BACKGLASS REPAIR WITH
DECALS
Williams Four Corners
By Alan Lewis
This backglass repair using
waterslide decals is on a 1952 Williams Four Corners pinball machine.
The backglass had the typical vertical
strip damage found on these backglasses due to the way the glass is removed
from the game. If done incorrectly the
glass is scratched by the light board behind it. You can see this glass was heavily damaged.
The disappointing part of this damage
is that it goes through most of the scoring windows. Ouch!
On my last project (Rainbow) I showed
how to repair backlit general illumination graphics. The Four Corners project will show by example
how this technique works on individual scoring windows.
I won’t rehash how to do the details
of the repair since that is covered by my previous webpages on the other
backglass projects. The techniques are
the same. Just make sure you use a hot
knife to cut the outlines in the ink before scraping.
Using waterslide decals to fix a
backglass is a repair rather than a restoration. It will look very nice until you can find a
reproduction or better glass. On those
glasses that will never be reproduced this repair may be your only option. I find the repair looks very nice, most
people do not know it has been repaired.
Material cost is low, labor cost is
high! Sweat equity is your money.
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BEFORE/AFTER |
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The
40,000 and 80,000 windows were heavily damaged. The scoring window must be completely
scraped off. The extra amount taken
off the edges will get filled in with the decal graphics so it will blend in. |
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The new repair decals are applied from the rear of
the glass. This is the
first decal layer, the one that you print backwards and paint flat white. It will cover up any missing graphics whether they
are backlit or not. |
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The
second, clear, decal layer is applied over the first. In
this photo the black masking paint is already applied. |
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When backlit the two repaired score windows look
exactly like the originals, if not better. |
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Now
the real OUCH part. Remove
all the damaged score windows up top.
Using a hot
knife to trace the straight lines and a chisel blade X-Acto
knife, all the ink is removed. |
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These are the two repair decal sheets ready to be
trimmed. |
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Most
of the bottom windows now have the new decal, only one left to do. |
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The second clear repair decal is applied over the
first one. I applied Triple Thick acrylic coating with a brush
on the decals. |
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Here
is the repair when backlit. The
200,000 and 300,000 are
original and the 400,00 and up are repaired. |
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The TILT graphic was also damaged. The damage was spot repaired using decals and the black masking areas were
repainted to reconstruct the original graphic. This is one repair that did not need complete
removal; most of the original graphic was saved! It looks very presentable when lit up. Besides, you aren’t supposed to ever see it lit up, right? |
BEFORE/AFTER |
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This
is the overall view of all the repairs.
I have not finished the
score widow repairs at this point, this just shows how much
of the glass was repaired. |
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CLICK HERE FOR
A SHORT VIDEO OF THE SCORE REPAIR IN ACTION |
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COPYRIGHT BY ALAN LEWIS