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Roger Jackson

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This is my first attempt at using Affinity Designer so I am open to suggestions from experienced users.

In the 1950's, PinBall machines were becoming very popular but machines surviving from that time either have been restored or the art-work on the cabinets has faded to different colours. I took a photo and corrected the perspective in Affinity Photo then moved to Designer to create a new design that closely matches the original. It took a huge effort in researching paint colours, RAL and Hex codes, how colours fade with time and exposure to sunlight so the result is my best educated guess at what the original appeared in 1958.

The photo is of an original machine, unrestored paintwork. My research on paints fading is that the original colours wer Green, Red and Yellow, nbow faded to Blue, Pink and pale Yellow. My machine is a Williams Soccer Kick-Off and it is an on-going restoration project - I needed a subject to train myself that produced something that was required.

This Document is of the Back-Box left-side (seen in the photo). I have also created Documents for the other parts of the cabinet. I am using RAL colours to match the paints available from my chosen supplier of spray paints. To see the original you need to make the 'Original Design' Layer Visible.

cd0cd23b13474839c37ec1a6fca5301aaad24c58.jpg

Williams_Kick-Off_back-box_left-side_artwork.afphoto

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Thank you, Marc. I found that to idenify the original paints used in 1958 I would need documentation from the period but I have not been able to find anyone with such a thing, if it ever existsed and I doubt the paint codes could be identified? The paintshop workers are probably dead or senile?

I am aware of Williams Amusements in Ponyfract, Yorks, England. It is who I bought my machine from two years ago. I am sceptical about them as they do not return my calls for help on restoration and the "restored" machine they have for sale is inaccurate, such as colours, lack of logos and the their description says "backglass is different from later models" which tells me they that they are not familiar with this machine.

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I don't know about in this instance but paint codes aren't normally something given out in general documentation, not because it's secret they just don't. Someone, somewhere must have had them though. Perhaps close enough might have to do as even if you could personally inspect one you are assuming (or are you sure?) that they used ral colours and it's hard to take in to account fading (unless you could find on that has been kept out of sunlight all of its life), as there are plenty of shades for each colour in ral, so matching wouldn't be easy. I think you would still be guessing if it's one shade or another. 

 

Marc

ArtByMarc.me

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I would like to thank you all for contributing this post. I have already had more feedback than I have from the Pinball forums but this is an "art" subject! VectorVonDoom, you are right, RAL codes were almost certainly not used in 1958 in North America but they are the most popular Central European colour standard used today and they provide me with a standard to work with. Paint manufacturers tend to develop thier own colours and so it is impossible to set the 'Fill' in Deigner to accurately represent them, although, Hex RGB codes are sometimes available?

I have seen examples of the paint used on this machine where either the Green has faded entirely to Blue or Green still appears on the borders of the painted area with a Blue interior like the photo I attached. I am confident that due to chemical processes and exposure to sunlight the original colour was Green and the Pink was originally Red. I can only guess at the correct shades and select the RAL colours that appear to work in a 1950's setting.

Also found in my research, Blue does not fade as much as other colours as Blue coloring agents reflect the higher-energy light from the blue end of the spectrum rather than absorb it, and so they avoid being broken down into colorless molecules longer than the others. Hence, Green fades to Blue but Blue cannot fade to Green. Here is another photo of a sister machine (obviously well looked after)image-9.jpg.a676677b10d06b7ff0ccc029ce93e37f.jpg that was painted dark Blue, Red and Yellow.

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16 hours ago, VectorVonDoom said:

RAL to RGB would be fine for an illustration however I'm not sure that helps for paint mixing, which I thought you were interested in (perhaps I misunderstood), but I'm no expert on that. 

I am unable to identify the colour of items being restored so I have to make an educated guess and then choose colours that appear to be "correct" or at least look convincing. I, therefore, need a colour pallete from which to choose those colours and RAL colours fulfill that need. I have two requirements:

  1. Access to a range of Paints that can be identified by their colour, ie, RAL codes
  2. The ability to use the RAL colour in Designer, ie, its RGB equivalent, so that I can see how the painted article will look

A short-cut for me would be to have the RAL colour pallette available in Designer but the 'RAL to RGB table' solves my problem even if a bit tedious?

http://ralcolores.mrket.net/indexE.php?index=RAL_UP

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1 hour ago, Roger Jackson said:

The ability to use the RAL colour in Designer, ie, its RGB equivalent, so that I can see how the painted article will look

Lots of images with "original" colour on the 'net

You just need to compare a few to get an idea of what the original unfaded colours were then match them to the nearest RAL palette colour VectorVonDoom uploaded

https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/williams-kick-off.43789/

To save time I am currently using an automated AI to reply to some posts on this forum. If any of "my" posts are wrong or appear to be total b*ll*cks they are the ones generated by the AI. If correct they were probably mine. I apologise for any mistakes made by my AI - I'm sure it will improve with time.

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19 hours ago, VectorVonDoom said:

Here's a RAL colour swatch palette I put together. You can obviously see the rgb's from that too.

Lots of images with "original" colour on the 'net

You just need to compare a few to get an idea of what the original unfaded colours were then match them to the nearest RAL palette colour VectorVonDoom uploaded

https://www.pinballinfo.com/community/threads/williams-kick-off.43789/

Cheers, I have the RAL palette imported, now. It told me I did not have access to the page the first time I tried. That should be very useful to me in future as I can search using the RAL code or Name... or just click on everything that looks promising and find what I want that way.

That is another "restored" machine you found on pinball info. There is paint in places that were never painted and the Reds are obviously hand-painted... the factory used Stencils and Spray Paint so the lines were sharp. I have yet to find another machine iun original paint-work other than the one I included in my first post which has faded. But... good try!

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  • 3 weeks later...

How about this? I decided to restrict my choice to Rust-Oleum Hard-Hat colours that are made to RAL standards. These are Gloss but I hope to tone down the finish with a coat of Clear Matt if is it is too shiny? The designs are work-in-progress but this is an example of the front of the cabinet for now.

 

  1. Red     = Hard-Hat  RAL 3020 Traffic Red #CC0605
  2. Yellow = Hard-Hat  RAL 1023 Traffic Yellow #FAD201
  3. Green  = Hard-Hat  RAL 6001 Emerald Green #017700

1439994951_WilliamsKick-Offcabinetfront.thumb.jpg.c96c0d68e6c3184e51af8cc5addbd77e.jpg

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  • 2 years later...

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