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Just bought 2 old roll a penny boards off ebay. Any tips to clean the playfield up and the front bit looks like they painted over early writing. Any ideas to remove top coat of paint? The wooden board seems well made but I was really surprised that the full area where you roll the pennies altogether is like a vinyl sheet covering with all the squares on!
When weather's a bit better I will take photos and put on here. Any tips would be appreciated.

Standing by for advice from OZ restorer extraordinaire, Mr. Gameswat.

J Peterson
Reference Department, USA

Tammy every single time I try to strip paint layers it's an experiment. Even the same machines sometimes need different chemicals to clean up due to different life and conditions they've led. Great thing is original paint is usually so old it's cooked and set in place compared to the more modern later add-on layers. Simple tricks are to always start with the weakest solution and go stronger if they don't have any effect. So just water on a coarse cloth will sometimes remove old water based paints. Then water based cleaners, then I go to the particular art cleaner shown below that I discovered, which has been by far the greatest restoration aid I've ever used! Metholated spirits/ denatured alcohol is very useful and quite mild - though will quickly remove original shellac finishes very quickly so always test in a hidden position. Lacquer thinners has been very useful to remove most paints and will not harm old shellac.

I purchased this product from a major art supply chain in Australia, so you just need to find the same ingredients as supplied by some local company in your country. Probably 90% of the time this product has had no effect at all on original older under layers.

And shown is my late 1920's Iron Claw that has been party stripped using only this Art Clean chemical. The buildings are silk screened tin while the background poster is litho paper on cardboard and both have been over painted with enamel paint.

Perfect, Gameswat. You are THE MAN.

J Peterson
Manly2 in USA

Took a few pictures. It looks like there might be earlier artwork underneath? A little woodworm on the smaller board top runner but treatable! I seem to love these challenges. I will have to work this out. As a person used to say when his wife told him about any job in the house "This is going to take some thinking about??"
Has anyone else acquired one of these roll a penny boards and learnt anything?

Good luck Tammy! I've never had to strip down layers of paint on canvas. There may be an issue with chemicals soaking into the canvas and lifting all the paint. Another method I didn't mention that has been very handy for me is using tape to strip top paint off. I noticed how well this worked accidentally years ago on cabinets that had no keys and were shut with packing tape. Sometimes weaker tapes work or you need something stronger like duct tape. Good thing here is the tape only attaches to the surface layer, so if you get lucky and the previous painters were lazy they won't have sanded anything first, meaning a weak grip on the newer layers.

Thank you all of you and Gameswat. I will try some of the ideas you all stated especially the duct tape. Only got them on Sunday and haven't had time to properly lift them out from cover as it seems to just keep raining!
I will probably also look to lift a little off canvas as it seems to be maybe showing some early artwork at places were it is slightly torn. It must be interesting what's underneath on the older board. I can remember one of the collectors on this site selling me a set of original artwork he pealed off a Clement and Whales Greyhound Stadium because he found underneath was a much rarer artwork model. Is it Venus and Mars model? I will remember when I have submitted this post!

tammy wrote: ↑Mon Oct 18, 2021 5:13 pm Is it Venus and Mars model?

It would be the Ben Hur disc I imagine, with comets, planets, etc.

Thank you pennymachines. I had a memory loss once I got writing. Hope everyone doesn't now start peeling to look at their artwork on their old machines and spoil any? I bought a Bryans Clock full mechanism once at a local auction where three machines had come for sale plus a Clock mech' and it had had someone peeling back the clock artwork. After I bought it I got talking with a collector then dealer and he admited it was him saying, "I just wanted to see what was underneath!"