My official High Speed restoration thread.

camperjohn

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Since I am going to be tearing apart my High Speed in the next few months and putting it back together restored, I wanted to start a single thread.

Today I cut and tested my stencil cutting ability on some acetate. I spray painted on some old wood to see how it goes.

All I tested was the Williams logo, and a circle. Here is what I am trying to reproduce:

http://mirror1.ipdb.org/images/1176/image-4.jpg

I am big fan of point form:

- I discovered that cutting is eary, but perfection is not.
- The circles looked ok but not perfect.
- The yellow circle, placed next to the red circle, made it so obvious that neither circle was round. Individually they looked ok. Toegether..oi vay!
- Overspray was a problem as the plastic comes in rolls, and doesn't lay flat on the wood.
- Using a clothing iron, I put the plastic on a wood base, put a t-shirt on top, then ironed the plastic flat
- Re-spraying the stencil with the now perfectly flat plastic gave no overspray.

http://www.bodydot.com/viewgallery?id=45838
http://www.bodydot.com/photo-l0QgDKhs6fhXcPuQ-High-Speed-Restoration.html
http://www.bodydot.com/photo-l0QgDKhs6fhXcPuR-High-Speed-Restoration.html

From this, I learned that I will make the stecils on Adobe Illustrator, then go get them cut on a machine. I will return with new information on what those results looks like.

John
 
Since I am going to be tearing apart my High Speed in the next few months and putting it back together restored, I wanted to start a single thread.

Today I cut and tested my stencil cutting ability on some acetate. I spray painted on some old wood to see how it goes.

All I tested was the Williams logo, and a circle. Here is what I am trying to reproduce:

http://mirror1.ipdb.org/images/1176/image-4.jpg

I am big fan of point form:

- I discovered that cutting is eary, but perfection is not.
- The circles looked ok but not perfect.
- The yellow circle, placed next to the red circle, made it so obvious that neither circle was round. Individually they looked ok. Toegether..oi vay!
- Overspray was a problem as the plastic comes in rolls, and doesn't lay flat on the wood.
- Using a clothing iron, I put the plastic on a wood base, put a t-shirt on top, then ironed the plastic flat
- Re-spraying the stencil with the now perfectly flat plastic gave no overspray.

http://www.bodydot.com/viewgallery?id=45838
http://www.bodydot.com/photo-l0QgDKhs6fhXcPuQ-High-Speed-Restoration.html
http://www.bodydot.com/photo-l0QgDKhs6fhXcPuR-High-Speed-Restoration.html

From this, I learned that I will make the stecils on Adobe Illustrator, then go get them cut on a machine. I will return with new information on what those results looks like.

John

Yes, please do.

I did a HS playfield swap several years ago. I used to have a HS that worked 100% that looked okay. Now I have a beautiful game that only works 90%. Granted, I haven't worked on it for the past 3 years......:) I plan to finish it up this spring. I have lots of playfield pics so if you need any, let me know. I haven't done anything with the cab itself.
 
"It has begun..."

I got my stencils last weekend. This weekend I may begin sanding it down and see how far I get. I won't do it all in one weekend.

Then bondo, then black, then stencils.

You can see the photo where I was doing tests of the color matching. I got some a color match from home depot, but it sucked, so I added orange and black until I got it just right. I used Q-Tips to mix the colors and ratios until it was right, then I made a 1/2 quart of paint mixture that matched the q-tip experiments. I think I got it right on. On the top, you can also see the red that I mixed with black and purple to get the red just right.
 

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Nice going John, keep up the good work! The yellow color is called "school bus yellow" it's a perfect match. Make sure you use enamel though, as acrylic has no gloss to the paint. Michael's craft store has the perfect match, so there's no need for mixing. Rule of thumb is work smart not hard! I sent you a few pm's so when you get a chance look into the things I had asked? Thanks, and keep up the good work.
 
Oh yes, taking off the speaker?

It was simply 4 screws on the inside of the cabinet - 2 on each side. Then the front panel comes right out.

I have high gloss acrylic. I think it will be fine. I hate enamels that dont wash up with water.
 
Oh yes, taking off the speaker?

It was simply 4 screws on the inside of the cabinet - 2 on each side. Then the front panel comes right out.

I have high gloss acrylic. I think it will be fine. I hate enamels that dont wash up with water.

thanks for that. I can't wait to see final results.
 
Polished the glass mount channel and put new fabric on the speaker board.
 

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Today I sanded down and bondoed head. Tomorrow I sand down again and get ready for paint. I was surprized how much damage there really was to the wood after I started sanding and getting close to it. Lots of wood chipped off or was ready to chip off.
 

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Famous last words "I dont think I will get it all done today". Means I got all the bondo done, all sanded down, second coat of bondo (to fill in the deep parts I missed on the first pass), and resanded.

The head is now ready for a coat of black paint. I am doing the body and head seperately to keep te motivation up as together they would be a daunting task to bondo and paint in one shot.
 
All from a $1 spray gun bought off of ebay. The black is looking really really good. By the way my spray booth is for sale at the reasonable price of only $13,000. It's foldable, portable and can be set up in only minutes. $13,000 - cmon guys that is a STEAL!
 

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Yes most of the art is in good shape. I am only repainting the black, and some of the colors. Around where the player places his hands, the wood is compressed and the paint has buckled as players lean on the machine.

Will postnew pics in 2/3 days when ready to paint.
 
All bondo and sanding done. Once again that was more work than I thought it would be. but it looks really nice.

Now I just need to mask off the artwork with acetate so I don't paint over it, then bust out the black paint.
 

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The pictures don't really show it, but the sides and back are all entirely smooth. No bumps or dents or anything. I close my eyes and run my fingers along the surface and I can't feel anything.
 
Now I just need to mask off the artwork with acetate ......


What is acetate? I masked off using painters tape before using the blue kind, and when I took the tape off it took the paint off right with it, making the touch become a big job now. Like to use your stencils John when you done? Let me know? Thanks
 
Oh yes dont use tape on the sides. Acetate is just plastic and it comes in sheets at an art store. Its like the plastic they used on eletronic stuff (but really thin not like the packaging that you can't open). Flat, clear plastic that you can cut with a razor or scissors. I got the thin stuff and I draw the car or letters with a marker then I cut it out.

I then pop holes in it with a little hole puncher and tape jsut the little hole to the paint. This way, 95% of what touches the cabinet is non-sticky plastic, and 5% is just masking tape holding the plastic/acetate to the side. Will take some pics.
 
Here is where I masked off the paint while sanding, then took off the paint when I was done. Fortunatly it was a really small area.

The wheel on the left of the picture will stay original. The area on the right will be repainted black.

Next comes pics of the stencils.
 

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Here are the police cars covered. Check out the small dots under the tape holding the plastic on.
 

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