Need some pro suggestions about curling mylar on my newly-acquired Pinball Magic

Fatsquatch

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Need some pro suggestions about curling mylar on my newly-acquired Pinball Magic

Well, I got my Pinball Magic tonight (it was surprisingly tougher than I thought to see the vids go that I traded for it), and she's gorgeous. Everything seems to be working fine, the cabinet is solid and near-perfect, and just a few weeks ago, the machine had new balls, new legs, new rubbers, and new playfield plastics installed.

HOWEVER...

Above the flippers where the mylar starts, it's curling up along the edge, and sadly, is starting to take the artwork with it.

Obviously, the balling rolling against this curl is only going to make it worse, so I'm holding off on playing it until I get this issue taken care of.

So, pinball experts, what would be the best thing for me to do?

Pics can be found HERE.

(FYI: The mylar is one big-ass piece that runs up the entire playfield. Other than the areas I've described, it's in very good condition.)
 
It looks like somebody tried to peel the Mylar back without first applying heat or using cold spray to deal with the glue. I am not sure how to proceed with this one. One thought would be to re-adheare the Mylar to the playfield using some spray adheasive. There are spray adheasives by 3M that are repositionable. I would stay away from a spray adheasive that is permanent. I might stay away from spray adheasives all together. The best route is to remove the playfield and send it out for restoration. They would touch up the missing artwork and clearcoat the playfield. That is a lot of work though.

The guys over on rec.games.pinball (google newsgroups) are much better at answering this type of question that I am. There are quite a few restorers that follow that group.

Tom M
 
Its not that bad I would get a can or two of air and remove the rest of it. Its peeling from wear and time, just adhesive is just failing. Just remember to go slow and take your time. Then clean up the area with some googone.
 
For now, just cut it off with a razor blade right above the end of the peel.

I considered going that route and almost resigned myself to doing it, but after taking suggestions from RGP, Pinside, and you guys here, I'm going to have a go at just removing the mylar. As has been mentioned elsewhere, trimming the mylar would just be temporary, and I'd be faced with the same problem later on.

Clearly, the mylar just needs to go. I just wish it wasn't one huge piece like it is. :(
 
UPDATE: I used the freeze method to remove the mylar, and it worked brilliantly. The only paint or artwork I lost was around the word "Morph" at the bottom of the playfield, but that was already messed up from when the mylar was curling. (Actually, the whole "Morph" word came off in a nickel-size section, but I managed to super glue most of it back in place. All that's missing are some spots in the yellow paint around the word, and that should touch-up nicely.) I also super glued the end of the snake's tail back down before removing the mylar from it, and you can barely tell that it had ever been off.

So other than in that one area where the artwork had already been damaged and missing from the lifted mylar (around "Morph"), I didn't lose a single speck of playfield or insert artwork.

The playfield now looks even more awesome than it did, and it's nice to not have to worry about lifting mylar anymore. :)

Thanks for all the feedback!
 
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