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Wanted Centaur inlane plastics
- Thread starter kevlar
- Start date
OP
OP
Sorry, @kevlar. It's so tiddly I completely missed it when I took all the plastics off to clean them
You don't know small until you've accidentally inhaled a Shadow ring bulb
They are included in the full plastic set from CPR, but quite frankly they need to be sold separately as well, as they are always missing /broken on Centaurs.
I've got a CPR set coming, so we need to work out how to repro the inlanes and make a bucket full of them for people with the same problem
OP
OP
Sounds like a great idea, we have a few electronics experts on here, do we have anyone good with plastics?
I need to experiment with reproducing a plastic as this one is munzted on my GOLD BALL:
They all seem to be like this on GB, a real week spot, so I though I'd use some thicker plastic, at least 3mm maybe even 4 or 5mm. The plastic will be Lexan/Makrolon (polycarbonate) as it's tough - much stronger than the original 30+ year old stuff.
For the graphics I was going to experiment with window stickers. These are reverse printed and designed to be stuck on the inside of a glass window, just like how pinball plastics have the images reverse screen-printed on the plastic underside. Stickers can be supplied on either clear or white vinyl. White to me seems the obvious choice as pinball plastics are usually white on the back to diffuse the GI lighting. It should be possible to get them stuck onto the Lexan completely bubble-free. I have a sample pack somewhere... I'll see if there's a window sticker in there and trying it on a bit of Lexan.
As a guide to prices, a 1-off A4 sized sticker costs £12.20 including delivery from diginate, which I reckon would be large enough for maybe 8-10 slingshots.
They all seem to be like this on GB, a real week spot, so I though I'd use some thicker plastic, at least 3mm maybe even 4 or 5mm. The plastic will be Lexan/Makrolon (polycarbonate) as it's tough - much stronger than the original 30+ year old stuff.
For the graphics I was going to experiment with window stickers. These are reverse printed and designed to be stuck on the inside of a glass window, just like how pinball plastics have the images reverse screen-printed on the plastic underside. Stickers can be supplied on either clear or white vinyl. White to me seems the obvious choice as pinball plastics are usually white on the back to diffuse the GI lighting. It should be possible to get them stuck onto the Lexan completely bubble-free. I have a sample pack somewhere... I'll see if there's a window sticker in there and trying it on a bit of Lexan.
As a guide to prices, a 1-off A4 sized sticker costs £12.20 including delivery from diginate, which I reckon would be large enough for maybe 8-10 slingshots.
OP
OP
Looks like you just volunteered to be our plastics repro man Nedreud 
I need a completely new unobtanium plastic for Jolly Park.... i have a scan.....
Ok! Challenge accepted!
I had a rummage and found a sample window sticker from http://www.edgestickers.co.uk/, type ST07 - Full colour vinyl window sticker, digital print CMYK, removable adhesive, white backed (type ST06 has permanent adhesive). I've got some scrap Lexan left over from my GOLD BALL playfield protector. It's only 0.75mm but will do get an idea:
Stage 1. Remove protective film and slap on the sticker!
Flip it over. Not bad, few air bubbles (possibly some dust, I wasn't trying very hard!):
Remove film from the top-side:
Shiny!
Excellent quality in natural daylight:
And a basic light test in front of 60W strip light:
So far, so good. I reckon that warrants further investigation unless anyone else has access to a UV Solvent Printer?
I had a rummage and found a sample window sticker from http://www.edgestickers.co.uk/, type ST07 - Full colour vinyl window sticker, digital print CMYK, removable adhesive, white backed (type ST06 has permanent adhesive). I've got some scrap Lexan left over from my GOLD BALL playfield protector. It's only 0.75mm but will do get an idea:
Stage 1. Remove protective film and slap on the sticker!
Flip it over. Not bad, few air bubbles (possibly some dust, I wasn't trying very hard!):
Remove film from the top-side:
Shiny!
Excellent quality in natural daylight:
And a basic light test in front of 60W strip light:
So far, so good. I reckon that warrants further investigation unless anyone else has access to a UV Solvent Printer?
OP
OP
Well done, I was wondering whether the stickers would let enough light through.
Good enough for me to order some stickers to try on GOLD BALL. I'm going to scan and vectorise a few plastics (slingshots, etc.) including the one that's broken one for the targets and get a sticker printed. I can then make repros and compare them to the originals side-by-side as well as fixing the broken one, which I have to do no matter what (that one is a bit different as mounted vertically and no GI underneath it).
Have you got a scanner @kevlar? If so, chuck your CENTAUR inlane plastic in it and send me the file. I'll add a few copies onto my sticker sheet. Whilst I was rummaging I found an A3 sheet of 3mm Lexan I forgot I'd ordered! Not promising they'll be brilliant but worth a try.
If you do scan it put a ruler in there too for scaling!
Have you got a scanner @kevlar? If so, chuck your CENTAUR inlane plastic in it and send me the file. I'll add a few copies onto my sticker sheet. Whilst I was rummaging I found an A3 sheet of 3mm Lexan I forgot I'd ordered! Not promising they'll be brilliant but worth a try.
If you do scan it put a ruler in there too for scaling!
How are you going to cut the plastics? Do I remember a thread with you talking about a mini-CNC machine from a while back?
Looks like lasers are the way to do it. I keep fancying picking up one of those cheap Chinese laser cutters, but I don't have the room
Looks like lasers are the way to do it. I keep fancying picking up one of those cheap Chinese laser cutters, but I don't have the room
OP
OP
Thanks Peter, I do have a scanner but not sure I can get it to work with my pc. I'll sort something out though
I hadn't noticed before but it's clear on this photo that mine is broken too. Obviously somebody has effected some kind of repair per the extra screws. Whilst I'm looking at this area do you want me to bring this cover plate over to Salisbury tomorrow to borrow for the replacement pattern?
My next-door neighbour has a benchtop mini-CNC for doing control panels and one-off PCBs. He mentioned about wanting to get a laser... @astyy has conveniently put a photo above of the metal plate that sites above the triple spot-targets on GOLD BALL. I am going to use the mini-CNC to cut out some new ones for us.
But for the plastics I'd use my new trusty mini-router for the Dremel. I also have a scroll saw. The edges can then be cleaned and buffed (no flame polishing for polycarbonate!).
The thought had crossed my mind @Paul 
Need to perfect my cutting and polishing. Polycarbonate edges can be solvent polished with methylene chloride, but I've yet to lay my hands on some of that! Apparently acetone works so may have to raid the wife's nail polish remover
Also, need to run a few trials with different stickers, or see if it's possible to adhere a printed photographic paper (although I'd want to use a synthetic film rather than actual paper).
Need to perfect my cutting and polishing. Polycarbonate edges can be solvent polished with methylene chloride, but I've yet to lay my hands on some of that! Apparently acetone works so may have to raid the wife's nail polish remover
Also, need to run a few trials with different stickers, or see if it's possible to adhere a printed photographic paper (although I'd want to use a synthetic film rather than actual paper).
I'll be your first customer if you do 
only one, and a simple one too...
only one, and a simple one too...
i'll be his second customer. i'm sure loads of us have a few plastics we want but can't find, and Peter sure is a stickler for the detailsI'll be your first customer if you do
Looks like the plastic reproductions need there own thread.
Uh-oh... what have I started?
OP
OP
Can you send me a scan? I need a few guinea pigs
And apologies to @kevlar for totally de-railing his WANTED post. Sorry
No need, if it gets me some plastics I'll be very happy
. I'll try and get my crusty old scanner working tomorrow.
See? I just can't resist trying something new. Paul sent me his Jolly Park plastic scans... terrible quality! Have started to vectorise in Inkscape (the little white star in the middle so far). Black and white "inks" sit on different layers above the original image at the bottom. Layers can be turned on and off as your editing. The white fill of the star slightly extends under the black edges, which is how proper screen-printing would work:
Remedied now - 300DPI scan sent
OP
OP
Got my scanner working, is 300dpi sufficient Peter? Scanner goes upto 1200. Also JPEG, Bmp or Tiff?
I have done this previously made my own plastics that is. I used to scan them at 600dpi but you will have to recolourise them with a program like photo shop etc prior to printing though as they will look washed out otherwise
@TYHO done his own custom plastics for his Ramones machine
@TYHO done his own custom plastics for his Ramones machine
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300dpi is sufficient because the commercial printers for these sticker products work at 300dpi. If you can go higher then do so, although on a lot of cheaper scanners this is actually done through interpolation in software. Don't worry about it, just go for the highest settings. Don't save as JPEG as it's a compressed image format that will introduce irregularities. BMP or TIFF are fine but may end up being too large to send via email but we can work that out. If you use TIFF make sure it's non-compressed.
Don't worry if there are any odd bits here or there, I'll clean it up best I can. As CENTAUR is black and white I can also re-colour the image to use pure tones.
This is all experimental, so I'll do a few sets with different shades so you can get a best match. Just chuck me a beer token later via PayPal to cover postage etc. I'm going to do an A4 sheet of stickers which costs £12.20 plus £2.75 for the Lexan. I should be able to fit on several CENTAUR test sets for @kevlar and @lukewells, a couple of target plastics for mine and @astyy's GOLD BALL, @Paul's missing JOLLY PARK inlane guide and @Hiro996 needs something unobtanium for one of his pins.