Black Hole Pin Restoration

Malice95

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Donor 2011
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I've been posting some questions in the pinball section but I figure I
should start an official restoration thread. I picked up a black hole from
another forum member. It didnt work and upon closer examination it had
a lot more cosmetic issues then I assumed from the pictures.. dont they all.
So before I bother diving into the mechanicals and electrical
issues I am going to work on the cosmetic issues. If I dont, I may never
do it once I get it working:)

The cab is in decent shape. couple dings here and there. I'm not going to
do a full stencil job. I'll probably repaint the words black hole as there are
some scuffs in the white unless I can get them off. And do a little putty and
touch up around the cab. Should turn out nice.

The upper playfield needs help. The main area is mylared but the paint
is gone under the pop bumpers. I need to decide if I am going to remove the
mylar and clear everything or retouch and wax. A buddy of mine is going to
help with the paint work on the playfield. I dont have the patience to do that
kind of detail work. I spent the past couple days stripping the main playfield
of all its parts. I'll tumble everything metal and replace all the plastic bits with repro parts.

Hopefully I'll bang out the lower playfield tomorrow and get both playfields off
to my buddy this weekend.

Electronic wise.. nothing has been dont to this cab. I need to do all the
ground mods and replace a bunch of bits like capacitors, etc.

should be a good first pin project.
 

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Couple more pics of the cab..
 

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Black Hole is an easier playfield to restore. Color matching was not a problem compared to the newer games.

I recently restored a BH playfield for someone else.

http://www.hsapinball.com/HSA_PINBALL/Restorations_Examples/Pages/hsa89.html

I have a project with playfield wear not quite as bad as that, but similiar. I'm really curious as to how you matched the blues. Also, do you put down a coat of clear before doing any touchups?

I got mine for cheap - it was sitting in a warehouse between 2 other games. Mouse nest of pillow stuffing on the playfield, but no critter damage. Inner backglass was ruined. The BH was missing one of the legs, so it needed the other games for "support". Because of that, one corner of the cabinet is split apart and will need reglued. I think that will be the project to do me in..pretty intimidating.
 
I have a project with playfield wear not quite as bad as that, but similiar. I'm really curious as to how you matched the blues. Also, do you put down a coat of clear before doing any touchups?

All our playfield restorations are done on top of a base layer of clear. This way you can seal the original artwork and get the playfield/inserts flat. This makes masking and touchup adhesion better. Then a top layer of clear is sprayed.

Paint matching - Get a color wheel. This will help you in selecting the paint colors to get you going in the right direction. On a mixing board just start out with the base color (blue in this case), then add white, some yellow, etc until you get the correct color. Large areas it's easier to mask the entire area and just airbrush it.
 
All our playfield restorations are done on top of a base layer of clear. This way you can seal the original artwork and get the playfield/inserts flat. This makes masking and touchup adhesion better. Then a top layer of clear is sprayed.

Paint matching - Get a color wheel. This will help you in selecting the paint colors to get you going in the right direction. On a mixing board just start out with the base color (blue in this case), then add white, some yellow, etc until you get the correct color. Large areas it's easier to mask the entire area and just airbrush it.

I need to finish a Stern Dracula playfield restoration. There was a bit of flaking and I WISH I had done it your way with a layer of clear first.

Masking an area rather than brushing touchups is the best tip I've discovered. I also found that the Testors Lacquer line of small spray cans has a lot of good colors and doesn't react to automotive clear, as far as I've tested it.

Thanks for the tips..always good to hear from a pro.
 
So I got the lower playfield stripped down.

What determines if I should remove the mylar or not?

Its stuck down pretty good but there are spots near the inserts
and a couple edges that aren't sticking well.. and the edges have
dirt under them.

I'm thinking I should probably remove it and deal with the touch up.
HSApinball.. whats your preferred method.. freeezing, heat, or goo gone?
 

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So I got the lower playfield stripped down.

What determines if I should remove the mylar or not?

Its stuck down pretty good but there are spots near the inserts
and a couple edges that aren't sticking well.. and the edges have
dirt under them.

I'm thinking I should probably remove it and deal with the touch up.
HSApinball.. whats your preferred method.. freeezing, heat, or goo gone?

The last BH I did I used the freeze spray method.
 
Got brave tonight and tried removing the mylar using the goo gone
and super slow peeling it off method on the lower playfield.

Suprisingly I didnt loose any real spots of paint. Maybe 3-4 pencil tip size
flecks over the whole playfield.

Now I just have to get the dam glue residue off:)

Hopefully the upper playfield will go just as well.

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Yepper.. still trying to get this dam glue off. Its slow going. I ordered
some stuff called orange power from pinrestore that supposedly is a
lot better then goo gone. Once I get the glue up I'll clean it up with ME.
The lower playfield is pretty clean already though. The mylar covered
almost all of the painted surface.
 
So I stripped the mylar on the upper playfield. This time I wasnt so lucky. I
had a decent amount of paint loss in the upper right section of the playfield.
Nothing major, just lots of little speckles that will need to be touched up.
Thankfully the pattern tends to hide this so I'm not to worried about getting
it looking nice.

I started out using the goo gone/slow removal method.
After a bit I gave up and added heat as well from my heat gun (on low).
HUGE difference. Not only did the mylar come up easier but I really didnt
loose any more paint from that point forward. I'm using heat from now on.

You can see the difference in the picture below. The red line is where I
added heat. I still need to clean up the glue residue.

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I started out using the goo gone/slow removal method.
After a bit I gave up and added heat as well from my heat gun (on low).
HUGE difference. Not only did the mylar come up easier but I really didnt
loose any more paint from that point forward. I'm using heat from now on.

You can see the difference in the picture below. The red line is where I
added heat. I still need to clean up the glue residue.

I have always used the compressed air can upside-down to spray the liquid on the mylar and freeze it. It peels off perfectly, and fast, but leaves all glue behind. It was a bitch to clean all the glue off with goo gone but there was zero damage that way since the mylar comes off so easily.
Colors are pretty easy to match but the black to me was hard since the particles in my new black showed a very slight greyish sheen next to original... of course no-one would ever notice but me it is so slight, but i would match for that since you will probably be doing a larger area than i did.
 
I scrubbed down the box and head today with a magic eraser and alcohol.

Took off a bunch of scuffs, especially in the white areas. I am going to
take the head down to Home depot tonight to get the 3 colors matched on
the computer so I can touch up a few spots. I'll need to do a small bit of
bondo on the edges and a couple other chips here/there.

I also did the AL side rails and coin door with brasso. Took off years of tarnish.
I need to take a dremel to the nails they used on the side rails
to shine them up. They are kinda dull/dark now.
 
Got a big box of goodies from pbresource today. Gonna look and act like a
virtually new game when I am done. All new plastics, posts, drop targets,
flipper rebuilds, etc, etc.

I picked up a couple of replacement solenoids for the hole kickers. They are
both totally siezed (melted).

Only thing left I need to pickup from a parts pov is a new Blue plastic piece
for the center and some LEDs.

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Still have either this game or a Haunted House on my wanted list (this one probably being a higher want due to the space theme, seemingly more robust gameplay, and cooler looking mini-pf). So jealous, can't wait to see it when you are done.
 
Started tubling all the metal parts today from the upper playfield.
Picked up a Berry 400 Vibratory tumbler, some fine crushed walnut shells
and a little polish. Hopefully it will turn out nice. Gonna let it run about
12 hours and see where we are at.

 
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