Stern Dracula restore

[Creech]

Lovely work.

One can't help but think we have the best pinball restorers in the country right here on AP.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Ok.. I’ve been a bit slack during the last week, having started work again for the year hasn’t helped! Have just been doing little bits and pieces here and there in between work etc. The previous week I had off work, I pretty much spent the whole time working on this PF. I reckon I’ve easily put about 70 hours into it so far.

I’m mostly done with the touchups, just the missing lettering to be redone before the mylar goes on.
 
The first couple of pics show the lamp inserts below the top drop targets that I had to remove (they were loose anyway) and flatten and reglue in. I ended up drawing the black circles around these using sharpie pens and a math-o-mat, rather than masking and painting, and they came up looking pretty decent I think. The light parts in the black ink (the joins between the insert and the pf) cant be seen in real life.. the camera flash just shows them up more that you really see.

Some of the minor touchups I did with waterbased acrylic paints.. mainly the black areas near the outhole/outlane areas that had some pinhole wear and a few ball swirl marks that came up pretty good using the old “paint & smear” technique, the rest with normal auto acrylic spray paint, only brushed on rather that sprayed… again mostly very small pinhole wear spots around the playfield. 

For the outhole black areas I used a cotton bud, lightly moistened in the waterbased acrylic artists paint and worked the paint into the ball swirl marks in this area, then wiped off any excess paint that got onto the other colours. This worked really well for me.

I’m pretty happy with the outcome so far. And yes there have been a couple of stuffups along the way! Mostly slip ups with the paintbrush or sharpie pens due to my hand not being steady enough, thus getting paint/ink where it wasn’t supposed to go. Nothing that couldn’t be fixed though, just made it take a bit longer to get done that’s all.

You have to be REAL careful with this if using sharpie pens doing this kind of work. If you slip up with these, it can be difficult, if not impossible to remove the ink (I used Prepsol on a cotton bud on a coupe of spots successfully), and if you have to retouch a painted area where you slipped, the ink can bleed back thru the paint you’re putting on, but with patience these stuffups can be fixed… put the paint on in a few light coats, let the paint dry between coats. I ended up using a sharpie pen with a REAL fine point to get the outline on certain parts of the PF, then carefully worked the ink up to that line with a thicker tipped pen.. (you can see an example of this in the first pic of the inserts).

[Retropin]

looks very sweet!

Missing lettering is in the post!

[Strangeways]

Excellent work Mitch. Keep the updates coming.

 

[MartyJ]

Nice work.  Cant wait to see the finished product!

[jyebow]

Great work Mitch,
I keep saying it , I can't believe that's the same game that I looked at before you picked it up.
 The transformation is amazing!  ^^^Your resto skills are a credit to you.
That will be one of the best Drac's around, without a doubt !!
well done. cheers Steve.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Alrighty then!! I’m really on the home stretch with this PF now! The lettering stencils arrived yesterday that Gavin made for me.. thanks mate. So soon as got home from work I made a start on getting the missing lettering done.

First though, I decided to buy myself an airbrush to do this. Being so small and fine there was NO WAY I was going to attempt to do this with spray cans. So during my lunch hour yesterday I went to my local hobby shop and bought an airbrush and small compressor.

Believe it or not, I actually attempted the smaller and harder to do “shoot again when lit “ first! As this area was ready to go. After carefully aligning and applying the stencil, and masking off the surrounding areas I fired up the compressor and loaded up the airbrush with black acrylic paint. I used the same auto acrylic I did the spray touchups with.. spraying the paint straight into the glass jar for the airbrush, thus no mixing thinners into the paint was needed. Then after a practice run to get used to the airbrush first (I’d never used one before), I sprayed the black on in several very light coats, let the paint dry a bit for about 5 minutes before removing the stencil.

1st pic show the black lettering done… my digital camera batteries were flat at this time so I only have the end result pic of this part.

Next few pics show the progress of the white “advance bonus” lettering. When test aligning this stencil I discovered I’d stuffed up ever so slightly with the size of the purple area where the stencil was to go, making it necessary to mask off and redo this section So it was out with the clear contact and craft knife with a new blade, I spent a couple of hours last night fixing this, so it would be ready to spray on the lettering this morning. 2nd 3rd and 4th pics show the progress. Lettering still was slightly tall for this area, so I trimmed a small section from the stencil between the two words and carefully aligned and butted together so that they’d fit better.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Next I applied the new mylar. 1st pic shows the mylar half way thru being applied. I carefully measured and cut to size the mylar sheet. Then I made sure the PF was spotlessly clean with no dust etc on it before I peeled back the backing paper of the mylar bottom “v” shaped section near the apron end, placed the mylar sheet onto the PF. After checking the alignment I stuck down the bare end onto the PF, running my fingers widthways along the mylar and working my way back, so as not to get any air bubbles in it. Once the starting part was on, I reached under and grabbed the pulled back backing paper and slowly pulled it back while at the same time rubbing the mylar down onto the pf with my fingers, again lengthways and working my way UP the PF.

I’m not sure what the rest of you guys use when mylaring PFs, but this stuff I got from Bumper Action, is a 3M product, and is fairly thick, making it virtually impossible to get creases in it applying it so it works really well. It also has a plastic protective covering on the top side that you peel off once the mylar is on. Before I remove this I burnish the mylar down with the back of a table spoon to make sure its stuck down real good.

When refitting posts etc I have in the past found it necessary to cut around the areas where the posts sit and remove the mylar anywhere anything bolts down. Otherwise the mylar lifts and bubbles in these spots, regardless of how long you leave it before reassembling everything. This trick has served me well with the last few PFs I’ve redone with mylar.

Last pic shows after the mylar has been done, but prior to having any of the switch/post areas etc being cut out. Overall i'm pretty pleased with how this has turned out. There ARE a couple of bits i wish had turned out better but for the most part im happy with it.

[Retropin]

Oh mate - you did a top job with those stencils. The whole PF looks so good now.
There are always parts of a restore that you will never be happy with - thats how you keep getting better. Complete satisfaction is never achievable and each restore is a honing in on the skills.

Looks bloody great!!!

 Well done mate

[ktm450]

Awesome job Mitch, came up like new considering what you started with 

[Strangeways]

Well I'm used to your standard of work Mitch, so I can't say I'm "amazed".. But I find the finished playfield "amazing".

Well done !

 

[Skybeaux]

That's one hell of a nice job you've done 
I saw and played this machine before you bought it , i can recall how noisy the ball rolled on the playfield's bare wood.
It sounded like you were at a bowling alley 

Looks fantastic!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Still working on this playfield… I’ve been a bit slack with it over the past week or so.. took a break from it last weekend after posting the last lot of pics, of the lettering and mylar covering, and headed of to Port Macquarie for some sun, sand and surf, and to visit family and friends, while waiting for some new parts to arrive, ie bumper bodies, flipper bats, shafts and bushes.

Now for the fun part… reassembly when I got home on the Sunday, first thing I did was to polish and install the metal posts. It seems everytime I reassemble a PF I do some thing differently… especially when it comes to polishing. This time I tried some RE-PO paint doctor auto polish. Normally this is used to remove fine scratches in a car’s paintwork. Its also great on plastics/Perspex etc. and as I found out its also great on metal parts for buffing them to a shine. These posts, I mounted them in my electric drill and spun them while holding some rag with the RE-PO on it against the posts to buff them. This worked great as can be seen in the 1st pic.

Some of the post holes had stripped out so I had to fill some of the post holes prior to refitting. I used toothpicks for this, cutting them and tapping them into the holes with a small hammer (and using some wood glue on them as well). I let these dry overnight before fitting the posts.

The 2nd pic shows my hand made flipper linkages, with one already fitted to one of the plungers. I made these from fiberglass PCB, taking measurements from the old linkage for the holes and dimensions. I superglued two pieces together for each linkage, to double the thickness (they’re actually thicker than the originals) so they hopefully last longer!  I made linkages for my Stern Lectronamo pin using the same material, about 2 years ago and they’re still going strong. The flippers were totally rebuilt using these, new coil sleeves and bushes, and a new end stop on one flipper (one fell apart when I removed the screws!) 

The 3rd pic shows the broken metal guide rail from around the kickout hole, that had dug a hole into the PF. I fixed this by grinding the rivets down, removing the broken angle bracket and making a new bracket, and simply screwing it on with small countersunk head screws. Then I polished it up with the RE-PO polish. This polish also contains wax, so it may also help to prevent corrosion/tarnishing of metal parts.

Last pic shows the PF so far, with all the posts, rubbers etc installed. The bumpers have also been rebuilt in this pic… new bodies, coil sleeves and the rod & ring assemblies cleaned and polished. Just the lamp sockets to be cleaned/repaired, slingshot plungers and sleeves to be fitted, apron repainted, ball trough components to be cleaned and installed.

Also I have to replace a couple of plastics… one missing completely (should be one over the kickout hole) I found out. The other one, above the top drop targets, had a piece broken off and missing. I’ll most likely have to make these myself. I already have the scanned and repaired drop targ plastic on my PC ready to go.

I’ll post some pics of the plastics when done.

[Retropin]

Aaaah,

It is so nice when you start putting the furniture back on. Once it all back on and you turn her on for the first time - you cant help but stand back and admire the sight

[Creech]

I still can't believe what a great job you did of that playfield. Amazing