Unfortunately, a very common sight on Stargates!
Bare wood at the wireform ball drops! Whoops, no mylar here. :(
Luckily, very easily touched up!
Touch up Steps
Clean area
Go around edges of bare wood with a sharpie, overlap onto the
playfield a little bit
Slap down some flat black acrylic paint
Slap down some more
Put on a layer of acrylic gloss black
Dab a paintbrush into white, yellow, or blue acrylic
Touch corner of brush in a random pattern on the black, try to copy
the density of colored dots surrounding worn area
Borrow a bottle of your wife's clear nail polish - I used a bottle
of stuff that's for covering and protecting artwork done on
fingernails.
(This stuff dries crystal clear and very tough)
Use a paint brush and put on a couple layers of the clear polish
Three coats of paste wax
Done!
Very difficult to get the paint exactly even with the playfield, but
the results are excellent
and the wireforms block most of the view.
AFTER
Here are some photos of my playfield - with and without flash.
Ra Touch-up
I have no idea how this happened, but when I got my Stargate, there was
about a nickel sized wear spot on the screened Ra artwork to the right
of his face. Kind of annoying since this art is printed on a mirror,
and the wear spot was very noticeable!
Unfortunately, I never got a very good "before" picture so you'll have
to take my word for it!
This is a very easy spot to touch up since the artwork around his
face is fuzzy and not very distinct. I took some light tan acrylic and
mixed in a little black, a touch of silver, and a tiny bit of water to
thin the mixture out. Taking a small brush, I did a very light coat
that overlapped the existing artwork and the bare mirror. Then I filled
in the bare spot with three light coats of paint and had a close base
color match. Next I made up another water thinned batch of gray mixed
with my custom tan color to do a little shading. Last, I took some
thinned black on a small brush and added a few "swiggles" and filled in
a couple lines that needed to go across the patch.
I have pointed directly at the touchup, and people still can't see
it! The only noticeable difference is that the screened artwork is just
a tad more translucent and you can see the touchup if you look for it
while the ring light is flashing. However, I am still very pleased with
the results.
