Gottlieb'Top Score' Resto

[oldpins]

A recent 'Top Score' for sale on ebay has motivated (with encouragement from other members) me to post my 1st EM restoation around 3-4 years ago. The owner of the machine asked Tony (Pinball Shed) to look at the machine to repair and get going. Tony saw alot of work to repair and clean, as the owner had sprayed CRC throughout the entire machine. The cost to repair for the owner would have been too expensive. Tony was aware I was looking for my 1st project and put me in contact with the owner from whom I purchased for $500.00. Many hours were spent stripping and cleaning to bring back to life. The PF was in reasonable conditon (mylared) as was the cabinet and BB. A full cabinet & BB repray, plus new artwork (vinyl decals) drawn in Corel Draw, and cut on the Roland cutter has improved the whole look of the machine.The Backglass as shown is in poor condition, however I am working on a translight, which is taking me forever in my spare time to draw. Here's some pics................

Pic 1 Condition of machine on pickup.
Pic 2 You can see the poor condition of the BG.
Pic 3 Shows the condition of the PF before a clean & polish up.
Pic 4 Rusted internal parts and the condition of the BB generally.

[oldpins]

More pics here of the restore !
Pic 1 The BB after clean up.
Pic 2 Cabinet after repray and internals fitted out
Pic 3 Close up of cabinet internals
Pic 4 Applying vinyl decals

[oldpins]

And finally !
Pic 1 Finished artwork on cab and BB
Pic 2 Animation area clean up using mirror vinyl
Pic 3 Work in progress on BG using CAD software


Greg

[mildflame]

mmm, how are you planning to print the CAD design on?
were you making a BIG sticker to stick on back of glass to fill in missing bits or are you planning on designing the whole backglass and getting it printed onto glass?
ps. how did you get the art into the computer? I need to do silmalar to my Williams Swinger BG

[deadlydave]

Great work there Greg 
Looks very neat now.
Cheers
Dave

[Retropin]

Mitch,

You can scan a BG and then import it to your computer... once on the screen you have the long and labourious task of completely redrawing it.
It is indeed long and tedious work which im sure Oldpins will agree on.
Ive just spent all morning vectorising paths for my comp to cut stencils for the rounded black lines on a PF.
4 hrs later and 600 cups of tea and im done.. has been a mind numbing exercise though!

[mildflame]

Mitch,

You can scan a BG and then import it to your computer... once on the screen you have the long and labourious task of completely redrawing it.
It is indeed long and tedious work which im sure Oldpins will agree on.
Ive just spent all morning vectorising paths for my comp to cut stencils for the rounded black lines on a PF.
4 hrs later and 600 cups of tea and im done.. has been a mind numbing exercise though!

You are correct about redrawing being hard... Its alot easier to start with faded art!
my big problem is I need a scanner that can scan that size! and then I need to get someone to print it on glass.
my local signwriter said he is happy to print onto vinal but thats no good on glass.
I'll work it out one day

[ktm450]

Nice work Greg, looks great 

[Retropin]

Mitch,

You can scan a BG and then import it to your computer... once on the screen you have the long and labourious task of completely redrawing it.
It is indeed long and tedious work which im sure Oldpins will agree on.
Ive just spent all morning vectorising paths for my comp to cut stencils for the rounded black lines on a PF.
4 hrs later and 600 cups of tea and im done.. has been a mind numbing exercise though!

You are correct about redrawing being hard... Its alot easier to start with faded art!
my big problem is I need a scanner that can scan that size! and then I need to get someone to print it on glass.
my local signwriter said he is happy to print onto vinal but thats no good on glass.
I'll work it out one day

You get it printed in REVERSE on clear vinyl... this is then applied to the glass... flip it over and you have a backglass!

You will need to get it double struck though as the colours wash out once lit up otherwise.

Once the clear is in place you apply translucent white over the clear.. then apply your blockout stencil for the hidden numbers "GAME OVER"text etc..

This is how you make a BG with printed vinyl

[oldpins]

As retropin said, you are able to have a full scan done on a BG on a wide format scanner. I enquired about this and was told it would cost $100.00 per scan, however they could not take responsibility if the glass got broken. I decided to buy a desktop scanner at $100.00 and removed the top cover.
I invert the scanner on the front of the BG and scan all areas of the glass into a file on the computer ( x 6 scans), following this the 6 images can be lined up and overlaped inside the set dimensions of the BG. Then the hard tedious work starts redrawing the entire glass as shown in previous post. I plan on making a translight which as mentioned can be printed onto clear vinyl. The translucent areas/images on the translight could be backed with a white vinyl which allows light to pass through, everything else would be blocked. Following this the whole print could be laminated. I am currently experimenting with clear vinyls and white vinyls to repair small areas of a BG and looks quite promising. Pictured below is a white vinyl score reel window. This is mirror reversed and stuck to the rear of the BG and allows light to pass through. I works very well and believe will be long lasting as these vinyls come with a 5 or 7 year exterior use rating.

Greg

[Strangeways]

Really nice job, Greg. The machine was in poor condition when you bought it and the playfield was the best part about it ! Looks like you have gone right through it and it look amazing !

Well done