This page is one of a number of my pages  where you can see how I personally repaint my pinball machines, this method works for ME, I am NOT saying it is something everyone should do BUT with a bit of patience and caring I believe that you can achieve GREAT results repainting a pinball machine using this method. If you can pick up some idea's here then that is fantastic, I hope this helps some of you considering a repaint.

I find repainting of a pinball machine can be a long and boring job that, dependent on the graphics, can be quite difficult at times, however, about 3 weekends later when you peel off your last stencil, stand back and look at your NEW machine, that's when you realise it was all worth the effort.

Repainting a pinball cabinet or back box is easiest if you have rebuilt a new cabinet and have the old machine to get the artwork stencils copied from however I do realise that not everybody wants to or can do that, so the method I describe below has also worked fine on other machines where I just want to re-spray over the existing artwork on the existing old cabinet

OK , it's time to start to make some stencils, I use Nylex CLEAR Contact paper that is available from most department stores, it's cheap, not too thick and importantly NOT SUPER STICKY!

In the case of my Flash restore I had another backbox , originally from a Firepower game to apply my Flash artwork to, so after spraying the 4 coats of base Black onto the old Firepower back box I waited a week before starting to make the stencils for the white images from the side of the Flash back box.

In this shot you will see that I have covered the entire side of the old Flash Back Box in contact paper.

For some reason the backbox on the right (above ) looks milky on this web page, I assure you that it is actually perfect and a deep black in real life...........gotta get myself a new digital camera, as some of the red and black images appear like this throughout my site.

After you have covered the entire image in a sheet of clear contact use a VERY sharp blade to slowly and carefully cut out only the white images, steer the knife from the back with one hand while cutting and then peel out the inner parts after you have made your cuts, so that you are left with a large sheet of clear contact with holes in it that match the shape of the images that you are going to be re-spraying ( white in the case of my example here ).

DO NOT press too hard with the knife as it will end up getting caught in one of the old "plywood  grooves" where the old plywood has started to split and the knife will want to stay and travel in the groove instead of around the image shape you are trying to cut.

Now is the time when you have to get assistance from that wonderful wife or a good mate who can take a bit of abuse because believe me, at this point you will start to get angry for a while because it is time to transfer the contact sheets over to the new black box

When transferring the contact stencils make sure that you take your time, it is a fiddly job as you have to try not to tear the main sheet in the wrong place, in some cases I have cut the whole sheet into smaller pieces ( as I did here) so it is easier to move the contact sheeting in smaller pieces and then simply re-joined it all on the other box like a jigsaw puzzle and then put tape over all the joins. The shot below shows the old Firepower box painted black with my newly cut stencils on ready to spray on the white Flash images. You can also see that I cut the whole sheet into about 6 smaller pieces to make it easier to transfer it all from the old box to the new.

Now cover all the rest of the cabinet and spray away. White is the worst colour to spray, I spray 4 light coats of white , making the first coat VERY light. You will find that if you spray too heavy a coat that it will 'gum up' around the edges of your cut outs and this wont show up until you are removing the stencils ,as I said so many times- BE PATIENT, this back box took me an entire day to spray the white only as I left 2 hours between coats, if you try and cheat or shortcut you will pay BIG TIME, I know from experience.

If the contact lifts in some places between coats just stick it back down each time before you spray the next coat. Also make sure that you leave at least 3 hours after your last coat before finally removing the stencils and peel them off slowly.

If you remove them too early some of your edges may not be dry and it will look awful.

Below is the final result that I finish up with when the WHITE is all done.

If you do get any rough edges after removing the stencil just buy some matching white or black paint from a hobby store and buy a GOOD artists tiny brush and touch up those edges, trust me, you will not notice the touch ups.

Using the same stenciling principal as described above I now have the red sprayed  over the white and black. Below is my light first coat.

The following pictures show you the absolute final result of my Flash back box re-spray. I use this same stencil and paint technique for backboxes as well as cabinet sides and fronts.

You can see more of my stencil and re-paint work at my Flash Cabinet Re-paint page or at my Gorgar pages