Gtb Outer Space backglass restore

[Mr Pinbologist]

G'day all, Just thought i'd share a few pics of the BG i'm tidying up for Andy, (AP member greenechidna)

This is from his Outer Space that he bought a while ago. He has asked me to redo the reds that are faded (as the reds usually are!) plus the white around the score reel areas which had been brush touched up by someone at some stage of the game's life.

Since this title was a holy grail for Andy, i'm going to try to do as much repair as i can do to make the glass as best as i can for him... which means i'll redo as many or the faded reds as i'm able to, plus some of the sponge marks that have leeched thru to the front of the glass.

My apologies that i didnt get any pics before i started  but i did manage a few during the removal of the faded red in the game name, plus the '1st player' and '2nd player' back lit text i was asked to repair.

Last pic shows the first section prepped and ready for new paint.

[Mr Pinbologist]

More pics.. red applied

The white diffusing layer of paint went on after the red had dried to brighten the colour and make it 'pop' 

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next was the text above the score reel areas..

This ended up being a pretty big pain to do 
the only practical way to do this was to try something i have not done before on a BG.. waterslide decals!

Trying to colour match the red i had just sprayed was practically impossible, and it took me several goes to get it to the stage you will see later on in the next post which i thought was acceptable. Two layers were needed (one decal applied over the other) to get some depth to the red when backlit so as to not look washed out. Lining up the 2nd decal over the first was tricky but i got there in the end 

1st pic shows my decals printed, sealed with clear acrylic and ready to be cut out and applied
2nd & 3rd pics, the glass scraped clean, triple thicked and ready for decal application
4th pic decals applied and ready for the white diffusing paint to be sprayed on

[Mr Pinbologist]

Front view before white backing and after!

Colour is as close as i can get it without spending DAYS trying to get it better  

As i said i had tried several times to get this right.. it would look fine printed out but once applied to the glass and the white was sprayed on would look 'too red'. In the end after doing some trial runs i found i could get it to match better (more orange looking) by spraying an off white/beige colour on the back of the decal(s) followed by the flat white.

Not a perfect match but it DOES look a lot better in the flesh, the camera flash makes it look worse than it is.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next i decided to have a go at repairing the rather nasty looking sponge mark in the light blue at the top of the glass. I used my Trident airbrush acrylic paints for this. After a few goes at matching the colour i managed to get it pretty close!

I brushed this colour on rather than spraying with the airbrush since it is an unlit section. It has been locked in with silver/grey paint behind the glass.

[Boots]

nice work, came up a treat

[oldpins]

Well done ! Looks a lot better !

[Strangeways]

Nice work - looks great 

[Slash]

Very impressive job, the owner would no dout be very happy with the result!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Thanks for the kind words guys 

Very impressive job, the owner would no dout be very happy with the result!

Andy hasn't been online since i started this thread, so it should hopefully be a nice surprise for him next time he logs in and checks the restorations
 

[Mr Pinbologist]

Just a small update;

Had a bit more progress today, i redid the white around the score reels

1st pic shows what i had to remove and why i was redoing these sections, it looked ok from the front unlit, but looked rather ordinary when backlit, showing up the brushed on touchups someone had done 

2nd and 3rd pics cleaned glass ready for masking off the score reel windows

4th pic, masked off and acrylic flat white applied (actually white primer).

After a failed attempt at this using masking tape (the edges weren't as clean as i would've liked), i ended up using frisket as the masking material which gave much better results!

[Mr Pinbologist]

A few more pics for now,

removing the masking and the a few pics of the final results!

I also did a lot of small touchups to a few sections of black and light blue this afternoon.

I'm just about at the point where i could seal my work with the silver/grey paint and give Andy the glass back, but me being me, i'll most likely keep finding more areas that i'll want to improve.. being the pedantic fussy bastard i am!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

One thing i forgot to point out, the last two pics in reply#10 the large spots of black paint were already there when i received the glass (put there by a previous owner). these are still letting light thru so they need doing again! they will be painted over with silver/grey when i'm finished with the touchups, so should look much nicer from the back

Another thing, the piece of red vinyl (or cellaphane)? stuck over the 'ball #5'  light, im not sure now if Andy said he put that there   i'm undecided if i'll touch that or not   It actually looks ok lit, so i'm leaning towards leaving it, as it might be risky removing it!

[howzat]

Looken good Mitch     The blue is a nice match and now there s no sponge mark   Im sure Andy will be impressed          Howzat

[goodolddays]

Fantastic result again Mitch  .