picture below has these all painted out in tiny touch up dots, paint is real thin like a wash - colour matching is best seen here - its spot on!
Actually, i cheated a bit here - GTB used the SAME colours on many games right through the years... i stole a small amount of blue from a JACKS OPEN im doing and doctored it slightly to match the extra years on her... once you have your "base" GTB colours you save a heap of time. Preventing them drying up on you is the hard part
So some more minor touch ups to do - is good work, very relaxing... but you can see its not a major job
MORE TO COME!!!
