The Aussie Pinball Arcade
Aussie Pinball Forums => Restorations => Topic started by: Mr Pinbologist on February 23, 2013, 11:11:05 PM
-
Hi all
here are a few pics of the backglass for the Stellar Wars that i just did the pf out of, belonging to AP member howzat (Ian).
I'll be redoing most of the reds and some of the yellow.. not all of it just the badly faded and/or see thru parts to start with, and if i'm feeling brave maybe some of the more intricate areas.
Ideally it would be good to redo ALL of the red so it all matches but Its not really possible to do it all without going to a HUGE amount of trouble, but Ian is mostly concerned with the faded and see thru areas in the game name so its this area i'm concentrating on most, plus some of the cracks in the dark blue. Having said that, i'll be doing as much as i can to get this glass looking presentable.
-
a couple more pics from the back..
-
Looking forward to seeing your techniques on this one Mitch . ^^^
-
I've made a start already, having been doing some work on it for the last couple of days when time permitted.
I started on the red.. using the same auto acrylic spraypaints i have used on my Stern Dracula and Quickdraw glasses (among others)
You can see in the previous pics i had already started scraping the reds in places *%* being so faded and loose it scraped off real easy with virtually NO chipping of the black key lines!
After scraping the glass clean i cleaned the glass with Windex sprayed onto a tissue (NOT straight onto the glass)!! then cut some stencils to spray the paint on.
As with my Drac glass and the others i place a light underneath shining up thru to aid in tracing the outlines onto the paper stencils i make to do this. The light also help me make sure i get an even coverage of paint.. not much paint is needed, just enough to cover and no more, this way when i add the white paint later on to help diffuse the lights the colours will 'pop' even more!
-
More pics.. spraying the red for the game name.. i didn't do all this in one hit, i prefer doing smallish sections at at time rather than a whole lot at once.
1st and 2nd pics without and with the light shining up thru respectively so i can see how its looking..
-
last lot of pics for now.. reds done in this section #*#
1st pic, glass scraped and cleaned
2nd pic, stencil placed and paint applied
3rd pic, stencil removed.. i do this immediately after spraying the paint on
4th pic, how its looking so far!
Next i'll start on the yellows
-
Looking good so far .
So you don't seal the glass until afer you repaint affected areas, is that right ? and you just use paper to make the stencils for the areas you want to respray?
I'm asking all these questions because I have to try and repaint a lot of areas on my '65 Gottlieb Thoro Bred glass soon.
-
Looking good so far .
So you don't seal the glass until afer you repaint affected areas, is that right ?
What material do you use for the stencil ?
I am wondering about the stencil sticking to an unsealed glass and lifting other paint off when removed .
I'm asking all these questions because I have to try and repaint a lot of areas on my '65 Gottlieb Thoro Bred glass soon.
I didnt seal this one before doing this as it wasn't necessary. if the surrounding paint is lifting i'll seal with TT first before spraying the colour, otherwise you get the colour you are spraying/airbrushing bleeding in underneath the surrounding artwork which is NOT good!!
i'd probably advise anyone trying this for the first time to seal the cleaned off glass with TT before spraying any new colour on *%* *%*
I use thin white cardboard or plain white copy paper for the stencils.. cardboard probably a better choice but i use paper most of the time as its usually on hand.
I'll be honest.. Yes there IS danger of the stencil sticking and lifting unsealed paint, and yes i've had it happen learning to do this for myself!! .. again probably better to seal first for a 1st timer before attempting this *%* You can usually see it from the front of the glass if the paint is lifted anywhere that has been scraped.. if its lifted along a scraped edge.. SEAL IT!! or you're gonna be in a world of hurt !!! This is the main reason why i remove the stencil straight away, so the paint doesn't have time to dry and pull up surrounding paint that may be loose.
These are just tricks i've learned/taught myself that work for me that i've been doing for years, and i use them now as a part of my living doing resto work for others, and really are tricks ANYONE could do so long as care is taken.. having said that i'd HATE for someone to ruin their bg based on following my posts..
-
Fantastic result as usual Mitch.
My SW backglass is almost identical (to the before shots unfortunately) so amazing to see such a transformation. ^^^
You must be very pleased Ian.
-
Love your work!
How well does the light come through compared to the original ink? Is it a matter of very light costs or other technique?
-
Love your work!
How well does the light come through compared to the original ink? Is it a matter of very light costs or other technique?
The light comes through pretty good, obviously its best to use as little paint as possible and the smoother you can get the paint on the better.
Its hard to get good pics showing how they look lit, but here are some pics of the quickdraw i did a year or so ago.. i posted these in the Quickdraw resto thread but i'll put them up again just to give you an idea of how they can turn out.
I redid the reds in this glass using the same techniques and even used the same colour red as i'm using on the Stellar glass.
-
Yes Im very pleased #*#
I can see that it will come up a treat just as the P /f did will have to post a pic It plays really nice so I carnt Waite to get the B?G back in the game
It will look as nice as it did back when it was new Howzat
-
Hi guys, a bit more progress today *%*
got some more of the red done, plus i redid the faded yellow in the name.
some pics;
-
More pics;
Redoing the Williams logo.
Last pic an overall pic of how the glass is looking so far.
-
Huge improvement so far and thanks for the tips ^^^
-
wow those reds really pop! well done!
-
wow those reds really pop! well done!
They'll pop even more once the white light diffusing layer of paint goes on *%*
-
I have watched this thread with interest, thinking about my 1978 Phoenix backglasses.
1 x backglass needs this type of repair and the other is 90 percent and fine.
Watching your excellent work has given me some knowledge that i previously didnt know existed.
Its good to know that a backglass has options rather than being junky.
Congrats on your great work and thankyou for sharing some great techniques.
-
Love your work Mitch always love your threads
-
Thanks Cavey and Daniel for the kind words ^^^
Not all BGs can be saved this way, only ones with solid colours, what i think is called "line art" !@# style like this one and most older ones.
Glasses like Kiss, Lost World and Paragon etc come to mind as glasses that these repair techniques will not work, due to the way they are printed.
Wont be too much longer and this glass will be done! Had to stop work on it temporarily, as i'm in the process of building another playfield rotisserie. I have need a second, bigger one to take bigger PFs, like Ian's Genie pf that i'm starting on soon (these are about 5 inches longer that a standard pf and wouldnt fit in my old wood constructed one) ^&^ the new one is being built out of steel.
Speaking of Genie, i will be redoing the reds in the BG for it as well *%* will be done probably after the pf is done..
-
Awesome job ^^^
-
Backglass is now DONE!! and back in Ian's game
Sorry i didn't get any pics for the rest of the resto efforts, camera battery was flat so i only managed to get a couple of the finished glass.. well as much done as i was able to do that is!!
2nd pic is of the glass back in his game and lit up.. the pic doesnt do it justice as its hard to get a good pic of the glass backlit... looks way better in the flesh *%*
-
WOW! Very nice work *%*
-
please, what product do you use for the white diffusing layer,damien
-
Just checked the original pics again.
Hard to believe it's the same backglass.
Amazing and inspiring work. @@* @@*
-
yes the pics dont do it justice it looks fantastic lit up its very vibrant and it pretty well looks as it did back in the day when it was new great job howzat
-
Top notch as always, Mitch ^^^
-
Thanks for the kind words guys ^^^
It did come up pretty good, there were a few sections i had to leave alone so there ARE a couple of bits where there is still some red fading or minor cracking, but they arent really that noticeable, its nearly impossible to make them look like new.
I did cheat in one lit section (the large cracks in the blue and black in the before pics) since i couldn't touch it up and make it look nice backlit, i sprayed a silver mask over these sections from the back, so as to block out the backlighting completely, that way i didnt have to worry about trying to match the translucency of the blue paint to the original which is practically impossible. After consulting Ian about doing this he was happy for me to go ahead with that little mod (which is permanent btw.. once done its on for good!). Some of you may not like this approach but there really isn't much else that can be done other than leave it as is and have light shining thru the cracks! I'll be exploring other ways of repairing these areas in the future *%*
please, what product do you use for the white diffusing layer,damien
Damien, I use Power Plus brand acrylic white primer for the diffusing layer. (bought fron Super Cheap Auto).
Not much is needed, only a light coat is needed otherwise it can and WILL block out too much light!! I usually spray only just enough so you can still see some of the colour behind it when its applied. Even with a light covering it still brightens up the colours nicely from the front of the glass.
below are the before and after pics so you can compare;
-
.
-
I'll try that again... quoted myself by accident modifying the previous post, then went to delete and add more info and ran outta time @.@ @.@
I wanted to add that i ended up doing a LOT more on this BG than i originally intended. Ian was most concerned with the red and yellow in the game name, and the see thu bits and would've been happy to have those done and nothing more, but i ended up going a little further than that... as per usual for me :lol
I ended up doing more of the red and yellow, plus a lot of the light blue and whites as well, in particular the white and blue spaceships which were scraped clean and sprayed/airbrushed.
I even ended up deciding to try out some new paint i bought recently, Trident brand airbrush paint, which worked out well for me!! This stuff is compatible with most automotive finishes which meant i was able to spray the white diffusing paint over it with no dramas, in effect sealing it nicely #*#
-
great work,thanks for the tips. ^^^