Stern Wildfyre PF restore..

[Mr Pinbologist]

G'day all.. this is NOT one of my own pins, belongs to a mate of mine who asked me to give his Stern wildfyre playfield the "full treatment". this is the same game i repaired the boards for and documented here several months ago. Martin, the game's owner is doing the cab restore while i do the PF for him, and i have his permission to document the resto here... for anyone who gives a shit



Here are a few pics showing what i have to deal with.. quite a bit of work ahead of me!! will be working on both this one AND my Zac Universe, going back n forth between the two.. should be interesting!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

There is a fair amount of lifting plywood/planking on this one that i'll have to deal with.. especially in front of the 4 bank drop target.. typical of most Stern playfields of this era (that i have seen/worked on at least)

[Strangeways]

The dreaded "planking" effect. Looks like a challenge for you Mitch. Remembering the Dracula - I think it will look great. Will you be employing a similar approach?

This is the second Wildfyre playfield restore - Will be interesting to follow.

Keep the updates coming 

[Mr Pinbologist]

The dreaded "planking" effect. Looks like a challenge for you Mitch. Remembering the Dracula - I think it will look great. Will you be employing a similar approach?

This is the second Wildfyre playfield restore - Will be interesting to follow.

Keep the updates coming  

Yeah i'll use the same approach i used for Dracula. This was dropped off to my house last thursday night, i only just got a start on it today, while having a break from the Zac Universe backglass! I have it mounted on my PF jig and have started to remove parts from it.

It has HEAPS of ball swirl marks on it too. One good thing is there is NO mylar to remove!! that'll make the job easier. Most of it will probably be repainted..much the same as i did with my Dracula PF, but should be a much simpler job than Dracula was!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Hi guys, finally got a start on a few jobs/ projects that needed to be started. One is the Zac Universe cab restore that I’ve started (thread update coming soon) and the Stern Wildfyre PF resto that I’ve taken on for a mate of mine. Since he’s offered me some pretty good coin to do this ($500 worth!!) I thought id better get a start on it, so last week that’s what I did! Most of this PF will be completely repainted.
 
Actually I started a couple of weeks ago, by glueing up all of the loose plywood on there. Most of it I did using thinned out PVA woodglue, just letting it run down into the separated ply and clamping it down with blocks of wood and G clamps to keep it down while the glue dried. I allowed several days for the watered down glue to dry, (the crappy weather here at the time didn’t help drying time any either)! I placed grease proof paper between the wood blocks and the pf to avoid the blocks glueing themselves to the PF!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Once the glue had dried I then had to primer/fill the areas I had glued, and also any cracked areas in the paint. I used acrylic primer filler, out of a spray can, but I hand brushed the paint in rather that spray it on, same as I did on my Dracula PF.
 
The 2nd pic shows the left 4 bank drop target area which was the worst area that had lifting plywood. I sanded the PF first in these areas with 320 grit sandpaper before putting the primer filler on. These areas would be later block sanded back level with 400 wet/dry paper, and reprimering to fill the areas again if needed.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Painting progress;

‘Now where do I start’ I wondered?? I decided to start at the top and work my way down. In these pics im redoing the purple at the top of the PF. I’m using all the same techniques I used in my Drac PF, sanding back the areas to be painted with 400 grit paper first, then masking off the surrounding areas by placing down some clear book covering contact and cutting out the areas to be painted with a sharp scalpel. In the 4th pic im sanding the paint level, especially the edges with 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper, using Windex rather than water to wet the paper, this seems to work real well. I sprayed the Windex onto the paper, Not the PF.

The purple colour im using is the same paint I used on my Drac PF, id had the colour custom mixed when I did Drac, and put into a spray can, so I still had heaps left over. And it actually matches the colour on THIS PF better than it did on Drac!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

Here is the purple paint on either side of the top kickout holes done. The yellow around the kickout holes was the next area I tackled. In the 2nd pic im scanning the damaged lettering, in case I decide to make waterslide decals to replace the lettering. But I think im going to try touching up lettering by hand first, and only use the decal idea as a last resort, since I did some of this on Drac with pretty goods success.

In the last couple of pics here, im touching up the red on the left hand side orbit. I did this while the purple was drying, using water based artist acrylic, using the “paint & smear” trick.. just dabbing paint into the cracks/divots and just wiping off the excess paint.. quick and easy, simple but effective.

[Mr Pinbologist]

And here is the yellow around the top kickout holes being done, again using book contact as masking material. Notice too that I’ve masked off the lettering around the holes, I planned on cutting in around the letters with a fine brush later on.

I actually did the paint on this area twice.. the first time I wasn’t happy with the colour match of the yellow to the original colour, so I removed that colour before it had completely dried and redid it using a different shade that matched much better… so good in fact there was barely any need to cut in/touch up around the letters.

[Mr Pinbologist]

And here is the top drop target area after the white was redone. I’ve used an off white/beige colour for this, though it doesn’t really look like it in the pics! In these pics I’ve cut in around the lettering using a fine paint brush for the white, and a sharpie pen for the black lettering, and a magnifying glass! I still have some work to do on this lettering, and yes it VERY tricky to do, I’ve already messed it up a couple of times and had to fix stuffups!

Last pic shows the work done so far. Next thing to do is the light blue, that I’ll have to custom mix. I’ve already had a couple of experiments with mixing the colour, and I reckon I can get it pretty close. I have several areas of this colour that need doing, so I plan on preparing these areas for paint, mixing the colour and doing them all in one go with the air brush.

Stay tuned for more updates!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

I thought it was about time i did an update on this PF resto. I've been doing bits n pieces on this all the while i've been working on Universe.

First couple of pics show some of the work done on the collect bonus kickout hole. The reds were mostly done when this pic was taken, just needed a few more touchups in the red and the white in the lettering had to be done.

The next couple of pics show a little trick i came up with for redoing black lines, exploiting the fact that sharpie pen ink bleeds back through paint when you try to paint over sharpie ink. What i did was to go over the black detail lines in this section with a sharpie before i painted this area, then after i'd sprayed the white in, and the sharpie ink had bled back up thru the paint, i was able to re do the black lines after the paint had dried!!!

[Mr Pinbologist]

more pics.. the 2nd and 3rd pics show the aqua blue being done.

Still some fixing up/touch up to be done when these were taken

[Mr Pinbologist]

the blue colour, is done in automotive acrylic, as are most of the touchups i do lately. This colour i had to custom mix.. once again keep in mind i'm far from done in these pics.. just wanting to update where im at with this thing.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Starting the touchup in the red "special" lettering. i used a magnifier to help make the job easier, seeing what i am doing, a fine paint brush and water based acrylic for this.

and finally a pic of the work done so far. I'm working on this thing from the top to bottom, working my way down the PF. About 90% of what you see in this last pic has been repainted. Im still FAR from done here.. theres LOTS i have to do to get it to the point where it looks "decent" as i say. The owner however is REALLY impressed with the little i've done so far, he said he was in no rush for it so i've been taking my time, going back n forth between this and other projects of my own.

[ktm450]

Great results so far