Author Topic: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2  (Read 11436 times)

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Offline ddstoys

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #60 on: March 28, 2009, 06:17:45 PM »
I did the same with my firepower backglass scraped off all the blue area on the wings and airbrushed it looked pretty good for a first attempt

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #61 on: March 28, 2009, 06:20:10 PM »
Mitch another plan of attack for the backglass, before any triple thick is sprayed on. Scrap of the red lettering on DRACULA and air brush it red I did this with my Gorgar and looks great. Any full coloured damaged sections on the BG air brush them first.

Thanks for the tip Mark  ^^^ I had actually thought about trying that idea believe it or not! but wasnt sure if i should. i might just have to give it a try!!  

Thanks again..

Cheers... Mitch

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #62 on: March 28, 2009, 06:39:38 PM »
Well i've racked up a fair few games on this machine now and its working great apart from a few minor switch problems, ie some drop target switches not registering sometimes. Have tried cleaning the switches but still they play up a bit so i'll be replacing ALL of the drop target switches soon as the new ones arrive.

Also on its way is a can of Krylon Triple Thick for the backglass, so i can get a start on restoring this glass. I'll be taking progress pics of this work as well and posting some results on here if all goes well. i'll be taking my time with it, i may well only end up doing the "unlit" sections that are missing ink (there are several spots like that) and leaving it at that, and not bothering with the lit up sections.. i'll just have to wait and see...


I had the exact same problems with the drop targets on a Dracula I had. Upper drop targets not registering (sometimes) and registering twice as well at times.

 I added .47mf ceramic capacitors to all the drop target switches and that fixed them 100%. This should work as the switches themselves when cleaned should be fine. So I have added caps to all switches an all my games and targets all register 100% every time.



Another tip worth trying!! again it had crossed my mind to try this idea too, just couldn't find the motivation to try it.. seems i just found it :lol

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #63 on: March 29, 2009, 12:21:25 AM »
Backglass Restore:

After reading SPURR’s post this afternoon in this thread re airbrushing on this glass I decided to give it a try. As I said, it had crossed my mind to try it but I was initially iffy about doing so.. until now.

So I spent a few hours this afternoon and here are the results so far, half way thru respraying the name. I ended up using a spray can rather than airbrushing, as I had this on hand and the colour was a reasonably close match. It’s the same colour red I used on the playfield restore.

I started out by removing the old cracked ink, first, with a scalpel I cut into the ink along the key lines (actually reflective material in this section), I heated the blade with a cigarette lighter so it would cut cleanly and not to chip the surrounding areas. I set up a light underneath, as can be seen in the 1st pic so I could see where to cut/scrape to. I worked on one letter at a time, scraping out the old ink, cleaning it then painting before going onto the next letter. As can be seen in the 1st pic I’m working on the “C”, the U, L and A have been done already.

Once all the ink was removed I carefully cleaned the glass with some Windex and cloth, being careful not to touch the surrounding area as much as possible. 2nd pic was taken before cleaning.

Oh btw... the red paint overspray that can be seen all around the cleaned glass was NOT put there by me!! That was someone elses Dodgey Bros attempt to save the glass!!  ^.^

After that I marked and cut out a paper stencil so I could spray the letter without getting overspray everywhere. I cut these stencils slightly larger than the area I was painting, to overlap a little.
« Last Edit: March 29, 2009, 12:26:08 AM by Mr Pinbologist »

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #64 on: March 29, 2009, 12:33:13 AM »
Next I placed the stencil into position with a few weights to hold it down, and placed a few sheets of paper over the surrounding area of the glass to protect it from overspray.

With the light still shining thru from underneath I sprayed on a few light coats of the red acrylic paint. Having the light on allowed me to get an even coverage of paint. I found if I sprayed JUST enough paint on so that the light bulbs filament couldn’t  be seen thru the paint, that would be enough. This ensured an even coverage on all of the letters since I was spraying each one individually.

After the first couple of letters I sat the glass into the machine to see how it looked lit up by the games G.I. lamps.. it looked pretty sweet!!

Last pic shows the C, U, L and A done. In that pic it can be seen even without being backlit how bad this area was!!  I’ll post more pics tomorrow of this section done.


Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #65 on: March 29, 2009, 01:33:37 PM »
OK.. here 'tis with the name redone.. pretty happy with how this turned out $#$

just need to get the rest of it looking better now..

Offline illawarra_steelers

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #66 on: March 29, 2009, 02:10:48 PM »
Bloody hell! Is there anything you CAN'T do Mitch?

How fantastic are those results!

Once again high quality work to inspire us all  ^^^

Offline ajlaird

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #67 on: March 29, 2009, 04:26:09 PM »
1000% on what it was - amazing work!

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #68 on: March 29, 2009, 10:12:28 PM »
Got some more done this afternoon. I started touching up a few small spots of wear that i could do with the spray paint and air brush.

The pics below show the area below the ball/credit display.. first thing i had to do was put in the missing black line. For this i used the air brush rather than a sharpie pen as i'd done in the past. 1st pic shows how i masked off the area using paper and a few sockets to hold the paper down.

2nd pic shows the black line done. After the black had dried i sprayed on the red.. again i masked off the surrounding area with paper, and i used the same red i used for the name. rather than put the silver mask paint straight over the red, through trial and error i found it neccessary to spray white on first, then the silver after the white had dried.

On my first attempt, i sprayed the silver on, and it darkened the red too much. After i took all the paint off and started again, this time i put some white paint on over the red, followed by silver.. worked out much better. i used auto acrylic spray paints for all of this.

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #69 on: March 29, 2009, 10:23:26 PM »
heres a view of the back of the glass. the 1st pic shows the white sprayed over another retouched area just below the "match" area and the next is the silver sprayed onto the area shown in the previous post, above the "match" area.

I also gave the player up light and number of player openings a very light spray with the airbrush, as there were some fine cracks in these areas (3rd pic). These look much better lit up now than they did before... buying that airbrush and compressor is the best thing i could've done i've decided!!
« Last Edit: March 29, 2009, 10:27:02 PM by Mr Pinbologist »

Offline Strangeways

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #70 on: March 29, 2009, 11:21:20 PM »

Holy Crap - That's just inspirational !

what airbrush are you using ?

will you seal your work with triple Thick ?
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Offline SPURR

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #71 on: March 30, 2009, 03:26:19 PM »
Mitch give the Dracula lettering a fine coat of white over the red to defuse the light better so the whole letter glows not only where the light bulb is behind it,  most colours look heaps better with a white behind it. eg white undercoat
ps dont bother to much about overspray it seals just like triple thick.

Offline ddstoys

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #72 on: March 30, 2009, 05:44:40 PM »
Great Results mitch wish my fire power turned out that well.  Mine had a large area so if i went over somewhere a little bit the color was un even. Ill post pics when i get around to the restore thread

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #73 on: March 30, 2009, 09:06:20 PM »

Holy Crap - That's just inspirational !

what airbrush are you using ?

will you seal your work with triple Thick ?

Pic below of the air brush and compressor i bought.. an 'Artlogic' brand AC335. I looked at three different airbrushes when i bought this, this one was the middle of the range one they had, works well.

And yes the BG will be sealed with Triple Thick.

So far ive only used the airbrush on small areas.. anything large i sprayed with the pressure pack spray paints.. ie i did the DRACULA lettering with the spray paint. 
« Last Edit: March 30, 2009, 09:11:43 PM by Mr Pinbologist »

Offline Mr Pinbologist

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Re: Stern Dracula restore; PART 2
« Reply #74 on: March 30, 2009, 09:31:30 PM »
Mitch give the Dracula lettering a fine coat of white over the red to defuse the light better so the whole letter glows not only where the light bulb is behind it,  most colours look heaps better with a white behind it. eg white undercoat
ps dont bother to much about overspray it seals just like triple thick.

Thats on the "to do" list.  *%*

I know what your saying about colours looking better with white behind them. I worked that out a while back thru trial n error..  :lol
« Last Edit: March 30, 2009, 09:35:45 PM by Mr Pinbologist »