Tag: playfield

  • Taxi restore: It’s all over under there

    Taxi restore: It’s all over under there

    The underside of the playfield is 99% complete. All the mechs are in and wires soldered. Gonna clean and wax the playfield before completing the flipper installation. I’ve taken this machine further than any other restore so far, though I won’t be doing much to the outside of the cabinet even though it’s a bit…

  • Taxi playfield comes home and the garage is a disaster

    Taxi playfield comes home and the garage is a disaster

    Picked up the freaking amazing looking taxi playfield. It’s just great. Not perfect, certainly not as awesome as a new reproduction playfield would be, but for the money it is ASTOUNDING. That said, i really fucked up. i totally fucked up. i forgot to mark out the location of all the screw holes. This machine…

  • Taxi playfield overlay installed

    Taxi playfield overlay installed

    I found someone to install the overlay and clear coat the Taxi playfield for me. Today i got this text from him and i am just TOO excited. He’ll clear and level over this and then I will get it home and start repopulating! So crazy that this machine will finally be playable soon.

  • Sanding wood patches

    Sanding wood patches

    Block sanded the entire playfield again at 400 grit and worked the newly patched spots down. Shooter lane is great, but I’ll probably need to paint it fake woodgrain so it’s not obvious. Next step I’m gonna do a light poly coat.

  • Goodbye Taxi playfield art

    Goodbye Taxi playfield art

    I didn’t expect to end up where i did, but after giving up on scraping the crap off the playfield, i thought i’d take a crack at sanding. Pretty quickly it became clear that there was no way to gingerly sand off selective areas, as adjacent areas would get worn down to the white undercoat…

  • Scraping ain’t going to work

    Scraping ain’t going to work

    Tried scraping the playfield but that isn’t going to work. Will have to sand it down completely.

  • My Taxi playfield is a mess

    My Taxi playfield is a mess

    I am finally trying to make some headway with this playfield. It’s such a colossal mess. The short version is that some previous owner sprayed Varathane (or similar) clear coat all over the playfield but did so without removing much of anything. Posts, metal, leaf switches, etc all got sprayed. Not only is it grossly…

  • Space Mission: Before and After Restoration

    Space Mission: Before and After Restoration

    I’ve been chomping at the bit to post a “before and after” series for this machine, but i wanted to wait till i had it completely finished. I worked on this restore for about 6 months (including cure time for the clear coat). Electro mechanical pinball purists will hate some of what i did, but…

  • Space Mission playfield restoration complete

    Space Mission playfield restoration complete

    Last night I finished buffing and polishing the Space Mission. It had been two months since sanding and doing a medium cut buff, which was more than a month after the last round of clear was applied. I was hoping that waiting longer for the clear to cure and using a better tool would give…