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Marquee restoration questions
Topic Started: Feb 15 2015, 04:49 AM (1,468 Views)
80sgirl
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Electroidal Animal Doctor
I picked up three of the skee ball marquees I've been looking for, but like most used game parts they have some issues.

They have some heavy scratches on the front of the plexiglass. Some are about 1/8" deep, so filling might be a better option than trying to buff them out. The good news is most of the scratches are over opaque parts of the board, so they don't stick out that much at normal viewing range.

The other issue is some spots where the paint has flaked off. The image is printed on the back of the plexi, so after they lost paint in a few spots some genius tech decided to stick another piece of plexiglass to the back with 1" double-sided tape. The extra sheet is almost the full size of the marquee and the tape holding it on is cut in four long strips around the main viewing window, with a smaller square at each corner.

In addition to the areas where the paint flaked before the extra sheet was added, on two of them I can see some spots from the front where the paint has separated from the plexi and adhered to the tape. I will need to unstick the tape and get the extra sheet off to repair the paint loss. They look like small spots and are mostly limited to the bright yellow of the skee ball design and a few lines on the artwork. It should look OK once I remove the extra plexiglass sheet and touch them up with paint. What would be the best way to get the tape unstuck without causing further damage? Just prying them apart would not be a good idea.

I know they will never look brand new, but I doubt there are any undamaged ones out there so I'd like to get these looking as nice as possible. Any suggestions?
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PaulKTF
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Is there a local glass repair specialist you could talk to about both filling the scratches in and matching the paint? Maybe a home decorating place could help you match paint colors to do touch-up work?
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RetroGirl
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Wow. Congrats on the marquees and good luck on the repairs. You certainly don't want to use a solvent on these. How fragile is the paint? If it's in pretty good shape, you might be able to loosen the tape with a blow dryer. If the paint is flaking too much, though, you'll want a more gentle approach.

Can you soak the items? A combination of water, dish detergent and vinegar and a lot of patience can sometimes do the job.

As for the plexiglass, I have heard that you can use Elmer's glue as a filler. I haven't tried it, though, so I can't verify that.
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80sgirl
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Electroidal Animal Doctor
Couple of updates...

I determined they are made from polycarbonate (Lexan) and not acrylic (plexiglass). It's the same stuff they make headlights and motorcycle windshields from. Makes sense because polycarbonate is much more resistant to impact and these would have to survive the possibility of having hard, heavy balls thrown at them. The drawback is polycarbonate is softer and scratches easier.

There are a lot of tutorials out there on how to polish scratches out of acrylic aquariums, and uncoated polycarbonate would polish up using similar techniques. I don't think these have any coating, but even if they do it's not going to matter because I'm just going to do the whole surface anyway. Some of the scratches are deep, but not as deep as I originally thought and the plastic is very thick. The plan is to try a wet sanding process with different grades of sandpaper and then buffing with a car headlight repair kit.

Soaking sounds like it would work to remove the adhesive. I've read of a technique where you slide fishing line or dental floss between the surfaces to cut through the adhesive. I'll try soaking them in warm water with some soap before I try it.

The paint doesn't appear to be that fragile, at least in the areas that aren't covered by the plexiglass sheet. I tried to scratch it with a fingernail and couldn't. The areas with the flaking paint are underneath the sheets, so I won't know how fragile they are until I get the sheets off. Once I get the paint touched up, I will spray some clear coat on the back which will hopefully prevent any further paint damage.

I'll take some pictures of the sanding/polishing/painting processes for those who might need to try something similar.
Edited by 80sgirl, Feb 15 2015, 08:21 PM.
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ShowbizPizzaGuy
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My CEC Memory Match game marquee looks fine displayed on my wall, but when held up to the light you can see scratches and when you turn it over you can see the scratches are on the back

http://imgur.com/WWQBZh1
http://imgur.com/p7jwGbA
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80sgirl
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Electroidal Animal Doctor
You can probably sand or polish out the clear side surface scratches, but the painted side scratches will never look the same when backlit even if you touch it up. Marquees like that used transparent inks and the opacity is almost impossible to match unless you have the exact ink. Just enjoy it unlit on the wall.

I'm not worried about that on the skee ball marquees because only the letters are transparent and I'm not planning on backlighting them anyway.
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80sgirl
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Electroidal Animal Doctor
Quick update here. I've been working on getting the scratches out of the Jasper marquee, and so far I'm very pleased with the results. I started with Jasper because it was the worst one both in terms of scratches and paint loss. I figured if I screwed up at least it wouldn't be as bad as losing the two that looked better. I wish I had taken some "before" pictures in the proper light to show all the scratches and gouges this thing had. Right click on the pic and select "View Image" to see them full size.

Here's the seller's pic from the eBay auction:

Posted Image

There's a heavy scratch that started at the edge under the word "BALLS" and goes up through the A almost to the window. There's another long one that started just to the left of the corner of the skee ball machine and curved up to the left through Jasper's pants. Plus a deep one that started at the rolling ball and went down into the D in the word "PLAYED".

Here it is after I removed the scratches.

Posted Image

I cheated a little on this pic and took it while the marquee was wet. It's very hazy and still has a lot of polishing and buffing to go, but hopefully you get the idea. Looks about 1000x better!
Edited by 80sgirl, Feb 19 2015, 08:54 PM.
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80sgirl
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Electroidal Animal Doctor
Anyone have a KLOV/VAPS account? I'd like to get some input from the board members there about this project, but you need to either donate money or get a recommendation from an existing member to activate an account.

Send me a PM if you're willing to vouch for me.
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