So I bought a beautiful Bally Game Show from @Matt Adams a month or so back in really good condition for its age. The only real problem - as Matt warned me - was that the full playfield mylar was bubbling and coming up, especially over the inserts. It had to go.
Removing mylar from a System 11 machine can be very straightforward - just lift an edge by heating with a heat gun, and then remove slowly using freeze spray. If you are lucky and you go slowly you can often get the entire mylar sheet off without any damage to the artwork. But removing the glue residue afterwards can be a right pain in the ***. The last one I did was a Creech, and it took hours to remove the glue with glue solvent and the solvent gave me a headache even in a well ventilated room. I've also tried using flour and rolling the glue off with Goo Gone, and that is messy as well as time consuming. And very long and tedious work.
Then someone in the custom car world told me about Rapidtac Rapid Remover. I looked on Pinside to see if anyone had ever used it, and it looks like Vid2000 has recommended it. Trouble is that it is hard to track down in the UK, but eventually I found some.
Well, what can I say! It's expensive, but what a revelation! You just spray a little on to the playfield, wait about 20 seconds, and then run a plastic scraper or plastic razor blade over the surface of the playfield and it just lifts the glue off in rubbery strips. Who knew glue removal could be so easy? The whole playfield took about ten minutes, and then I gave it a wipe over with a cloth soaked in the stuff to remove any residue. Glue gone! Easy peasy.
A trio of insert decals were damaged during the mylar removal (Big bucks, 5X Next Spin, and Jackpot) but fixing that was a simple matter of sanding them clean and applying an insert decal (from pinball.center)
So now I have a beautiful Bally Game Show, minus the bubbling mylar, looking better than ever. Thank you Rapidtac Rapid Remover!
Removing mylar from a System 11 machine can be very straightforward - just lift an edge by heating with a heat gun, and then remove slowly using freeze spray. If you are lucky and you go slowly you can often get the entire mylar sheet off without any damage to the artwork. But removing the glue residue afterwards can be a right pain in the ***. The last one I did was a Creech, and it took hours to remove the glue with glue solvent and the solvent gave me a headache even in a well ventilated room. I've also tried using flour and rolling the glue off with Goo Gone, and that is messy as well as time consuming. And very long and tedious work.
Then someone in the custom car world told me about Rapidtac Rapid Remover. I looked on Pinside to see if anyone had ever used it, and it looks like Vid2000 has recommended it. Trouble is that it is hard to track down in the UK, but eventually I found some.
Well, what can I say! It's expensive, but what a revelation! You just spray a little on to the playfield, wait about 20 seconds, and then run a plastic scraper or plastic razor blade over the surface of the playfield and it just lifts the glue off in rubbery strips. Who knew glue removal could be so easy? The whole playfield took about ten minutes, and then I gave it a wipe over with a cloth soaked in the stuff to remove any residue. Glue gone! Easy peasy.
A trio of insert decals were damaged during the mylar removal (Big bucks, 5X Next Spin, and Jackpot) but fixing that was a simple matter of sanding them clean and applying an insert decal (from pinball.center)
So now I have a beautiful Bally Game Show, minus the bubbling mylar, looking better than ever. Thank you Rapidtac Rapid Remover!
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