How were stencils applied at the factory?

Pimpbot5000

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I've poured over several great threads regarding using stencils to restore games. What I haven't seen is information about exactly how stencils were applied at the factory. I would love to know more about what the original process was, what the factory stencils were made out of, what kind of paint was used, etc. If anyone can point me to any of that info it would be great. Thanks!
 
I used to work in the Engineering Lab at Gremlin/Sega back in the early 80's. What types of stencils are you talking about?
 
Well, from the looks of Stern games, the stencil was made of cardboard and held against the game by a drunken college student while someone sprayed paint in the general direction of the cabinet...

-Ian
 
Well, from the looks of Stern games, the stencil was made of cardboard and held against the game by a drunken college student while someone sprayed paint in the general direction of the cabinet...

-Ian

That actually made me laugh out loud. But true
 
Well, from the looks of Stern games, the stencil was made of cardboard and held against the game by a drunken college student while someone sprayed paint in the general direction of the cabinet...

-Ian

Back then Gremlin wasn't very up with side graphics, I remember most of the cool looking games coming in from Sega in Japan. I'm sure we did side graphics I just don't remember seeing it on the production floor.

I do remember the fixtures for applying the lexan overlays for the control panels with the broomstick looking dowels out of the switch holes used for registration but that's about it, sorry.
 
After digging through the archives I came across this thread which has some good info about how stencils were applied at the factory:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=126963

To summarize: the factory stencils were metal and were apparently held against the cabinet by metal reinforcement bars as opposed to being adhered to the cabinet. Games like Ms. Pac-Man used a two step process involving stencils for the bright colors and then silk screening for the fine black lines.

The whole reason I asked the question originally is because I'm getting ready to restore a couple of cabinets with painted artwork. I like the "fuzzy" edges on the original artwork. I wanted to understand the factory process as much as possible.
 
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