The ball arch had weathered the 37 years fairly well, all considering. But, it was worth stripping back and repainting. I found a colour in a spray at Bunnings that was a very good match. Here are the before and after images.
The playfield rails also warranted a repaint. These could have been left as-is, but I decided to remove them and sand them back, and paint. The new colour wasn’t an exact match with the original, but given that the original had probably faded over the years and the new colour was pretty close, that was fine by me.
Here are the before and after images.
Onto the apron. Now this was a real shame ….. the apron looked beautiful for its age, except of course in the areas where it had been mutilated with who knows what. Lindsay advised me that this was likely caused by operator stickers, and what a shame. Look at the left side of the apron - I would have gladly left the apron as-is if the condition of it were like this side.
Thankfully Pinball Rescue “came to the rescue” on this one. Lee was literally just putting the finishing touches on the correct apron decal for this Bally era, and the decal was made available when I needed it. How good is that.
Here is the original apron, with the Pinball Rescue decal below it.
The apron was sanded back, primed and painted with gloss white.
This was one very large decal to work with, and it escapes me a bit as to how I managed to eventually line this one up on the apron. It did take at least 3 goes, and thankfully the instructions were useful in advising to wet the surfaces first. This allowed me to reposition it, and I would have messed it up otherwise.
