PF Touchups
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This page details the procedures I used for touching up a Playfield.  This was done to a 1977 Bally Eight Ball Playfield.  The procedure closely follows the steps described in Clay's document:

http://www.marvin3m.com/restore/index.htm

I picked up the Eight Ball playfield from someone parting out a game.  The Playfield was in good shape except for a bag of sugar was sitting on the board by the spinner target.  The sugar somehow became saturated and permanently became attached to the Playfield.  The rack-of-balls, which is usually trashed on Eight Ball Playfields was in really good shape.

This picture shows the mess the packs of sugar made to the playfield.  I'll document the process to remove the residue and touchup the playfield.

The dark, grey, nasty area is really 3-dimensional piles of sugar.
This picture shows area after the "sugar" mess has been removed.  I definitely lost some PF paint in this area!  

Nice thing is I will be able to touchup this area and it will look great.

A PF saved from the trash can!!

Process to Remove the Sugar Residue

Tools used were an Xacto-knife, desk magnifying glass, wet-dry 600 grit sandpaper, good ole spit (per Clay's advice) & Novus #2.
Under high magnification, I was able to "operate" quite successfully.  I took my time and slowly removed the sugar "growth" layer-by-layer, chunk-by-chunk from the Playfield.  
The next step was to wet-sand the playfield area with 600 grit sandpaper to smooth out the area where the paint was chipped away during the "operation" because it was stuck to the sugar that was removed.  
Finally I cleaned the area with Novus #2
The "operation" took about 1 hour.  

I did lose some paint from the Playfield, but this was expected.  I will be able to touchup the Playfield and it will look almost like new.  

The Playfield also had the slingshot Mylars installed.  To see how I removed the Mylars click Mylar Removal.

Playfield Paint Touchups

BEFORE   AFTER
Upper Switching Arrows Area

AND

Right Pop Bumper Area

  
Spinner Target Area

AND

Balls 5 & 13

  
Rack-of-Balls Area

*These pics are from a 2nd 8Ball PF I have which is also being refurbished.

*The 8-ball had already been touched up in the Before pic.

**The green used on the 6 & 14 ball isn't an exact match...I'm still looking for the elusive "green felt" color.
The hardest part to touching up the Rack-of-Balls, besides matching the green paint on the 6 & 14 balls, is the 4, 5, 12 & 13 balls.  The original paint simulates Purple and Orange.  It does this by combining 2 colors.  

Purple is the blue from the 2 & 10 balls with dots of red from the 3 & 11 balls.

Orange is the yellow from the 1 & 9 balls with dots of red from the 3 & 11 balls.

The dots were done under HIGH MAGNIFICATION. I used the finest paint brush I could locate at the arts-n-crafts store.  I then used only 1 bristle from that brush.  I then applied 1 dot of paint to the 1 bristle and then applied the dot to the ball.  The pattern is simplistic and easy to follow.  This is very tedious and my eyes were very tired when I was done.

 Rack-of-Balls Area

Here's another AFTER shot  showing a different angle on the touchup
Spinner Target

This was done with acrylic paint and then covered with mylar.

Finally, I'm now ready to clear coat this playfield.  To see how Clear Coated the PF after performing these touchups click Playfield Clear Coating.

This page is under construction and will be finished during the Spring of 2002.

This page was last updated on 08/14/02