Taiyo "Clown" Arepachi Refurb Complete
Labeled as "Junk" on YJA...
Someone here even said "tooo bad, it woulda been a neat machine"...
Well here she is after about 60+ hours later. Also, what you can't see in the original pic is how cracked and split the original cel was. Almost every nail had a crack or two branching off of it and some ling 5 and 6 inch splits around the ball tracks.
So I'm almost finished actually. I'm currently working on the replacement number matrix that will the original bright pink and yellow borders around the numbers and working on the tiny number stickers that go on each tulip to show which pockets light up when a ball goes in.
I finished it way ahead of schedule thanks to a couple of 12 hour or so marathons over two weekends and spending an average of at least 2 hours a day on it. Once I finally finished the cel's digital clean up, it went together quickly. It was a lotta fun and I learned alot.
This pachinko should look extremely close if not almost identical to how this model looked when rolling off the assembly line.
Going to do some things a little different on this one's brother the zodiac, technique and materials wise. I don't know when I'll start that project. I'm going to shift to my pinballs for awhile I think. I've got tons of new parts for them and they're a whole other ball of wax which I greatly enjoy.
Back to the Taiyo. I had a few hiccups along the way. One was the cel itself. The one on the machine is not the first ones I had made and pictured on here. The original ones weren't quite the right color and I had left off the border around the clown's mouth. Of course, even if you know the exact original colors, they're going to show up different on a computer screen and then change again once it's put to ink. I also originally planned to use acrylic instead of enamel paint on the trim pieces which I knew may not work out. Well, it airbrushed on beautifully but it's just not as durable. It would have been fine for home use but I wanted the best for this machine so after about 4 hours prepping and airbrushing I stripped all the paint off and started prepping it all over again. I used enamel and am glad I did. Very durable and hard as rock finish. Those were the main issues and of course there's the installing everything and then seeing some part that was supposed to go on first. That happened once.
So I'm extremely pleased with the outcome and in person it looks like a no-s**t, new pachinko. I spent alot of time on all the little details to make sure that would be the final result since that was the goal of this project.
The first pic is of it's picture while in Japan and how I received it.
Second two are how it is now.
I'll have a youtube vid up in the next day or so.
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