Picked up an Aztec a few months ago, cheap. Playfield and backglass are in great shape and the thing plays fine so I bought it with some grand illusion that I would actually repaint it someday. Well, I did. Somebody painted it blue! AND, I know why they did...to hide the BROWN someone else painted it at some point. Yuck. So I got out a heat gun and started stripping hoping I could uncover the artwork underneath. Fortunately that worked out and I was able to make stencils of the cabinet art.
I have a friend who works at a furniture shop with all the amenities at our disposal afterhours. I took him up on his offer to help me out and use the place. These shots are of the machine before, stripping and sanding. Then the 3 coats of base. Next was the splatter, those little paint splotches they do on these machines. Mine ended up being a finer splatter than what was originally on there but on another Aztec I saw, it had a much finer splatter like mine is now. I guess they weren't too particular when applying that.The stencils I had were traced on and taped off, on one side...by the time we finished off stenciling the yellow on the one side, we found some tacky plastic, dont know exactly what it was if its some sort of mylar or etc...and traced the stencil on that and cut out the design. Then we sprayed. Both sides were fine but the plastic was faster than taping off.
Two weeks later we applied the red. Then I had to clean up the paint job and this paint we used was easy to fix. Turned out great. Let that dry for a week then  3 coats of varithane. All the sanding between coats etc.
There's two things about this paint job I noticed, one good, one I need to fix. I deliberately didn't correct any flaws from the original artwork. My friend was saying, geez, why don't you line up the far side of the yellow boxes (steps) edge on the header etc...well, that's the way it WAS, that's the way its gonna be. And I like the slight overspray I got in a couple of places. Just like it was.

The one thing I completely missed was the front. The red was the last colour and the front was the last to be stenciled and painted. Made the red go all the way to the sides, when I SHOULD have left about a half inch of white on either side. D'oh.  Luckily its a real easy fix and not alot of area to do, so later I will post pictures of the front after I adjust that. I will include shots of the mistake then too to compare.

Having it apart gave me a good chance to clean out the inside and brush up any and all metal I could get to on the machine.  I reassembled it and had to tweak a couple of things and now shes bang on 100% working and looking great! Probably took about 80 hours, easy. I have new white nuts for it and a new outer shooter spring to go on. All that's left is some new leg levelers and bumper skirts and there wont be many nicer Aztecs out there. I'll add the other shots.

Stan

Further along the process...

more shots...

and...

Well, that's it for now.  This was my first attempt, Next I'll repaint my Flash Gordon. At least I can get stencils for that one. That will make this alot easier, and I'm going to use what I've already learned from this job. I touched up the  FG pf and the bg is really nice. Its gonna look killer.

Thanks for looking

Stan

Very nice job Stan,good job,nice to see old game like a new one.Very funny to restore old game,I'm just to work on my playfield overlay of Black knight and I think the result gone be very good

Quoted from powerslave

Very nice job Stan,good job,nice to see old game like a new one.Very funny to restore old game,I'm just to work on my playfield overlay of Black knight and I think the result gone be very good

you know that they are still brand new playfields available here right?  why go to the trouble of a crapy overlay when you can have the real thing?!


Stan: nicely done. Feels good doesn't?!

[quote=46]


you know that they are still brand new playfields available here right?  why go to the trouble of a crapy overlay when you can have the real thing?!


The reason:$575 usd plus shipping,I'm not rich like you Phil
Anyways the overlay is very nice,backglass too and my cabinet have nice colors

Quoted from powerslave

[quote=46]


you know that they are still brand new playfields available here right?  why go to the trouble of a crapy overlay when you can have the real thing?!

The reason:$575 usd plus shipping,I'm not rich like you Phil
Anyways the overlay is very nice,backglass too and my cabinet have nice colors

575 is too much for 2 brand new playfields?!  How much would be a good price for you?!

Great restore! Just for fun how much time it take you to complete it? Peoples didn't realized the time we put to restore a pin

Quoted from Mrhide

575 is too much for 2 brand new playfields?!  How much would be a good price for you?!

Its a good deal in my books, if you want a minty fresh game.  From my understanding, this wasn't exactly the most lucrative venture for them either.

Quoted from Mrhide

575 is too much for 2 brand new playfields?!  How much would be a good price for you?!

575 usd +shipping = $750 As-tu besoin que j'te fasse un etat de compte de mon budget pour te dire que personnellement je trouve ça cher,l'overlay fait bin l'affaire,les inserts fittent avec l'overlay,ce qui est souvent le probleme avec les overlays
pis j'ai bin hate de finir et la rejouer