Apron Restore:
1st pic shows the decals I made. Once again I already had the scanned and edited images on my PC from my previously done Stingray and Lectronamo restores. I actually had a couple of stuff ups doing this apron, firstly I messed up the paintwork and had to strip it and start all over again, then I realized after checking flyer images for this game that the red and blue are actually swapped on Dracula than what they are for Stingray and Lectronamo, ie the red bits should be blue and vice versa. No drama normally, as I could fix it in Photoshop, but I’d already printed the decals! So that wasted two sheets of decal and some printer ink. Then when I had THAT sorted, one of the decals went on crooked.. AAARGH!!
Anyhow now that’s out of my system..lol, I’ll get on with it.
Firstly I stripped all of the black enamel paint that some tool had plastered all over the apron and shooter gauge… why do people DO things like that?? Anyway the clean n strip disc made short work of it (2nd pic). Once all of the paint was off I prepped the apron for primer, wiping it down with Prepsol and rag before giving it several coats of acrylic primer.
I allowed that to dry overnight then sanded the primer back smooth with 400 grit wet/dry paper (sanded wet with water), dried it off and wiped it down with Prepsol again before giving it several coats of acrylic white. After the white had dried overnight, I gave it a sand back with 1200 grit wet/dry (sanded wet again) to get the surface nice n flat, and to give the clearcoat I intended to put over it something to adhere to.
Next I applied the decals.. you only get ONE go at this, so it has to be lined up perfectly first time! I cut out some black cardboard to fit into the instruction card recesses, (to show thru the white decal backing paper.. hopefully! so I could align the blue instruction card surrounds to the black cardboard. It was difficult to see but it worked out ok. I usually peel back the backing paper about 20 –30mm or so on one end (the middle in this case) line it up and stick that down, then reach under and peel the backing off while smoothing the decal down from the top side as I pull the backing paper off, this reduces the chances of air bubbles in the decal.
When I did this the left side went down real well, but the right side I didn’t align it properly so I had to pull it up and start again! Luckily the second attempt went much better, as I was running out of printer ink..lol. once the decals were on, I trimmed the edges carefully with a craft knife and burnished it all down nice n hard by placing a sheet of white paper over the decals and rubbing it down firmly using the back of a table spoon.
After that I gave the whole lot a few coats of acrylic clearcoat. This was done for added protection for the decals, incase they get wet.. anything liquid.. water, cleaning products etc will make the inks run otherwise. The first couple of coats I sprayed on light, so as to minimize the chance of making the inks run. I let them dry between coats before giving it a final “wet” coat.
The ball shooter gauge copped the same treatment, I had to remove and scan one from one of my other Stern games to get the artwork because this one had been painted black…
Just some plastics to remanufacture now and its done!
oops.. used the wrong pic for the decals (first pic)
that was the first (incorrect) lot i made, but you get the idea..
