Gottlieb Sinbad Restoration - Ball Swirls?

Gehrig

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I recently started my first pinball restoration. Basically, I am using pinrepair.com as my bible. I did have one question about ball swirls though. The playfield had a lot of ball swirls on it, so I used magic eraser/rubbing alcohol on it. This method did a pretty good job, but there are still some ball swirls on it. Is this normal, or should the magic eraser take care of all the swirls? My instinct is that this is normal, and to try to not get too picky with it. Since this is my first project, I wanted to make sure I was taking the right approach.
 
It's a balancing act. You might get all the swirl, but you never know when you will burn through the art. I was able to remove pretty much all the ball swirl on a Charlie's Angels, but I did occasionally burn through and had to touch it up.
 
I've been messing with them for over a year trying to figure out a good way to clean them..

The ball swirls are basically small cracks... regular cleaning won't clean out the dirt that's in the cracks.

The Magic Eraser is made up of a special polymer that's microscopic, and able to get in smaller cracks then most cleaning tools... so basically, you can clean those small cracks out, it's like fine sandpaper though... so it'll remove all sheen, and if you go too much, you'll get rid of the ball swirl but you'll get rid of the paint too.

Once you wax it, the wax will get in the cracks, and now instead of black ball swirl marks, you'll have white ball swirl marks.

The best way to prevent this, is to clean the playfield with the magic eraser as much as possible, and get it as nice as you can... then clear coat the entire thing, then put the wax on the clear coat. The clear will get in the small cracks but you can't tell since it's clear! Very hard to do a great clear coat though.

Here's a picture of one I did a while back, you can see the white looking cracks in the paint, that's not ball swirl but it's the same principle; the dirt is out of the cracks, and now white wax is in them.
 

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ya its hard to get all the swirl out. my fingers feel like they are broke everytime

SINBAD is a fun game

when you are done you might want to clearcoat the playfield as it makes the playfield look fantastic and makes the ball travel faster
 

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it is clearcoated

if you look real close, you can see where the sharpie pen ink reacted with the clear...
just one of the idiosyncracies of working with the DUPONT product. very happy with it and will use again
 
Yup, clear is definately the way to go, but you have to have a lot of time to wait for it to dry completely, and also you have to be confident you can do it without ruining the playfield! I don't have either, so I haven't been clearing any of mine, lol.
 
That playfield does look very nice. I personally haven't decided if I am going to go with the clear coat route yet. There is one small section I need to touch up. Thinking I might just use a small piece of mylar on it. Since this is my first restoration, I feel like more experienced people could do a better job with it. If and when I decide to sell, I want to give people the opportunity to take the restoration a bit further if they are compelled to.
 
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