Back flash restoration

[ninecup]

I have an Oliver Whales win a Nestle allwin with a very crumpled and flaking backflash. The top flash is completely missing. I do have a photo of the top flash but how would you reproduce this on to glass. Can anyone please tell me the best way to go about restoration.
Also does anyone know were I could obtain the very thick glass that was used for the sega one armed bandit reel covers.

[coin-op]

The big drawback with plastic backflashes (such as Oliver Whales), is that over their life they can be effected by heat and dampness leading to cracking and flaking. Truthfully, there is no real solution to such badly deteriorated backflashes. Replacements are not available, save in the case of the sunburst Bryans backflash, where originals and copies appear from time to time.

If you can print out a decent colour copy of the topflash you could spray it with spray mount and then fix it to the back of the top glass. This can produce reasonable results. The other option is to laminate the printed topflash. Some topflashes were screen printed on glass and others were screen printed plastic which were mounted behind the glass.

[howeinuk]

I have successfully reproduced many different backgrounds. The existing background is scanned, usually with a series of A4 size scans, then using the appropriate software "joined up and corrected, missing bits re-drawn, recoloured (the original is usually coloured) etc". This is beyond my computing skills - I usually call in my friend's son! It will be necessary to get it professionally printed and laminated/encapsulated full size. The end result is as if it has been screened printed onto plastic like the originals.

[pennymachines]

Yes, I think the above method is probably your best approach. Fortunately for economic reasons the flashes have a limited range of colours and they are all within sharp edged boundaries. Using image editing software it's possible to sample points of colour that are least faded or tarnished and use those to replace the damaged areas. Provided large parts of the image aren't missing you can easily draw them back in. It's quite labour intensive, but the results can be excellent.

As howinuk says, for the oversized print and decent quality inks you need to take your work on a disc to a professional photocopy shop. I think modern inks are not as prone to fade as before, but anyway as long as you save your digital version, it can be reprinted in the future if neccessary. If you go this route, maybe it could help someone else needing the same flash.

I've traced and back-painted some plastic flashes in the past. The results were great (and indistinguishable from originals) because the enamel colours are very vibrant. It requires great patience and some skill (especially to get the lettering sharp), although I'm sure professional signwriters would have no problem.

[ninecup]

Firstly. Thank you for all your help. I have managed to scan the backflash in four parts. I then joined them together in Photoshop.
After many hours work I seem to have reproduced a reasonable copy of the artwork. Now, off to the printers!