Playfield Touchup / Decaling - Williams Whirlwind

After the Compass Decal, Custom WHIRLWIND Text Decal & Spinner Decals

Here we have the compass and spinner decals I bought from Classic Arcades applied.  Also applied is the custom WHIRLWIND text decal that I made (flame border cut out with xacto knife).  If you notice on the far left of the flame border where it touches the hand's index finger.. the orange is darker.  That's because my original decal was made from an image that didn't include this portion of the flame and I didn't think I would need it.  I later pieced in this additional part of the flame so it would match the rest of the decal.  The flames didn't match up absolutely perfectly, but they were very close and later touch-ups helped them to blend in even better.


Picture: After the custom WHIRLWIND text decal and the "purchased" compass, spinner decals

These decals cleaned up a significant portion of the damage, but now the focus went on the other cracks, dents and attempted touch-ups around the compass & between the flippers.  Funny how that happens!  Fix something that stands out really bad and your attention's then drawn to the next thing that was hardly noticeable before.


Touching Up With Acrylics & Applying Insert Decals

I bought a bunch of Americana Acrylic paint at Michaels since this was recommended for playfield touchups by many people on RPG.  I then spent half a day mixing paints and attempting some touch-ups.  It was a great learning experience, but also very time consuming and luckily I have a fairly steady hand and had bought some really fine detailed brushes for some of the work I touched up.

One of the cooler touch-ups that I think looks remarkably unnoticeable now that it's done was the worn thumb area.  Here are side-by-side comparisons of before and after.  Since these are close-up pictures you can tell there's a difference, but it looks great in person!  Also notice the little area of the flame decal by the index finger that I pieced in.. there's a faint line there but really only noticable if you're a few inches away from the area like in these pictures.


Picture: Touch-up to the thumb using acrylics


And now the results of all this hard work..