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Thanks Widget, a lot better than what I have! I've been thinking about how to deal with the silver in the print. I'll try printing the art, then painting in the silver by hand, then some small clear water decals over that with the black lines printed on them. There are special printers that will do silver and gold but I've never seen them.

yep the silver and gold always is a problem, keep us updated when its done im sure it will be perfect from you.
i can send you my original photo in high quality if you want to start from scratch ?

Gameswat wrote:Thanks Widget, a lot better than what I have! I've been thinking about how to deal with the silver in the print. I'll try printing the art, then painting in the silver by hand, then some small clear water decals over that with the black lines printed on them. There are special printers that will do silver and gold but I've never seen them.

You might find this video useful, it would be fiddly but I am sure it could be done with a hot iron and a bit of messing??

Well finally got most of the backflash poster done tonight and over the moon with it! My original plan from years ago as thought out above in old postings to paint silver over the print and place clear decals with black printing turned out to work perfectly for me. The artwork is not done the same as Whales or pretty much all the other makers who reverse silk screened onto clear plastic. R&W machines all seem to be screened art onto thick paper, then clear laminated afterwards.

As can be seen with mine, the plastic shrank terribly but the paper could barely shrink so it pulled away. I ended up soaking my original wrinkled to death backflash in the bath to remove the paper, which was useless. But thankfully the silver pretty much stayed attached to the plastic along with most of the black outlining. So I then cut out each space ship and word from the plastic and soaked in boiling water for 30 seconds and flattened, so they would scan nicely.

I used the small file of Widget's artwork shown above as just a layout to add each piece of restored graphic over the top to get the basic spacing right. I had the print done at my local office supply store for all of $9 with a turn around of less than a day. Then from my finished artwork I stripped out the black outlines I needed for each of the silver ships and printed that onto a sheet of clear decal paper. I had already sealed the paper print with a UV fast clear, then multiple layers of clear lacquer.

I gave the whole print a quick rub over with #0000 steel wool to roughen up the surface and remove any small blemishes. Then masked the whole print with airbrush frisket film, which is very thin and low tack, so can be removed without lifting the artwork, and cuts very easily with a surgical scalpel. Because I was replacing all the black outlining with my decals I could quite roughly cut each space ship and not bother about being perfectly accurate and cut through the middle of each outline.

I sprayed just enough silver lacquer paint to almost cover the black details but left a little to make it easy to lay my decals in exact registration. After removing the frisket I rubbed over each silver detail with the #0000 steel wool to make sure I had nice feathered edges since the decals would be laying over these edges. After the first Sputnik decal went down it looked fantastic. To all the people that have told me over the years that grey print matches silver just fine - you're blind! I still have multiple coats of clear lacquer to lay over this now to build up a thick gloss which will replicate the thin plastic laminate they used.

Would guess at this point I'm a good 20 hours into this thing but might be my favourite graphic restoration yet......

Great job, well done

Very good, I always wonder whether the new owner in 50 years would have a clue

your are the best Rory
Bob

It's great to see you back on here Bob !!

welcome back

gameswat wrote: ↑Sun Oct 17, 2021 7:27 pm Well finally got most of the backflash poster done tonight and over the moon with it! Would guess at this point I'm a good 20 hours into this thing but might be my favourite graphic restoration yet......

Really fantastic job.
I'd like 5 please

Gameswat. Shouldn't you be thanking me for providing you with another opportunity to improve your skill set? Just asking.

J Peterson
OpportunityIsUS-A

Looks great

Well thank you, nice to be appreciated by a very few who know and care about our arcane interests. I'm usually far too enthused and busy in the jobs to think about documenting them, often occurs to me far too late. But occasionally I do notice methods that will likely interest other collectors here. Sadly when I'm working on other peoples machines I'm always having to watch the time, which I never do for myself, so rarely if ever do I document what doesn't belong to me. So there are literally hundreds of rare machines I've worked on around the world which i have barely even one photograph of. But having said that most of those were so scarce I knew I'd likely never lay hands on another, and in probably 98% of the time I've been right.

After getting this thing all back together there seems to be only one logical use for the missing flap (A), which is a coin lockout. The flap can only come into contact with the wire running under it from the coin lever to ball release. I've mocked something up and if it's spring loaded it will place pressure on the wire the whole time the payout handle is in use, the shaft it's on rotates to some extent on turning the handle after a win. I assume the same system was also used on The Hat Trick, but have yet to see good photos of either that mech or this one. I did actually own and restore a Hat Trick back in 2007 but just cannot find any photos other than exterior when I imported it from the USA. No idea who i sold it to either...

Completed machine with blonde finished oak replicated as original, which I think very much suits the artwork and furniture fashion of late 1950s. Cabinet was 14 separate pieces of wood when I started - and never touched it with a piece of sand paper!

Very lovely.

Out of this world.

J Peterson
American astronaut