Archive for November, 2011

Black lines around the inserts

Sunday, November 6th, 2011

Finished the black lines around the “Return to Duty” and SOL inserts today:

Return To Duty insert ready for painting

New black line

I had to make the lines around the SOL inserts a little wider in order to cover the damage:

Applying the black lines around the SOL inserts

New black lines

More playfield work

Friday, November 4th, 2011

As reported back in June, in trying to level the “Return to Duty” insert with the playfield I applied too much heat and created some delamination. Fortunately I still have the original playfield that was in my AFM and so (having learned from my mistake) was able to take the insert out of that playfield and “insert” it into the new playfield. I used Pattex Repair Extreme to stick the insert into the playfield, following several recommendations from my local forum. To be honest, the first time I had done this was back in July, prior to having the first clearcoat applied. But the insert wasn’t exactly level with the board and the clearcoat and sanding process didn’t bring it sufficiently level, meaning I had to repeat the process today.

Newly applied insert illuminated from behind to test for consistency

I also finished applying the fluorescent orange colour today. I didn’t use a white background, as I was only trying to accentuate the existing orange colour. The orange colour missing around the SOL inserts exposed a white background, meaning that a white primer wasn’t necessary here either.

Right inlane orange border repainted

Left inlane orange border repainted

SOL inserts' orange borders repainted

In order to cover a little damage, I made the black lines around the SOL inserts slightly thicker than the originals. To check that the thickness of this outline was adequate to cover the damage without them appearing to be too fat, I printed the outline onto a transparent foil and tried it out on the playfield:

Testing the SOL black outlines for size

Black outlines printed on a transparency for testing purposes

In my opinion, this looks just right!