If you do this and stuff up your plastics do NOT blame me, if you follow these instructions, prepare your "cooking area" and use common sense then you will NOT wreck your plastics. If you fire up the oven and become ignorant to what's happening after you shove your plastic in the oven you WILL DESTROY your ( possibly irreplaceable ) plastic. This method has worked for me on EVERY machine I have owned and I have never lost a plastic - but you NEED TO CONCENTRATE ON THE JOB AT HAND!

I am no genius here, I actually just use a method that I found at Mr Pinball's Repair Tip Archive, I just thought I would show a few shots so that you get the idea that it can be done rather than just reading about the method.

                                                       A VERY clean oven tray

                                                              An oven mitt

                                                            A steel spatula

                                                           2 x sheets of glass

                                                           Some heavy books

Pre-heat the oven to 160 degree's ( Australian heat temperature-compare for your own country ). There is a Temperature Conversion chart here

Have the oven tray OUT OF THE OVEN so it doesn't get hot, once that oven is ready slam your first piece of plastic onto the cool  tray, shove it in the oven and feel your heart rate go up a few notches as you wait patiently for it to start to 'melt' your rare and hard to replace piece of plastic.

DO NOT take your eyes off it, it should take about 1-2 minutes before it starts to droop, DO NOT PANIC. I wait until the plastic flattens right down onto the tray, I then rip the tray out, shut the oven door ( you should have been wearing that oven mitt in readiness for this moment) and after placing the tray on a towel I get the steel spatula and lift that plastic off the tray and onto the piece of glass, I then immediately get the other piece of glass and stick it on top and place even weight with my hands where the plastic is. After the initial cooling period I then put some books on the glass and move on to repeat the process for the next piece of plastic.

It is an awful feeling, but get your valuable playfield plastic and shove it in your pre-heated oven and shut that door, now DO NOTHING ELSE but watch that plastic. DO NOT GO FOR A PISS !

How's your heart rate now?

 

Once it is flat , rip it out of the oven, get that spatula under it ( being careful not to scrape the images off the back of it ) and get it onto your piece of glass.

 

Put the other sheet of glass over the top of the plastic and keep your weight on it until it is cool.

You can relax a little now !

 

Place some weight on the top peice of glass until the plastic is completely cool and it will stay flat after that.

As you can see, apart from a good read, Pinball and Arcade books make a good weight as well.

 

So that's it, all done and quite easy if not a little bit nerve wracking. By the way, once you have them all flat, clean them with Orange Solvent and then get the Novus 2 and Novus 1 onto them, they will definitely come up like brand spanking new !

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