Faded Tron Plexiglass Blacklight Cover Repair.....

[JeffC]

...With Highlighter Pens?

When I restored my Tron recently I replaced the old, faded plexiglass blacklight covers with the repros from Phoenixarcade, and was amazed at how brightly they glowed over the blacklights. My old covers had virtually 0 glow, as I guess this type of ink fades.

Well, the discs of Tron had the same issue, and of course there are no repros for this. It got me wondering: Has anyone ever found a good way to paint or somehow restore these to their "like new" glowing glory? So this weekend I did some experimentation with various highlighter pens.

I first noticed that some colors of pens (even the exact same brand and type) will glow over a blacklight, and some will not. Of the pens I had, yellow, orange and pink glowed, blue and green did not.

I first started trying to color directly on the plastic, but noticed that not enough ink was left to glow. I then tried white notebook paper, which worked surprisingly well. I'm thinking I'll use this method on the rest of the cover, at least as a temporary fix until a repro is done or I find a NOS version (yea right…). Here's how it went:

The blacklight cover is almost completely faded and had no glow:

The removed cover

I back lit the cover and traced the designs on notebook paper

Then I colored the designs in and cut them out

Using clear scotch tape (a very thin border extending beyond the edge of each paper piece, I taped them to the back of the plexiglass, colored side out.

It's sort of a "budget" way to fix a game, but at least it now glows. I'll probably experiment further with some different colors and techniques.

 

[cnlmoore]

Re: Faded Tron Plexiglass Blacklight Cover Repair.....

What a great idea and well executed, thanks for sharing.

 

[driph]

Hey, that's slick! I wonder if there's a model paint that would have better adherence to the original material... I might experiment with my Tron lower marquee.

 

[ataritoobin]

Putting them on the paper was a good idea! A while back I had tried directly using permanent fluorescent paint pens on the back of my faded Tron pieces, but you can see the ink strokes.

Looks like it worked out pretty well!

 

[Vindog]

Nice!!! Makes a considerable difference and you have given us some ideas!

 

[Phetishboy]

Re: Faded Tron Plexiglass Blacklight Cover Repair.....

This was a thread I missed. Nice work. Have you experimented any further Jeff?

 

[driph]

Whoa, weird, I'd just dug this thread up on google.

I've got a spare lower panel that I'm going to experiment with. Gonna head up to the store in a few and see if I can find some fluorescent paints.

 

[shilmover]

Whoa, weird, I'd just dug this thread up on google.

I've got a spare lower panel that I'm going to experiment with. Gonna head up to the store in a few and see if I can find some fluorescent paints.

Would love to hear how it works out for you. Mine is completely faded...

 

[wickedbass]

agree great job glad you dug this one up.. would love hear about any updates..
Thanks

 

[Vindog]

Does anyone know if he ever got the Environmental speech to work on his Upright????

 

[driph]

I've painted over the majority of scratches and blemishes in the blackened areas of the two lower plastics I'm working on (Rustoleum satin black), and am waiting for them to dry before I hit em with the highlighters.

Of the highlighter pack I got, only the orange and yellow really fluoresce, but that might be all I need for a major improvement.

 

[driph]

Okay, here's the writeup.

http://driph.com/words/2008/12/refreshing-the-tron-lower-plastic/

Short version: it worked! Not as good as new, but much much better than old.

 

[Phetishboy]

Nice work. I am going to try this myself.

 

[JeffC]

Hi folks.

Thanks for the comments on the DoT lighting. I've gotten busy with some of other life issues and haven't had as much time to devote to my games as I'd like. I do still plan on finishing the DoT project.

I didn't do any more to the blacklight cover that I'd already reported, but I'm happy with how it looks.

I did do some other lighting enhancements such as increasing the brightness of the backlit cityscape, which really increased the 3D quality of the game. I detailed this on the DoT page of my site: http://www.geocities.com/civitat/DOT/DOT.html

No luck with adding speech yet, despite spending a lot of time on it and replacing every IC and cap on my Squawk and Talk board. I'm guessing I have some other problem with my board that I can't diagnose. In looking for help from the people who'd done this before, I put together this page with everything I'd done/tried. It was more of a diagnostic tool that a "how to guide" but it might be of interest to someone: http://www.geocities.com/civitat/DOT/Speech.html

Other than that I'm hoping to free up some time to devote to my games soon, including finishing the DoT and eventually getting the Quantum together; I'm still looking for a PCB.

 

[LUCKYMAN]

Looks good man, The only problem is you can see the reflection of your paper pieces on the bulb of the blacklight which looks like it makes a double reflection.. no what i mean?? hmm there must be a better way to paint over the old paint without making a SOLID piece of paper and taping it to it... i wonder if i can take some floresent paint, stencil over the old image and airbrush it so you dont have brush or pen marks...hmm....ill get back to you on it...

 

[SillyB]

I recently picked up a survivor Tron and wanted to give it some TLC without spending a lot of money or buying aftermarket parts.

I was inspired by this post but found that you can buy UV paint pens that are black light reactive instead of the highlighters. I got this set on Walmart UV Paint Pens and was really happy with the results. It was surprisingly easy, because the black masking makes it so that if you are slightly over the color lines it doesn't show through. I did all the black touch up first and let it dry then finished with the UV. The paint is pretty watery and needed a day to dry properly. Also the color can look a little splotchy and inconsistent at first but it dries pretty well. The colors look good to the naked eye and under the black light.

My only problem was I used the white colored pen on some of the white in the circle which under the blacklight for my arcade carpet looked white, but in the game cabinet it looks too green. Kind of a bummer, but oh well.

Here is my very faded before, during touchup, then the final results with a new black light installed and under normal light

 

[ArcadeTechGW]

I recently picked up a survivor Tron and wanted to give it some TLC without spending a lot of money or buying aftermarket parts.

I was inspired by this post but found that you can buy UV paint pens that are black light reactive instead of the highlighters. I got this set on Walmart UV Paint Pens and was really happy with the results. It was surprisingly easy, because the black masking makes it so that if you are slightly over the color lines it doesn't show through. I did all the black touch up first and let it dry then finished with the UV. The paint is pretty watery and needed a day to dry properly. Also the color can look a little splotchy and inconsistent at first but it dries pretty well. The colors look good to the naked eye and under the black light.

My only problem was I used the white colored pen on some of the white in the circle which under the blacklight for my arcade carpet looked white, but in the game cabinet it looks too green. Kind of a bummer, but oh well.

Here is my very faded before, during touchup, then the final results with a new black light installed and under normal light

17 year NecroBump.

Epic.