This jacks Open playfield i have been working on for some 18 months now. I took this job on having viewed the PF in person and the job was always going to be a major touch up. Instead it turned into a complete repaint.
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Main areas of concern were at the bottom of the PF where significant paint had come away, some of which had already been hand painted in.
This is what i took on
You can see that the purple has been painted in, detail on the playing cards has disappeared and the paint on the blue in particular is in very bad shape.. also significant areas of wear.
My problems really started when i began rubbing this back to get the paint as smooth as possible... great chunks of paint were just coming away. I lost approx 50% of the paint on this PF before halting the rub back process. I normally do the rub back to remove loose or flakey paint... never in my worst nightmares did i expect to remove half the PF. In the end i got some heavy duty tape, wrapped it around my hand with the sticky side out and went round the whole pF placing it down flat and then lifting off.This took up all the little chunks that were flaking off without removing too much paint as the rub back was doing.
I then gave the whole artwork area of this PF a very very light CC and then left it for several weeks to "case harden"
What this does is place a seal over everything that remains.. any loose paint is held down by the good paint etc. Once this is done it means that i can then use stencils on the pF and not have to worry too much about lifting more paint. Its not a perfect technique... bits still come away, but they are small and manageable.
The large areas of particular colours are stencilled in... this process has been covered by myself and many others on this forum. I use a clear vinyl application tape.. its 600mm wide and comes on a 50M roll.. you can cover a whole PF in one hit and then cut out all single colour areas.
This process, although still time consuming is pretty straight forward and gives good results.
The main parts of a PF restore that take up time are any text and of course the dreaded black lines.
All text is cut by hand with a very very fine brush under a head worn magnifying glass. Its a balance of having the paint the correct consistency so it flows without being thin, but is not too thick that it doesnt do what you want it to do.
Text is cut on the OUTSIDE colour first, so if its in a block yellow background, then this is painted first. What this does is give a very fine lip to the edge of the letter. When you go in with say the black, you can "fill" slightly and due to surface tension, it will stop at this lip. Each colour is cut at least twice.. outside colour... then inside... then outside again... then inside again. Gradually you can build up the text and when you look away, it looks solid.
Heres an example of finished text
All details on playing cards are done the same
Its a time consuming job and not one you can do for extended periods of time as your eyes start to go cranky and your hand starts to shake.... as soon as handshake occurs, im out of there as one mistake can set me back a couple of hours. All up i find that i can do this work for about an hour then have to walk away for an hour and settle my hand and refocus my eyes.
Anyway, eventually, the colours are back and text is looking good
So whats next?? Well its the black lines and its this part that i want to document.
Personally i hate the black lines... they make me nervous, they also make or break your work and define it. Without good solid black lines the work just wont look crisp.
I dont have a fool proof method for this. Ive tried so many.
Ive used marker pens, which although allow for easier use, i find that the results can be streaky and subject to hand variation. Sometimes ill hand draw a line in.. especially curves. I use a long haired sable pin stripe brush available from sign suppliers.. expensive but very good for the job. Problem is that these tend to work best with a good quality enamel and on this job im using acrylic lacquers.
Most of the lines on this PF are straight... i can use this to my advantage.
Tools for the job are:
Deep Black acrylic lacquer part mixed with retarder thinner ( prevents drying out in the air) and normal all purpose thinner. Consistency should be that it will atomise on low pressure to give a very fine spray and not splutter... must also not be so thin that it runs in on itself at the edges.
Roll of 10mm TAMIYA tape.. this is brilliant stuff... very low tack and gives an excellent seal at the edges.
Waxed back paper from old piece of vinyl backing... allows me to take tape off and put down nearby on a surface that allows continuous reuse
To my right i have a PF glass standing up... any long pieces of tape are put on here as are any pieces of clear application tape. Ive also got some strips of very low tack stencil vinyl
Example of line being done
Tamiya tape is pit down on either side of the line we want done. Then edges where i want it to stop are in place via some old stencil vinyl. Then 2 long pieces of vinyl arre put down to prevent any overspray that MAY occur.
VERY low pressure is required. An airbrush with flow control is essential as it allows the exact amount of paint to flow. A very fine spray is put down first
This takes literally seconds to dry.
Then the process is repeated... up the line... then down until colour becomes solid. Try and do this with one hit and you risk bleed... normally 4 applications are done
I use the same pieces of tape over and over until an edge is lost... you can see on these pics that ive already lost my edge... something i hadnt noticed until i removed the tape... this is done by pulling the tape right back on itself with an angle so painted edge comes away first
I had to touch up the edge with a fine brush... result here
This process is repeated over the whole PF... the curves ill add later and will document this also. But single line by line, it all starts coming together
Ive done half the PF and need to flip her round to the other side and start again.
This PF has been a huge undertaking.. at times ive just had to walk away from it and then come back. It has bogged me down many times so far.
But.... i can see the results and the end is on the horizon.. and oh boy do i want the end!
Ill update this thread later for the final stages
