Dr Who Playfield Restoration - Refurb or Replace?

[Xephlon]

Hey,

I've just picked up my first ever non-EM game before Christmas, and so far, it has been fantastic. Bought it at a bargain price (by today's standards at least) and got it from being unresponsive to a fully playable state. When buying, the playfield looked good. All artwork was intact, and there were no chipping around inserts, even if some were mildly raised. Not being familiar with the game though, I neglected to notice the absence of 'red', and only when I came to shop the playfield did I fully realise the extent of the fading of the ink. I'll throw some pictures in to show this. I haven't found any DW games online with fading much worse than this.

Now my question is whether I should get the playfield refurbished; have the red repainted and the artwork clear coated, or should I replace the playfield? I am not familiar with artwork repair on playfields, and I'm somewhat sceptical as to the quality of the results possible with repainting. I'm also aware of the high price of a CPR playfield, and they don't even make them for DW. Replacement would require me to use VPinball layouts for DW to make a CAD file to get fresh plywood CNC milled, and then apply printed artwork and an acrylic sheet to the fresh wood. I'd estimate a cost of £400-500 for this playfield to be manufactured. I'd look at selling this faded playfield if I went ahead with manufacturing since it has a lot of life despite the faded ink. For anyone with more experience on this topic, let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Josh

 

[AlanJ]

i’d like to see the shop log and process if you making your own playfield. i understand the cnc bit, but no idea how you’d do the artwork.

 

[PinIB]

I’m not endorsing this as any good but could be an option.

Printed Playfield Overlay Protector for Doctor Who

Playfield protector made of high-quality PETG, material thickness only 0.5 mm. It may be necessary to remove components on the playfield during…

www.pinball.center

 

[Xephlon]

@AlanJ I've got some experience using CAD software, so I'm not worried about the CNC part either. As for the artwork, direct printing onto wood is very much possible with UV printers, but I struggled to find any when just searching online in my local area (since I don't want to be shipping a whole heaving playfield around!). The other option would be reverse printing onto acrylic, as done with hardtops, but I'm not familiar with how that could be done. I feel this is a promising option.

@PinIB I got a reply from that vendor today on some of their details. Overall, seems to be a decent product, but things to consider are that there is no adhesive backing, there is no mini-playfield protector, and many of the holes need to be drilled/routed. I could handle the adhesive and holes issues, but making a printed piece of acrylic just for the mini-playfield seems redundant when I could just print the whole playfield and save the money.