I’m in the process of fabricating an aluminum sheet in hopes of mitigating playfield divoting at the Sanctum on The Shadow, and am curious if folks have any recommendations on what adhesive to use for semi-permanent installation. I think something that could be removed down the line (perhaps via heat gun) without further damaging the play field would be ideal.
Never tried it on aluminum but Cliffy uses the ultra thin, ultra sticky double sided tape on his protectors. Might say on his site exactly what brand. I want to say it’s 3M brand. I have replaced bad protectors before and removed that tape with freeze spray and a credit card. Clean the area with 90% alcohol before applying.
I’ve never put a Cliffy over bare wood, so obviously YMMV depending on current condition.
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Thanks. I haven’t yet pulled up the existing mylar, which is covering what looks to be an inkjet printed sticker over the sanctum. This doesn’t leave me with a lot of hope that there’s much beyond bare wood underneath. My original plan was to cut the aluminum so that I could avoid adhesive entirely, and hold the part in place with existing nearby hardware, but I’m now looking at a similar tactic for dealing with a GoldenEye crotch-fling ball save, and there really isn’t any nearby hardware to piggy back off of without making the sheet massive and covering a lot of art.
Aluminum is probably too soft imo. Try spring steel?
Spring steel would definitely affect the magnet throw. The aluminum likely will too, though not as much. Thin polycarbonate (and a new decal) could be an option.
https://www.tapplastics.com/product/plastics/cut_to_size_plastic
I believe the correct way to do this is to fill with Bondo, sand flush and apply a new artwork decal over top. I don’t have any first hand experience but you will need to fill the divot with something harder than wood and then cover the repair. I do know someone that did it this way and it held up fine for him in home use but he did eventually sell so not sure how much play it got. I can’t imagine the Bondo would be problematic if done properly, but the decal may or may not wear out. I have a Fish Tales on location that someone decaled and the ink wore off pretty fast with that level of play.
and then put mylar or a playfield protector over the decal or the ink will wear off (as you saw)
That is the correct way but I will say our shadow is on it’s 3rd Sand/fill/art/clear and it’s worn through again. We are looking into drilling out the area and installing a more modern flush standard magnet core and avoiding any divots possible. If the core gets worn we can just replace.
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I’m not sure it would be possible to go thin enough to not make the ball jump without the part breaking under the ball/magnet stress with poly carbonate.
My gut instinct was that spring steel would mess with the throw too much, but maybe that isn’t the case. Probably worth the $5 and 10 minutes to cut a test part.
My original inspiration was a service bulletin for X-files that addressed a similar issue: http://arcarc.xmission.com/Pinball/Stern%20Service%20Bulletins/sb/sb105.pdf
I haven’t actually handled the part referenced in the SB, but was advised it was non-ferrous by an xfiles owning friend. This led me to the 7075 aluminum sheet that’s planned for the first attempt.
This is at least the second time the game has had work done on the sanctum, so I’m while I’m typically a fan of keeping the game as close to the way it shipped, I don’t think that’s really realistic for this game. If nothing else, I’ll probably cut a half dozen of whatever I settle on, and toss them in the cabinet for future swap-outs.
Bringing the magnet up to flush with the pf is in my mind the optimal fix, but it’s also a pretty destructive one.
Yeah… I bought the FT as-is unfortunately. I had always thought the people making these overlays printed them on the underside of the substrate but apparently that’s not the case.