Stern Wildfyre PF restore..

[Pinfan]

Love your work Mr Pinbologist !

Coming up a treat... 

Thanks for sharing... 

[Mr Pinbologist]

Well i think its about time i did a small update on the Wildfyre playfield im working on. This work pictured here in this post was done a few weeks ago, and i'm only getting around to posting now!! Anyhow i've been busy with the Magic Eraser and Isocol as can be seen in these pics. A fair bit of cracking and ball swirl was evident here, and between a scrub up with the ME and isocol, and some touching up by the "paint n smear" trick got the area looking much better. There was STILL a bit of work to do when these pics were taken, in particular the black lettering, which will be done soon. 

[Mr Pinbologist]

And here is the left drop target area being painted. I used clear Contact book covering to mask off the surrounding areas, as i usually do, doing each colour one at a time, once the previous paint has dried. Im using acrylic paints for this, spray cans bought from Supercheap Auto, same as i did on my Dracula playfield. The purple im using is what was left over from Dracula, which i had custom mixed into a spraycan.

In the last pic, the black lines have been re-done (i used a sharpie pen for this) and im now just deciding if the orange will be re-done.. looking at it now, i think it WILL be! The black will be repainted tomorrow, its masked up ready to go, and the yellow 'flames' have already been done but i havent taken the pics yet.

This playfield has turned into a MUCH BIGGER job than i had anticipated, more so than Dracula was! At one point i was almost sorry i took it on, but its coming together ever so slowly but surely

[Caveoftreasures]

Andrew (Beaky) who is a member here, has a machine identical to this he may have for sale. I think the playfield is much better from memory.

call him on 0422 473539.

[Mr Pinbologist]

Andrew (Beaky) who is a member here, has a machine identical to this he may have for sale. I think the playfield is much better from memory.

call him on 0422 473539.

thanks anyway .. this is NOT my own pf, and i have already been paid a heap of money to restore THIS playfield. and besides i love a challenge and i reckon i got one when i took this on   it'll look good when done.

I enjoy taking things like this that most of you would more that likely throw out and restoring it as best as possible.

[Caveoftreasures]

well, it goes without saying, that you are doing a bloody great job.

its a lot of work, and the attention to detail is excellent. i always take my hat off to people who have patience to do restores.

your client/friend should be happy with the end result.

**the machine i mentioned for sale, might be of benefit to any other forum member who wants a wildfyre or a playfield for one. 

[Mr Pinbologist]

Hi guys, its been a long time between updates on this wildfyre PF, top be honest I‘ve been a bit slack with it over the last few months, mainly due to crappy weather holding up the painting progress. But over the last week or so I’ve managed to get a bit more done.

I had redone all the black areas in the middle just after the last update was posted, as can be seen in these pics. In these pics im redoing the yellow around the “1000 & advance bonus” rollover hole, masking it off with book covering contact, as usual.

[Mr Pinbologist]

More pics… in the 1st pic in using tracing paper to trace out the white areas around the bonus lettering, so I can reproduce them later. this is a similar trick to what I used on my Dracula PF, tracing the art back onto the PF using carbon paper, thus giving me lines to paint to.

2nd pic is after the yellow has been repainted, I had masked off the bonus numbering prior to painting.

Last two pics show the white around one of the bonus numbers being masked off, and the result after being painted. Again I used book contact for this.

[Mr Pinbologist]

After spending ages trying to touch up the black bonus numbering by hand, I gave up and decided to use waterslide decals. This thing is taking WAY too long to complete and I needed to save time in order to get it done quicker, especially since I’ve already been paid to do the work!

First I needed scans of the numbers, which was done so I could touch the lettering in photostudio. In the end I ended up finding a close matching font in photostudio to use instead, and modified the numbers slightly so they looked reasonably close to the original font used, mainly the “2s” I had to change, how they curl around at the top. I only needed to modify one, then I simply copy/pasted it as needed onto the other numbers. 1st pic shows a test print on plain paper… I did this for all the decals I made in order to check the size was correct against the PF before printing onto waterslide decal paper.

2nd and 3rd pics show some of the finished decals I would be using, and the last pic is of the finished bonus numbering. Of course I had to first paint over the original numbering, let it dry and sand it back level with 800 grit wet&dry using Windex as a wetting agent, before I could apply the decals. After they were applied and had dried on there I sprayed some clear acrylic over them so seal my work, which I would cut back slightly later. Once again im using automotive acrylics (touchup spraycans) for all of the repainting of the large areas.

Last pic shows the completed bonus numbering…

[Mr Pinbologist]

Repainting and decaling the ‘1000 & advance bonus’ lettering…

[Mr Pinbologist]

Here is the lower left hand side being repainted… first I redid the orange, first I sanded back all of the primer patches with 800grit and Windex, but before the paint went on, I went over the fine black detail lines at the top with a sharpie pen. In doing this, I am taking advantage of the fact that sharpie ink leeches back up through any paint that is applied over it.. thus giving me guide lines to redo the detail later on after the paint has dried!! (3rd pic shows this trick).

Last pic shows after the white as been done and the red ‘special’ insert has been glued back in.

[Mr Pinbologist]

And here are the results, after the decals have all been done and sealed in this section. I sanded the whole area with 1200 grit wet&dry and Windex before the decals went on. This is where I am at with this PF at the moment, the decals went on this morning.

[goodolddays]

Looking great Mitch  .
Hell of a lot of effort going into this one by the look of it.

[Strangeways]

And here are the results, after the decals have all been done and sealed in this section. I sanded the whole area with 1200 grit wet&dry and Windex before the decals went on. This is where I am at with this PF at the moment, the decals went on this morning.

Do you use a clearcoat to seal this area ?

Fantastic results - you simply use the paint from a can from supercheap auto etc ?

[Mr Pinbologist]

And here are the results, after the decals have all been done and sealed in this section. I sanded the whole area with 1200 grit wet&dry and Windex before the decals went on. This is where I am at with this PF at the moment, the decals went on this morning.

Do you use a clearcoat to seal this area ?

Fantastic results - you simply use the paint from a can from supercheap auto etc ?

Yes i sealed the decalled areas with acrylic clear, they will be cut back and blended in later on though its not really necessary since the whole thing will be mylared and it shouldnt show up where ive cleared under the mylar. And yes its all done with spray cans that you can buy from Supercheap Auto etc.

EDIT.. the purple colour i used was custom mixed for me by a mate in a auto paint shop and put into a spray can (it was leftover paint from my Drac PF), and the light blue areas i mixed the colour myself and applied with an airbrush..

Oh btw, thanks guys for the kind words so far this is definitely the most difficult PF resto i've done yet!