Gleaned from RGP:

FYI guys, I just by chance spoke to the manager at the local Harbor
Freight by me when I was inquiring about the availability of the much
talked about harbor freight hydraulic lift. They are out of these
lifts but she ordered me one and will call me when it is in. She said
she would gladly match the web price of $99.99 and that I can use my
20% off coupon to boot. I said really? She said sure. $80.00 plus
tax. She said it didnt matter if the coupon expired before the unit
came in because at the time of order it is all good.

I got the coupon by signing up for their email list. You-all might
want to try this also. The coupon is only good for “store purchases”.

I printed out a copy of everything just to make sure I have my ducks in
a row if there are problems.

So what are you waiting for?

For all of your playfield restoration needs

Testors Complete Airbrush System

Coupon Code: PC7110

Make sure you uncheck the club.

In RGP the question about a playfield overlay and auto clear were brought up. The awnser:

Yes you can and should clear coat an overlay if you want it to last. I
personally use clear Bulldog Adhesion Promoter. It is basically a clear
plastic primer. Works great and you should be able to get it at an
automotive body shop supply store. Spray on a couple coats and wet sand with
800 paper before spraying on the automotive clear.

While not totally a pinball related post, this is coin-op related (of which I love).

A guy went and detailed how he restored a Pacman cabinet to pristine condition.

Kudos…

Dave Pauk sent an e-mail letting me know he has some photos of the playfield restoration.

http://usergallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/dmp65

Look in the Spirit of 76 folder,pages 5-7.

Here’s a nice little pinball table at Harbor Freight Part #43542-1YEA

Retroblast has a nice little article on Mods to Twilight Zone.

Pinball Rebel has a nice little bumpersticker

A link to a possible pinball Lift

Here is a Link to instructions on how to ship a pinball machine. Good info if you are sending other than Via NAVL

Here’s some more advice from John Wart via RGP:

Here’s a list of what you will need:

1) Sturdy pallet, big enough for the pin to fit on
2) Stretch Wrap – big roll, 20 or 24″ wide – typical length is 1k feet. Costshould be $15-25
3) Cardboard – get a refrigerator box from a store in town, most will give you one. If you have a distributor nearby, maybe they have a Stern box you can use.
4) Some sort of straps. I have a bander as I use mine regularly, some folks use ratcheting straps. They are cheap at the Harbor Freight store!
5) Insulation – this is optional as you can use cardboard layers for this step too. Either work fine.

These steps assume you have a machine with a folding backbox.

1) Remove glass from machine, remove balls from machine. Remove anything loose from the lower cabinet (manuals, spare bulbs, parts etc). Remove shooter or handle, depending on machine title. Wrap balls and loose parts up
and place in cashbox. No cashbox? Put them in a cardboard box. Replace glass and lockdown bar. Latch lockdown bar.
2) Remove power cord, or secure it if not removable. If removable, put cord in box/cashbox along with the cover that goes over the power cord, and any hardware. Open backbox and remove wing nuts/bolts if installed. Make sure
all boards are secure, if not, tighten screws. Replace backglass/translite, lock backglass. Put keys in cashbox or box.
3) Fold down the backbox, making sure to put some sort of cushioning between the backbox and the rails, either the insulation or some cardboard. Remove backbox latch (these seem to get torn off all the time) and place in cashbox. Shrink wrap head to lower cabinet.
4) Lock coin door, Place keys in cashbox/box. Remove back legs, put bolts in cashbox/box. Lift game up on the rear and remove the front legs, putting bolts in the cashbox/box. Shrink wrap the game again, making sure to get the
coin door area. Place machine on pallet. Stretch wrap cash box or box securely to machine where you can find a spot. My favorite spot is on top of the head, but if the machine has a topper, you may have to wrap it to the belly of the pin, along with the legs.
5) Skin the machine in cardboard. Stretch wrap again, to hold the cardboard to the machine. The first layer of stretch wrap will keep the cardboard from
rubbing the pin and scuffing the cabinet to death.
6) Strap the pin down to the pallet. Secure is important, but don’t let your straps cut into the pin either.
7) Label the game. Include such things as ‘fragile, handle with care, do not remove from pallet, and contact info for both the shipper _and_ the recipient in case the trucking companies tags come off the pallet.

The supplies you need will add up to $50 or less – considering the price of a decent machine, it’s cheap insurance. If you are likely to be shipping
more later, your cost goes down per machine since you can use the stretch wrap roll for more than 1 pin.

I probably forgot something, but I’m sure a few other folks will chime in :)

Good luck, and have fun!

–john

–
http://www.myhomegameroom.com

Dave Pauk Posted this Playfield restoration tips to RGP Good info

I’ve recently embarked upon reviving the playfield on my SO76. When I
first got the game 2 years ago, I did some spot touch-ups to worn areas
with acrylics and Varathane and it looked okay, but now the playfield
is at a point where it needs a full clearcoat. Plus, I was
never really satisfied with the color matches on the touch-ups I did.
FWIW, I’ll be using Varathane for my full clearcoat.

Note: Thanks to using acrylic paint and Varathane intially, I was able
to easily remove my previous spot touch-ups with Goof-Off without
harming the original playfield artwork.

Like many, I use the information on the Marvin site as my guide for
stuff like this, so I’d like to share my experience as a supplement to
the excellent info Clay has already provided.

Tip 1. As per the Marvin site, I was using craft acrylics that can be
bought at Walmart or Home Depot. I’m very good with paint matching but
what I found is that I could easily match the “shade” but not the
intensity of the factory artwork. It turns out this is due to the paint
I was using.

The colors on SO76 are very intense blue, red, and yellow. No matter
what I tried with the craft paints, it always ended up looking dull (
not because of the flat finish, but rather the intensity of the color).

At the suggestion of others, I went out and bought artists acrylics (
the brand I used was Liquitex) and with some slight color adjustments
the touch-ups came out perfect! Apparently, these paints have a higher
pigment load. Well, there’s no comparison to the craft acrylics, these
paints are excellent for matching the original screened colors on a
playfield. Yeah, a few more dollars but totally worth it.

Tip 2: To do my paint matching, I used a small piece of wood. I found
this helps with getting the correct match because the paint looks
different on various surfaces. I was using a piece of white cardboard
and clear plastic initially, but found that when the paint was applied
to the worn areas on the playfield, it wasn’t the same shade as on the
cardboard. So, since the touch-ups are going over wood, it makes sense
to use a wood piece for testing the paint match.

Tip 3: As we all know, acrylics dry darker. Having said that, I think
it’s also important to apply your clearcoat to the paint match on your
test piece (if you’re using Varathane) because this also changes how
the color looks. The last thing anyone wants is to touch up an entire
playfield, and then realizing the touch-ups look “off” after
clearcoating the whole playfield.

Tip 4: The center kickout hole on my game was chewed up around the
edges, giving a jagged look to the bevel. I found that a great way to
smooth this out is to use a couple of layers of Krazy Glue as filler,
sand it out, and then repaint the edge of the hole. To reproduce the
look of wood, I used a light tan color as my base, then drybrushed a
lighter shade of tan on top, and then finally drybrushed a median shade
of tan. The end result looks just like wood. This drybrush technique
can also be used to “freshen up” other small areas of wood
grain if it has darkened quite a bit over time. This effect still lets
the woodgrain show through, but gives it a lighter appearance.

Tip 5: This may be up for debate, but rather than sand the playfield
first and then do touch-ups, I’m doing touch-ups first with the
acrylics and brushing over them with a thin coat of Varathane before I
sand. This ensures two things…that I have no worries about whether
I’ve achieved the correct paint match before spraying the whole
playfield, and also protects the touch-ups when I do lightly sand the
playfield before spraying. I should mention that I’m leaving the black
outlines until after sanding since I don’t have to worry about matching
this color.

Tip 6: If you have a digital camera, take a few pictures of your
touch-ups to make sure they’re matched correctly before doing the full
clearcoat. Cameras pick up nuances in the colors that you may or may
not see in regular light. There’s been a couple of times where I swear
the match is dead-on, then taken a picture only to find out it’s a
little too light or too dark. The
camera does not lie. If it’s not right, dab a small artists brush with
Goof-off, remove and re-do.

Plus, you’ll know for sure that your touch-ups won’t stick out like a
sore thumb when you share photos of your game with your pin buddies ;-)

Anyway, just some suggestions that may help others as they do this sort
of thing. If anyone’s interested, I’ll post some pics in the near
future.

Dave
http://usergallery.myhomegameroom.com/gallery/dmp65

He was then asked if cleaning of the playfield, which he replied.

Yeah, I did the Magic Eraser (with alcohol) and Naptha wipedown on the whole playfield prior to doing the touch-ups. Keep in mind, I’m only suggesting you cover the touch-up area with clearcoat initially to ensure color match, not the entire playfield. Once you’re satisfied with the result of your color matches, then lightly sand the touch-upped areas, Naptha the entire playfield again, tack cloth, and
then spray the full playfield clearcoat

Here are some various pictures of a Kiss being restored

Here’s a nice little Lift for pins.