Job 7: Painting the Playfield

Here's another job best done in phases. Step one of repairing the playfield paint is touching up the smaller dings and scratches with a brush. It's already much improved.

There are some larger areas, however, where a brush leaves ugly streaks and a different approach is required. Time to upgrade to airbrushing.  The first areas I'll tackle are the solid white blocks that will lie under the playfield plastics. I'm starting here because there's no paint matching required, they cover a lot of area, they've yellowed with age and because brightening the playfield under the plastics will reflect more light and create a brighter game.

I started by applying clear adhesive frisket, carefully cutting out the shapes and masking the rest of the playfield with scrap paper.

Then, I sprayed it with white paint.

I removed the masking paper...

 ... and the frisket...

... and did a little cleanup around the edges. You can already see a huge improvement.  Next, I'll repeat the process with some of the more damaged off-white target labels and part of the swoosh that runs through the upper left.

You may be asking why I went to the trouble of mixing an off-white khaki color, rather than re-paint all the labels stark white.  A few reasons: There are a whole lot of those labels and not only would I have to paint them, but I'd have to decal the text back into place, which is a lot of work - only six were damaged enough to need re-painting. I like the contrast and appreciate that it shows the machine's age and history in a subtle way. Also, the white inserts and posts have aged into a light beige and they'd really stick out against stark white labels. Since I have no need, desire or interest in replacing all 48 posts and 12 white inserts and making sure the decals are on perfectly straight, I've decided to keep the off-white theme going and paint the labels accordingly.

I had one last round of airbrush painting: the reds at the top of the playfield were a big part of the damaged area. You'd think red would be an easy color to match, but it turns out Gottlieb's color was more like a deep orange. It took a lot of trial and error to get it right.

Finally, I was ready for a few touch-ups. Mostly re-defining the black outlines with a liner brush.

Job 7: Painting

This is where the project gets complicated, messy and expensive.

I decided to start the painting process by going over the white areas under the plastics. There are several reasons for this choice:

1. I could use straight white paint - no mixing or color matching involved
2. Whitening the areas under the plastics will create greater reflection of the general illumination, resulting in a brighter overall playfield
3. These five areas comprise the largest area of solid color and they're bordered by black lines, making it a little easier for my first attempt at painting
4. If I mess up, they'll be covered by other stuff later on

Painting a pinball playfield requires smooth, even application of paint and the best method for that is to use an airbrush.  I started by applying frisket over the white areas - it's a thin clear adhesive film that acts as a mask for the paint. I then used an X-acto knife to cut the frisket around the white border.  Then, I taped scrap paper to the playfield, as seen above, to prevent any accidental sprays. Against the white paper, you can see how the original white paint has discolored to a shade of ivory.

It took a little effort, but I got the airbrush working. I placed the GI bulbs back so paint wouldn't get into the sockets.

Then, I removed the masking paper...

...and peeled up the frisket...

 ...and was underwhelmed by the results.  Luckily, the paint that I used is heat-set, meaning that even though it's dry, it's not permanent until I hit it with a heat gun or hair dryer.  I was able to clean up the edges and re-paint the outlines with a liner brush. It's not perfect, but it's not better and it will do.

I also used frisket to touch up one other spot - the 1000-point bonus tag.

You'll notice that mixed a taupe color, rather than white, so it matches the other tags. So much easier than re-painting all of them.

I also touched up a bunch of other little areas, including the worn spot between the lower pop bumper and the kickout hole.

That blue is hard to match because it wore differently in different areas of the playfield. It's slightly lighter in some places and darker in others.

Again, it's not collector's quality perfect, but it's better than when I started. Here's a final look: