Pop Bumper Snap Cap Decal

Spy Hunter was designed with a single pop bumper, and the top of the bumper cap had a game-specific design. The design was the face of the spy/driver featured on the playfield and on the backglass of the game, Agent GK (the initials of the original designer). When we picked up this game, the pop bumper cap was broken (very common, as they are fairly fragile), and it wasn't an original cap anyway, just a generic amber color.

To restore the pop bumper cap, I found an image of the original bumper cap art online, and touched this up in Photoshop. I printed in out in black on clear decal paper, and trimmed the edges. I took a new amber snap cap with no design, and pplied the decal, and a coule of coats of polyurethane. The finished product looks very much like the original snap cap, unique to the Spy Hunter game.

Alex & I have completed rebuilding all four flipper assemblies for the playfied, and this morning I re-installed the pop bumper assembly, including the newly minted snap cap. Everything is coming along; we hope to play our first game this weekend.

Spy Hunter Decals

Due to some improperly executed efforts to remove the original mylar protectors from the Spy Hunter, I was left with some significantly damaged areas on the original playfield. These extended over a good portion of the playfield, and needed to be addressed before the playfield could be clearcoated. I decided to make up some large-scale decals to address the problems. This is not the ideal solution; it would have been better to hand-paint or airbrush each of the affected areas, but this would have been incredibly time-intensive, and we needed to move ahead on this project. So I used some original playfield scans, and used Photoshop to develop a number of decals to apply to various areas of the playfield. While the colors do not perfectly match the originals, they are very close, and I think are not detectable by the casual pinball player.

Each of the decal files in Photoshop is split into color layers (black, blue, red, yellow, white, etc.), so that the overall look of the artwork is blocked in solid-color sections, just as the silk-screened originals would have been. I test print a couple of sheets, and adjust the actual colors to better match the playfield. Since printers can't print the color white, but simply assume a white background, I use solid white background decal paper for the color and white sections, and clear background paper when I have some black lettering or highlights that should appear against a color background on the playfield.

After the laser printer has done its job, each of the decals needs to be carefully cut out. I use an exacto knife to remove the circular insert areas that need to be removed from the decals so that the lighted inserts will be visible through the decal. I soak the decals in water for about 60 seconds, and then very carefully apply and adjust the decals to the proper location.

I have done this before, but only for smaller areas. These decals are very thin, and take well to clearcoating, although using larger decals may eventually cause an adhesion problem. Best if we can sell this one quickly, then...

New Venture

Alex & I are attending the Chicago Pinball Expo this week, and Marian made us a nice business card for the event. We'll stick a couple of them on Jungle King, just to let everyone know that we are in the house.

We are staying the night on Friday, the night that the Free Play Hall stays open all night long. The Jungle King is one of the few EM machines being featured there, most of the games are much higher end, and much more recent games. Hopefully it will hold its own, in spite of its age. We'll report back after the event.

Setting Up Backglass Art File

Insomina has provided a time opportunity to finish up my Flash backglass art file in Photoshop. First I took about 12 closeup shots of the backglass with my digital camera (my scanner was negatively impacted by the thickness of the backglass refracting the light - see earlier post). I then used Photoshop's almost magical Auto-Align feature to automatically fix the individual photograph angles, and stich all of the images together in one composite file. After scaling the image to the exact size of the original backglass, it was time to clean up the art files.

I do this color by color, starting with black, and working toward white. By separating each color into its own layer, I can more easily adjust color balance later on. The above image is the current black mask layer, which I am still working on. The other colors will be much easier, just blobs of color lying underneath the black mask. There is so much detail here, though, especially with the tiny individual flecks of black, giving an illusion of a smooth color gradient, that the black layer has taken some time. Without Photoshop's powerful color selection tools, this would be too time consuming to attempt.

The plan is to send a completed Flash backglass art file to a printer in the next couple of weeks, so that I can print a good translite (or two). We are selling the Flash at the end of November, so it will need to be done by then.

Jungle King Touchups

The Chicago Pinball Expo is being held in a week or so, and Alex and I will be attending, bringing with us our first project to set up in the Exhibit Hall/Free Play area. Jungle King has been operational since May of this year, but there were always a few niggling things that I had been meaning to fix or replace; the Expo gives me an excuse and a deadline to wrap them up. We replaced the legs (not with original Gottlieb-style, but close enough), the coin door, a few problematic lamps, and a couple of plastic lane guides with faded color. We also cleaned up the stepper units again (they have started to get a little dirty in just a few months), and re-adjusted the scoring wheels, to make sure they spin free.

After everything had been buffed up, we trotted the King out for a quick photo-shoot; one of the shots is displayed above. Some of the rest have been added to this web page, under the Jungle King tab. Seeing it all put together, the transformation is very gratifying to behold. I hope it works at Expo...

Pinball & Pizza Party Proves Popular

On Sunday, we pulled all of our machines together into the garage (the Frendt Arcade), and invited a bunch of neighboorhood kids and parents over for an afternoon pinball party. We closed down the garage in the morning, and banned anyone from entering the garage until 3:00 sharp. The prohibition resulted in a crowd of kids outside the garage door at 2:55, looking as if Disneyworld were just about to open. The newest entry in our pinball family, Flash, hadn't been played by anyone yet, so there was also some anticipation of a new title.

These five machines were all busy, nonstop, for about 5 hours. I was amazed at the hold these machines had on the kids. I can understand people my age wanting to play, to recapture a glimpse of a long-past childhood, but these kids were absolutely monopolized by pre-1980s technology for the entire duration. We featured tournament play for the first three hours, which in our case was just letting the kids write down their high scores on each machine on a chart hanging on the garage wall. High score on each machine at the end of the day won a prize. But even after tournament play ended, the machines were all busy.

Some kids favored the really old Jungle King, and others the more recent Popeye. I think the biggest hit of the day, though, had to be Flash. Everyone seemed to love this one, adults and kids alike. The game play is exciting, the sound effects and lighting are very cool, and it plays fast and smooth, due to its recent restoration.

A very gratifying day, especially in an age when Nintendo, GameCube, Wii, and XBox rule the day. The visceral feel of a pinball machine apparently continues to hold its own.

Flash Runs! (And I Give Up)

After weeks of continuous consternation and vertiable vexation, Flash's MPU board was still staring at me tauntingly, knowing that only one minor tweak would have him purring like a kitten. But since I didn't know what that one tweak was, and time was running short, I folded like a deck chair, and simply bought a combination replacement board for the MPU and driver boards for Flash. I'll keep the old boards, and maybe next time around, I'll diagnose their problem properly, but in the meantime, the new board works terrifically, and Flash Runs, Flash Runs!

The right flipper is a bit weak, due to a partially shorted coil, but the new coil has been ordered, and otherwise, the game runs very smoothly. I expect to have him completely assembled, and moved into our garage/arcade by the weekend.

Speaking of which, is getting a bit crowded, at least for our tiny one-car structure. Popeye, Playboy, and Jungle King are sitting there now, and the Robotron video game will soon be joining them. Once Flash joins the brotherhood, there will be five pieces, with another 3 distressed pins sitting there like ladies in waiting. By way of celebration, we're looking forward to a little pinball party this weekend. I hope you're free.