Restored 1973 Jungle King Backglass Art
Original 1973 Jungle King Backglass
The very first restoration project we worked on together was a 1973 Jungle King, which we rescued nearly from the dumpster in Wisconsin. The cabinet was in terrible shape, the backbox heavily water damaged, and the backglass was horrible, especially on the right side, where most of the water damage had occured. Add to this the fading of all of the red ink to a nearly white color, and we had quite a project on our hands.
No restoration backglasses are available for Jungle King, so I decided to try making my own. I scanned the backglass and restored the artwork, pixel by pixel, until I had a fairly high resolution image. I had this printed on a 0.015-inch frosted polystyrene to make my own translite. I also made a separate image (below) for the light masking layer, which allowed the backlit portions of the glass to function as intended (Game Over, Balls to Play, etc.). I printed this layer out separately, and sandwiched both layers between clear panes of glass in the backbox. The result came out remarkably good, considering it was my first try at it. I liked restoring this artwork, and plan to do this again in the future for any rare backglasses for which reproductions are not available.
