Except for the
mini-playfield,
plastics
for
this
machine
are
not
available.
As a result, I
decided this was a good project to try and make some to replace the
missing/broken ones.

Original state of the chest plastics. They were broken and
the
flasher domes
were missing. Someone replaced them with pieces of red
plastic.
The approach I decided to use was to print on white paper and glue
these to Lexan pieces using 3M's 467MP adhesive transfer
tape.
The most important thing to remember is to burnish (rub) them to press
all the air out between the plastic and the paper.

These were the plastics I made.
I started by printing a
color wheel
with components similar to the original plastics. Then, I
selected areas that matched, and used those RGB values in my redraw of
the plastics. The artwork was then printed on a color laser
on
plain white paper. This seems to have the same kind of light
transmission as the original plastics. The artwork was drawn
a
little larger with a thin line just outside the original dimensions. I
then glued the paper
using 467MP transfer adhesive to Lexan pieces. They are then cut to
size with a pair of tin snips. Finally, the pieces are then
ground with my bench grinder for a clear crisp edge.

Comparison to the orginal plastic. Note the protector
installed
under the new plastic.
I had no idea how the
chest plastics
are configured with the flashers, so this is what
I decided to do. Originally, the flasher bulb was located
inside
the hole of the
playfield through which the wires pass. This makes them much
more
visible.

The chest plastics
installed with the
flashers. Compare to
this.
The original inlane
plastics have no
artwork, but are just plain grey with the names of the
designers.
I decide to make new ones with custom artwork. The right one
has
an astronaut playing pinball, and the left one has the Hubble Space
Telescope.
The new sling and inlane
plastics
installed.
Cabinet work
The cab had a few dings, and the red was faded. This is quite
common for cabinets of this age. The first thing I needed to
do
was find a match for the purple color. Using the
Magic
Pallette
color
mixing
chart, I could see that the closest match was
Dioxazine Purple. I looked through my wife's stock and found
this
color along with some other purples.
The five purples in my
wife's
collection of paints. Left most is #1.
I put a dot of each one
of these onto
a clear plastic sheet and once it was dry, shot a picture to see which
color was the closest. It turns out that none were very good
(as
can be seen below), so I decided to lighten #4 by mixing it with
#1. The result were very close, and you can hardly see the
spot. It is inside the red circle below.

Test spot of paints. The bottom (lightest) one is #1 and the
rest
are in the order as lined up in the previous image. The
circled color was a blend of #1 and #4.
Without the flash, the color is exactly right. The bright
flash
reveals a small difference due the difference in the surface gloss of
the two locations. Afterwards, I brushed some clear gloss
onto
the touchup spot and that made it even more invisible.
The two colors used were "Crafters Edition" brand, "#72027 Lilac
Purple",
and "#72024 Purple".

The cab had some dings in the purple, and the red and yellow were faded.

The match in the purple was very close. The red and yellow
were
added with translucent ink from Sharpie pens. I also painted
the
outer corners as these are often dinged and show exposed wood.
Backbox damage

The top right corner had a chunk missing.
The top right corner of
the backbox
was missing. After thinking about it a bit, I decided to make
a
right angle form with two blocks of teflon as a mold.

The teflon mold clamped onto the corner of the backbox.
I realized that special
measures were
needed to prevent air pockets in the repair. This was done by
placing the mold below the area of damage. By placing
constant
pressure onto the blocks, I could ensure no epoxy would leak out the
bottom edge. I then slid the mold up slowly, while filling
the
void gradually to prevent air pockets and to ensure complete 'wetting'
of the wood. Once it was slid to the top and full of epoxy, I
clamped it down for curing.

The repair work quite well. It was flat and flush with the
surface without sanding.
As I suspected, the side
color of the
head was the most difficult to mix. I used "DecoArt Americana
Pansy Lavender" and "FolkArt Red Violet #636" to get close to the
purple. I then added "FolkArt Blue Ribbon #719" to make it
more
blue. Finally, I used a few drops of flat black to dull the
color
and reduce the saturation. Once dry, I applied some satin
finish
clear to get the right surface reflection. The match is
almost
invisible with the naked eye, and shows up a little with flash
exposures.
Under the bar
An area that usually escapes my notice is the lockdown bar
mechanism. However on this pin it was so bad that it was
clear I
needed to clean it up.

Cleanup of the area under the lockdown bar (left=before).
Note the custom score cards from
pinballrebel.com.
I used a brass wire cup
brush in my
electric drill to polish this area to a shine, and one of my pin
buddies (
Tom
in
Nova) gave me a sheet of
"shop
out" stickers.
I
then
painted
the
edge
of
the
cab flat black and installed the hardware back
in. The result is so nice that I will be going back to my
other
pins to do the same.