This title was made in the highly produced (~13,000) SS Sinbad, Low production (~950) 4 player EM Sinbad, and a slightly lower production (730) 2 player EM Eye of the Tiger. The arwork was very similar with the most changes in the 2 player EM version. SS and EM 4 player games were very similar.
There were playfield changes on both that will be detailed further down.
A credit has to go to RGP regular Cliffy for giving me a LOT of advice on the saving of the playfield. This involved many clearcoating methods that were used and can be seen below.
The above photos are of the game fully assembled and ready to go. The path taken to get there are gone through below.
The first problem was the playfield. The pics above show the problem of being in a humid or even wet environment after it was pulled off location. The paint around the face on the playfield was starting to flake. This was a serious problem and could have been the end of this game.
The game was cleaned without damaging too much paint. Most of the remainder of the playfield was in decent shape. Some of the wood surface that didn't have ink was slightly damaged, but not bad. Steps taken to help restore this playfield to playable condition are as follows:
1- Clean playfield. This involved using a magic eraser and rubbing alchol to help raise any dirt and ball marks.
2- Sand unpainted wood. The upper playfield, shooter lane, and ball apron areas were sanded to rough up the surface and help level out the raised grain in this area.
3- Remove wax and other residue- Naphtha is used to help remove any wax, sanding dust, and other items that will cause problems with clearing the playfield. Some areas could not be cleaned due to lifting paint. This is the last time you will need Naphtha and will only cause problems from here on out (trust me, see below).
4- Touch up. Areas that required touchup were done with Testors model paint with a fine tip art brush. All areas around the face and any missing paint was color matched and touched up.
5- Clearing the playfield started with using Varathane water based gloss in the quart can. Some have used the spray can version, but I decided to try the liquid in my HVLP gun used with an air compressor.
5- A light fog coat was used to get a base of clear down, but not to get any "fish eyes" by reacting with any wax or other leftover problems not removed in step 3. This also helped "glue" down the flaking paint and avoid any further problems and point out other touchups required.
The above photos show the playfield after step 5 above. This is after the fog coat.
6- let playfield sit overnight and hit again with a heavier coat of Varathane with no sanding or cleaning. This was repeated on several nights. A problem came up after the 3rd. heavy coat. The Varathane was chunky and was not smooth enough for pinball use. The problem was determined to be a low compressor air pressure issue.
7- This step would not be required under normal situations. The playfield was block sanded with 400 grit and Novus #1. The Novus helps keep the sandpaper clear. The block sanding was done to help level out the chunky problems and give a nice flat surface to lay another coat down.
8- Cleaning the playfield after sanding should only be done with alcohol at this point. Naphtha would be a mistake and only cause fisheyes (yes, found out the hard way). I had to clean off the mistake which was caught before any Varathane had set.
9- The last coats were performed with a fog coat, ligher coats, and a final heavy coat. The previous coats helped level out the original field and the last coats helped give a thick protective coat.
10- After the playfield has cured, a sanding with 1500, 2000 grit and Novus #2 to get a nice shiny surface and remove any imperfections caused by my total lack of a spray booth.