Finally, the playfield of the Whoopee has been completely restored. Pictures of the complete process can be found here:
I've done the following:
- Thorough cleanup, using meths and Red Devil
- Sandpapering, 400 to 240 grit
- Levelling of playfield inserts and refill of all scratches and chips:
- Paint touchup using acrylic paint (primary colors and my own mixes)
- Repainted insert black circles
- Vitrification using transparent glossy product, 3 coatings
- Lustring with orbital smoother
- Cleanup of all plastics using washing-up liquid
- Changed all rubbers
- Cleaned all switches and stepper units using 240 grit sandpaper
- Cleaned all balls and metal parts using HCl acid
Note about cleaning metal with acid: the balls were completely rusted. See this picture for reference:
After using acid, they turned out like this:
Worry not. Polish them gently and they'll turn very nice, see as the process goes on:
Here's my little vitrification HOWTO:
For starters, the playfield must be stripped naked of all parts and perfectly clean, without residual detergent. I recommend "rinsing" using water and/or glass cleaner (which is very volatile and leaves no trace). Once the playfield is ready:
- Sandpaper it (grit 400 to 240)
- Remove dust residuals using glass cleaner
- Cover the playfield while it dries out, to avoid new dust
- Prepare the vitrification product. I used a monocomponent Transparent Glossy product (brand "Syntilor"): it must be gently moved up & down to blend the product. I say gently because if you shake it too harshly, tiny bubbles will form which will be very difficult to get rid of
- Apply the product using a lacquer roll. It makes it very easy to apply the product uniformly across the whole playfield
- Let it dry for 6h, protecting the playfield against dust (any speck of dust at this point will be forever trapped in the vitrification)
- Sandpaper, 400 grit
- Repeat the above 3 steps 2 times (total: 3 coatings)
- Depending on the desired effect, you will either not sandpaper the final coating (for glossy finish), or sand it very gently with an orbital smoother at 400+ grit for satin-finish
- Finally, polish the playfield using P5 polish paste. BEWARE: do not wait more than 24h between the final coating and polishing. After about a day, the vitrification is so hard it's impossible to polish
Note: during the whole process, the playfield must be perfectly horizontal (use a spirit level).
Here's the final result: