MAKE YOUR OWN PINBALL PLASTICS

3d Williams Pinball Machine

By Alan Lewis

All of the playfield plastics on this game were damaged. I had to make a new set.

First the old plastics are scanned at 300 dpi and repaired in Photoshop.

Since I already had some 1/16” thick acrylic plastic sheet I used that rather than the recommended PETG plastic. Woodrail pinball machines aren’t hard on the plastics so it is OK to use acrylic. Acrylic can break during fabrication so take care.

My technique is the same as my backglass repair technique. I use waterslide decals, doubled up if backlit. If you have read my backglass pages you know how it is done.

The old plastics are used as templates on the new acrylic sheet

Since there are two half round scallops in the shapes you should drill those out first, before cutting the pieces out of the sheet.

All the plastics cut out and the edges polished. A quick way to polish the saw cut edges is to wet sand with 400 grit until even looking, then 800/1000 grit wet, finished with a buffing wheel and fine compound.

The decal sheets are printed out. In this case I needed only two backlit plastics, the rest were not illuminated. Therefore the only plastics that need the double decal technique are the illuminated ones. The others just use one decal.

One complete set of clear decals is printed out as a mirror image and painted flat white.

A second set of clear decals for only the backlit plastics is printed, mirrored, on clear paper. Do not paint white.

The new decal is painted flat white and trimmed to fit.

This is the backside of the new plastic with the one decal applied. Since this one is not backlit the job is finished.

Front of the new plastic

On the left is the illuminated plastic with the first decal (painted white) applied. It looks very thin when backlit.

On the right is after the second clear decal is applied over the white side of the first decal. The color density increases dramatically.

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