Ms. Pac : Metal Stencils

I have not seen any for sale after a lot of research around a year ago. I have, however seen a restore thread here where someone posted a photo of multiple restored Ms. Pac cabs, and mentioned having metal stencils. So they may still exist. I could not re-find the thread.

The yellow and pink layers were originally brass stencils I believe, and it appears they were manually cut based on some of the irregularities of the art. You would be well within the standards for the cabinet if you traced vinyl ones on metal sheets and made your own.

A metal, reusable stencil is not possible for the black top art however because there are floating negative spaces. Either adhesive stencils or a silkscreening process must be used.
 
This topic has been discussed many times. I have personally seen a set of reusable stencils with my own eyes. Pink and yellow are indeed single piece stencils, black used a few sheets to pull it off.

I don't think anyone has been able to provide any definitive proof of what was actually used in the arcades, however.
 
I read somewhere long, long ago, that the factory used brass stencils.

There was a youtube video from a seller (similar to TNT) doing a walkthrough of their showrom, and as they were showing off the restorations for sale they mentioned that they utilized re-usable plastic vellum stencils on the Ms Pacs.
 
I read somewhere long, long ago, that the factory used brass stencils.

There was a youtube video from a seller (similar to TNT) doing a walkthrough of their showrom, and as they were showing off the restorations for sale they mentioned that they utilized re-usable plastic vellum stencils on the Ms Pacs.

I recall reading about brass stencils for yellow and pink and the black being screened as a final step.
 
I've got a pretty wild scan of my cabinet at 2400 dpi and you can see very slight, but very regular lumps in the black line art and swelling on the edge of the lines in one direction. That and no over-spray are telltale signs of a screen being used originally for the black.
 
TNT Amuesments had a reusable set of stencils for sale a few years ago. I can't remember for certain if it was Pac or Ms. Pac but I believe it was Ms. Pac.

Correction: it wasn't stencils, it was silk screens.
 
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I'll just leave this here....

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We had a complete set of silk screen panels we sold....this video shows them...LOTS of panels! And perfect! https://youtu.be/vkSA9SKxycQ

Those are perfect! They don't have any of the telltale signs of the usual art reproductions.

Judging by the pink screen shown starting at 19:38, they look to be the screens that would be used to print onto the vinyl for the later run of the cabinets. (Color all the way to the edge of the ghost, with space left for white details in the middle)
 
It would be a lot of trouble to have an entire set of silk screens made but considering the amount of Ms. Pac cabinets that look like crap, it might be worth having a set made. Considering, the vinyl sets only use 3 layers per side, I'm curious about why the originals were 15. But it might be possible to do it with 2 stencils and 1 or 2 black silk screens...or if someone had a vinyl printer with laser cutter, he could probably just do 1 vinyl layer (or 2) for each side of the cabinet. But I suppose, if you had the vinyl printer and laser cutter, you wouldn't need stencils at all.
 
It would be a lot of trouble to have an entire set of silk screens made but considering the amount of Ms. Pac cabinets that look like crap, it might be worth having a set made. Considering, the vinyl sets only use 3 layers per side, I'm curious about why the originals were 15. But it might be possible to do it with 2 stencils and 1 or 2 black silk screens...or if someone had a vinyl printer with laser cutter, he could probably just do 1 vinyl layer (or 2) for each side of the cabinet. But I suppose, if you had the vinyl printer and laser cutter, you wouldn't need stencils at all.

15 sheets:

3 pink
3 yellow
9 black (3 per side)
 
It would be a lot of trouble to have an entire set of silk screens made but considering the amount of Ms. Pac cabinets that look like crap, it might be worth having a set made. Considering, the vinyl sets only use 3 layers per side, I'm curious about why the originals were 15. But it might be possible to do it with 2 stencils and 1 or 2 black silk screens...or if someone had a vinyl printer with laser cutter, he could probably just do 1 vinyl layer (or 2) for each side of the cabinet. But I suppose, if you had the vinyl printer and laser cutter, you wouldn't need stencils at all.

The 15 piece set of screens in the video was for the late run of Ms. Pac-Man cabinets where they were used to put the art onto vinyl that would stick onto the sides and front. The left and right screens also appear to be split between the top and bottom creating the need for more to complete the art set. You can tell when the pink screen is shown that it does not look like what the pink pattern looks like on the older cabinets.

The vinyl cabinets are easy to recognize because of the different ghost coloration, and white highlights, as seen here on the Basement Arcade Last New Ms. Pac-Man page:

http://basementarcade.com/arcade/mspacman/tlnmpm/page2.html


The earlier runs of Ms. Pac-Man had the art stenciled and screened directly on the wood of the cabinet, with no white layer.
 
I've seen ms. Pacs with that white border around the edge. I just assumed it was a cheap vinyl repro. Never would have thought it was a dedicated. But hey! You learn something everyday.
 
This has been brought up a billion times lol. You could do ms pac brass or plastic stencils for the yellow and pink but not the black. That was silkscreened from the factory. Pay closer attention to smalltownguy's picture, you can see where all the floating pieces have bridges (lines connecting the floating parts to the fixed parts). Therefore, once used they are actually crazy inaccurate unless you hand paint all of those bridge lines. And, that much detail in an acetate stencil is nuts to try and fix in place to get a good paint job.

The time you'll waste messing around trying to make reusable work just isn't worth it when a full set of vinyl stencils will almost certainly yield a better result and are plenty economical.
 
I had a silk screening biz years ago...i absolutely could make those stencils for all colors. Id need a big exposure unit though...or i could simply use the sun as my exposure unit....and id need the art work in vector format...i'd be able to get the black wrinkles in the ghosts too. Then get me a big squeege!
 
Done silk screening also and have made screens...

They would need some sort of metal on the wood to stop it from tweeking over time...

But screens do blowout regardless of which emulsion you use when you clean them...

Better off with cnc pink and yellow and a plastic black stencil. That way the plastic is lower cost and can be replaced if needed...

Why not use a overhead projector to create the stencils?

Trace it out on an alum plate or brass. Stainless would need plasma jet or cnc.. But the cost would be a bear.


Or am I wrong?
 
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