Flattening the Plastics

One of the unique problems that I had to face with Flash was the printed plastics that came with the game. These are the flat, plastic artwork pieces that are generally used to mask some of the mechanical devices, and are translucent so that the general illumination lighting will highlight the artwork.

Over time, the high heat of the bulbs originally used in these games tends to melt and slightly warp the plastics. On Flash, virtually all of the plastics were incredibly warped, but all of their artwork was intact, and the plastics were complete. Two of the larger ones had broken in half under the strain of the warping, but no shards were missing.

So the main problem is how to flatten plastics that were otherwise in good condition. Here, my kitchen skills came to the rescue.

I took the plastics and sandwiched them between two perfectly flat pieces of glass (I used panes of glass from a glass shelving unit). Then I put them on a baking sheet, and weighted them down with some heavy stacked pots. I popped them into the oven at 250 degrees, and checked them every three minutes. (You definitely don't want to overbake these.) When they reached just the right temperature, they softened, and the weight of the pots pressed them flat. I immediately removed them from the oven, and let them cool between the glass panes. This restored them back to their original condition, or nearly so. I was able to use super glue to reattach the separated plastics, and reinstalled them on the playfield.