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Johnny Mnemonic Pinball Restoration: Episode 7

Cary Hardy·video·29m 23s·analyzed·Oct 19, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.019

TL;DR

Johnny Mnemonic playfield restoration progresses through mylar removal, insert repair, painting, and multi-stage sanding.

Summary

Cary Hardy documents detailed restoration of a Johnny Mnemonic pinball machine playfield, focusing on mylar removal, insert repair using clear coat and syringe application, playfield scuffing and preparation for clear coating, airbrush painting of switch slots and shooter lane with white base coat and brown detailing, and progressive sanding through 1000-3000 grit to achieve a polished finish ready for final curing.

Key Claims

  • Magic eraser stops picking up dirt when playfield is sufficiently cleaned of grime and paint residue

    high confidence · Cary Hardy demonstrates using magic eraser as indicator that dirt removal is complete; visual inspection confirms no browning or discoloration remaining

  • Chipped veneer insert repaired by injecting clear coat beneath lifted section using syringe, then clamping overnight

    high confidence · Cary Hardy shows repair process with 12-inch clamp, wax paper, and fine-tip syringe; demonstrates final result after clamp removal

  • 1000-grit sandpaper provides adequate 'tooth' for clear coat adhesion without aggressive material removal

    high confidence · Cary Hardy explains goal is scuffing rather than removing material; applies light 1000-grit throughout playfield

  • Clear coat reveals all low spots, dimples, and planking issues in playfield as it settles into crevices

    high confidence · Cary Hardy observes and describes how first coat of clear visually highlights low areas and requires eye drops for leveling

  • Humidity near 100% or dropping temperature can compromise clear coat application quality

    medium confidence · Cary Hardy notes humidity concern before final coat due to approaching rain; demonstrates awareness of environmental impact on spray application

Notable Quotes

  • “This is a good indicator of knowing that you've got all the dirt and grime off your playfield is whenever your magic eraser is no longer picking anything up.”

    Cary Hardy@ 1:01 — Establishes practical testing methodology for confirming complete playfield cleaning

  • “This area takes kind of a beating when it comes to the ball slamming down right about here I'm just hoping that it doesn't take any of the inserts artwork with it”

    Cary Hardy@ 3:01 — Demonstrates awareness of structural stress points on playfield and risk during restoration

  • “I'm going to utilize this nice handy dandy syringe to make sure I get up underneath there”

    Cary Hardy@ 6:12 — Shows specific tool choice and precision technique for subcutaneous clear coat injection

  • “I'm calling it the Mentos version because if you can't match at least one segment, then redo all of it so it all looks the same”

    Cary Hardy@ 22:47 — Creative problem-solving approach to color-matching challenges by introducing deliberate design variation

  • “If it's a solid color, then I can do it. But if it's some special off tone like this teal or a gray, then it is horrible to try to match these things”

    Cary Hardy@ 22:09 — Reflects practical experience with color-matching limitations in restoration work

  • “The only areas that are low are where the ball is not going to be rolling so I'm not concerned with that so where there's going to be posts or bulbs those are my low spots balls not going to be rolling there”

    Cary Hardy — Demonstrates understanding of functional playfield areas vs. cosmetic zones, prioritizing practical gameplay over aesthetic perfection

Entities

Cary HardypersonJohnny MnemonicgameCreotexproduct

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Detailed documentation of advanced playfield restoration techniques (insert repair via syringe injection, multi-stage sanding, airbrush painting) represents educational content supporting pinball restoration community

    high · Cary Hardy's methodical explanations of tools, techniques, and reasoning throughout restoration process; consistent focus on showing viewers how-to procedures

  • ?

    product_strategy: Systematic restoration of Johnny Mnemonic playfield addressing surface damage, insert deterioration, paint degradation, and structural issues typical of aging machines

    high · Mylar removal, insert veneer repair, switch slot repainting, playfield clear coating, and progressive sanding to restore original condition

Transcript

youtube_groq_whisper · $0.088

0:00
Hit me. so I've gone over it with naphtha and a magic eraser and this is the area primarily what I've been going over the plate fill with and as you can see it's no longer like turning brown with dirt and grime or worse yet any kind of coloring from the paint on the artwork on the playfield. So this is a good indicator of knowing that you've got all the dirt and grime off your playfield is whenever your magic eraser is no longer picking anything up. So this is a pretty good indication that this has been scrubbed pretty darn well when it comes to removing any excess dirt and debris.
1:24
Oh, no. I'm out of air. Snap. Please tell me I've got another can. Well. now I normally wouldn't do this with an older playfield or over inserts but due to the fact the plate filled a pretty damn good condition I was able to just pull it off like that so yay when you got some more canned air and I'm now going to attempt to take off this piece right here this is the one that's making me more nervous than anything else this area takes kind of a beating when it comes to the ball slamming down right about here I'm just hoping that it doesn't take any of the inserts artwork with it
3:22
that's cold just as i was afraid of the exact area that takes the biggest beating right there on that insert came with it this little hunk of stuff right here what if I could get that out of here
4:08
yeah a little bit it's honestly not too bad getting some clear in there might actually help it I'll have to clean it up to see all right the next area we have is right about here and on the other end line as well they put those there for when the ball drops down from the ramps to make sure doesn't slam real hard I'm gonna need something to get underneath that I lived it then I gotta get back up underneath it all right there we go small area right there There we go. And I believe that is all the mylar removed from this play field. All right, so here we have the chipped veneer to the insert right here, as you can see.
@ 26:45
5:32
Obviously, it's not supposed to look like that. It's supposed to look like the rest of these, but we're going to do our best to repair this. Now, in order to do this, I need to obviously get this to go back down again because it's been lifted, and that's why we're getting the ghosting, as you see right there. Now how I'm going to go about doing this is by using clear coat. I can't get that on the camera, but I'm going to use this clear coat with the activator. Just a small amount I'm going to mix up, just enough to get literally, I just need like a drop in there. But I'm not going to just drop it on there. I'm going to utilize this nice handy dandy syringe to make sure I get up underneath there. And once I squirt just a little bit that I need in there, I'm going to utilize this wax paper and then I'm going to get it all pushed down using this 12 inch clamp, which I realize now I need to make more room for so there's no issues getting it on top there. all right all right so let's get the clear all made up and i've already wiped down this area very well including actually getting naphtha in that area so all i need to do now is just mix up literally just a small amount of a clear coat with the activator and we'll get started all right i've got just my little bit of clear coat that's all i really that's more than what i need honestly I just need it a little bit, but just a real quick get this stuff stirred up in there.
7:13
Then utilizing my fine tip syringe 9 syringe I'm just going to press this sucker down and we'll clamp it right there in position and I'll let that sit there probably just overnight just to make sure it's good to go and then we'll check on it some time has passed and another good way to make sure that it's time to go ahead and lift it is to take out the whatever container that you used for your clear coat and make sure that the clear coat residual is all nice and hardened up and not still a gooey or gelatin form and since it's not then i believe we should be good to go on releasing this Now whenever I peel away this wax paper I want to make sure I go in the same direction, like this direction, away from where it was starting to lift. There we go. Not too bad. That is down so it's not lifting up here anymore. And then whenever I clear coat, it's going to cover this up really nicely. And of course I'm going to be doing some sanding. So all right, good. was the only insert that I was really concerned about and it turned out pretty good I've got still a little bit around the top right here but honestly that can actually just be just a little bit touched up with some black around the border because that's what's already around there and it won't even be noticeable at all all right we're getting the playfield prepped for laying down the first coat of clear but in order for the clear to really stick to the play field I need to scuff it up a little bit. If it's too smooth then the clear is not going to have anything to grab onto, no tooth. So I'm going to be giving this play field some tooth. I'm using 1000 grit sandpaper. I'm just going to be going over it. I don't need to like get down like I'm trying to remove anything it's just more to give it get it's kind of scuffed up to where the clear coat is going to adhere to so I'm going to start at the top right here
10:27
and go over everything and I'm able to access this is 1000 grid in case I haven't already specified Down the shooter lane real well. All the way down here in the apron.
11:19
All right, that should be plenty to roughen up some. Now I'm going to get some naphtha and get it all cleaned off again. All right, I've already gave it one once over to get all the extra bulky debris that may be on there removed. I'm now going to take it into the kill room and we're going to do another wipe down and that's going to give you a good idea of what the plate feels going to look like once it's clear coated. Alright, so I've got my naphtha and I've got a microfiber cloth.
11:53
Now watch the big difference that you're going to see right here. Mainly up here I can see on the camera.
12:18
All right guys, I just laid down a couple of spray coats and I wanted to give you guys a visual and I'm hoping it'll come up on the camera here, but you can already see where the clear is working its way down into the crevices and there you go, there's one right there in the center of the play field you can see where the clear is working its way into where there's any low areas on the play field like where inserts there's another one right there
12:58
any kind of low spot this clear is going to find it but that is what it looks like right now some low areas right around there or there's some planking and stuff it's gonna find it it's gonna bring out any kind of dimple or anything in this playfield
13:33
I'm trying not to hover directly over the plate vocal I don't want to drop my phone or any kind particle onto it. So I'm going to wait a couple of minutes and I'm going to throw down another coat on top of this. All right, here we go. First coat is officially down. I'm really liking how it's turned out so far it's definitely going to need a good sanding like every first coat does but I don't know I'm probably going to have to do an eye drop in this area right here this is a very low spot in the play field from all the times that the ball has been dropped So I'm probably going to have to do an eyedrop on that. Let me see if I see anything else It got a need for an eyedrop I see where there some inserts that have gone down a little bit but I may I drop there too we just see how far down it goes I'm gonna wait a little while Alright guys, looking pretty good. I'm going to let it sit here for a bit and come back and check on it and see where I need to put some eye drops at. Yay!
15:31
So the playfield's been cleared. It's been sanded. But now I need to start doing any kind of touch-ups that I'm going to do. So what I plan to do is mask off all of these switch slots right here because they look pretty bad. So I'm going to be masking off all of these and my shooting lane over here and this one up here and this one up here. and I'm going to be repainting them. Now, a method that I can use also is just literally cutting out a small segment of this brisket and covering up and then all that kind of stuff and junk, but I'm actually just going to use one giant piece to cover the entire plate field. That does two things. That masks anything that I do not want to get paint on, and it also gives me the ability to see the entire plate field and cut where I need to cut so and I've got a whole roll of this I've had this for years now so I'm not too scared of using a whole bunch of it so we're just going to cover the entire plate field with this brisket Now I don't have to worry greatly about digging too deep. Obviously I don't want to go into like real deep into the wood, but I need to make sure I cut deep enough to where I'm cutting out the frisket. So since I'm going to be painting my shooter lane, let me start right here. And the The amount of pressure I've got going down is almost just like the weight of my arm. Controlling where I want this blade to go is merely like controlling just a little twist is all it takes. And that is the shooterling.
17:50
Alright, and I just gotta rinse and repeat all that around all of these. All right, so I've gotten these four and my shoe drilling done. Oh my God, this is going to suck.
18:28
All right, guys, we are ready to start airbrushing on the white, which is going to be our base coat. When you're airbrushing, you want your first coat to be opaque white. because that will allow the other colors on top to be their true colors about any other bleeding through of the natural wood or anything like that. So I use Creotex. It's available at your Hobby Lobby or online like Amazon or anything like that. Hope I got enough air to do all of this.
19:13
Thank you. I just got finished doing a real quick little just go over the heat gun to kind of dry it a little bit and I may go over one more time with a coat but I may not I don't know I'm gonna have to wait a little bit see what we get from it alright I'm much more pleased with the color and everything on here I'm now going to be using a light transparent brown to go over the shooter lane to give that a little bit more of a realistic look so that's what we look like now obviously this is all my test areas this is from prisket so this is not going to be on the playfield so remember that but uh I like this color there's so much more it's gonna look so much better but uh all right I think we're ready to remove the frisket now guys we're gonna see how we did we'll start running up here on the top area on this particular switch slot so far we're looking pretty good that slot looks a hell of a lot better than what it did that's for damn sure and it'll look even better once it gets clear coated
21:33
all right i've got the black touched up we've got this small section in this teal color right here in the corner and i was gonna do my best on color matching and just filling that one little spot in I wretched when it comes to color matching
22:07
It depends. If it's a solid color, then I can do it. But if it's some special off tone like this teal or a gray, then it is horrible to try to match this. This has got just the right amount of blue and maybe even a touch of green in there. And it's just no fun to try to match these things a lot of the times. So I've got a couple of options that I could do here.
22:35
I could mask off and paint all new blue on these triangles. This is called the Mentos, okay? I'm calling it the Mentos version because if you can't match at least one segment, then redo all of it so it all looks the same. I don't know if you guys remember the Mentos commercials or not where this guy sat on a park bench and he put stripes on just the bottom portion. So he popped a Mentos and he got the right idea to make the rest of his suit all striped to match. So therefore, it just looked like that's the way it's supposed to be. so what i'm actually going to do is mask off and i'm going to cut out a little segment in this corner here the here and right here and do a white and it's going to give them all a certain little segment of white right there and it's going to make it look like it's legitimately that's the way it's supposed to look there's been certain plenty of games even on williams where they do like a little white segment on certain inserts just to give them what like like they're shining or something like that kind of look. But a lot of games will do certain things like that, just a little small segment of white to make it stand out a little bit better. And that's what we're going to do here. So I'm going to frisk it over these, cut out a small little section in the same area on all three of these, shoot it with some white, and then it should blend in. So that's what we're going to do now. All right, so I've got everything masked off. This right here is from me making sure that my nozzle is clear of any black color from the previous and so now we should be able to just Let's see if our Mentos worked out. Mentos the fresh maker. Now whenever the clear goes down, guys, this is going to look even better. So you can see where the paint's outlining on certain things, but once the clear goes down, it'll all be nice and shiny and blend in.
25:06
Damn, that came out pretty good. Ugh. We are at the cusp of humidity being too high. It's gone down a couple of degrees since I've got the fans going and the garage door open but we've got rain on the way guys. But I'm thinking I might be able to put down this last and final coat before it gets too bad. So this is what the plate fill looks like at this time before the final coat goes down.
25:49
All right, here we go. all right as much as i would like to say that this thing is ready to sit for a while it's not it's going to need a final sanding then cut and polish. Polish won't come till probably maybe a month from now but uh gonna have to sand it it's not perfect so we're gonna get it all nice and level and then we're gonna let it sit for a while. Alright we just did 800 grit across the playfield the only areas that are low are where the ball is not going to be rolling so I'm not concerned with that so where there's going to be posts or bulbs those are my low spots balls not going to be rolling there I don't care that's going to polish up and just and you're never going to even notice that a difference at all in that so that's where we're at on that so 800 is done now I'm going to move up to let's see I think I've got a thousand if If I don't have a thousand then I'll go up to twelve. Alright, we are sanded up to three thousand grit. And if you want to know what that looks like, here you go. This is where we're going to bring the sanding to a halt and allow the rest of this playfield to cure fully all the way through. other than that looks pretty damn good I'm very happy with it
28:14
We'll be right back. Thank you.