Circuit Racer

[Rival]

Ready to send out for a custom cabinet. Thought you all might like to see it with a new playfield and some extra frame-flair...LOL!

By the way, the whole thing works 100% right out of the box. All lights, all the switches, even the tire-tulip. Who would have thunk it?

This is the one from ebay that had the frame painted black and that stupid potentiometer in it.

Oh, and I still need to align the nails. But I got an actual parlor alignment tool from New Zealand a few weeks ago and it will cut the adjustment time down to minutes instead of the hour it used to take.

Oh, and the spinners are still being painted. I went with blue in the center with a black ring (like tires...LOL!).

[Card Shark]

Another beautiful machine!! You do amazing work.

[Moparformances]

new stickers?? or were you able to reuse the original ones??

[Rival]

The Original ones were nearly perfect, so I stayed with them.

However, before anyone starts singing the blues, I must confess I scanned them all in before installing the parts, and sent them out to my graphics artist for a full-blown retouch should I ever need to have them replicated. I will look into having several sheets of stickers printed. I will probably put them up on my website for sale, but for pachitalk members I will just send you a set if you need them for a restore. It cost me $36.00 to have the graphic work done and I'd like to get a little of it back if I can, so I would appreciate it if no one post up a jpg that anyone anywhere can download for free. At any rate, there are not many of them around, so I don't see much of a demand.

[mxfaiman]

However, before anyone starts singing the blues, I must confess I scanned them all in before installing the parts, and sent them out to my graphics artist for a full-blown retouch should I ever need to have them replicated. I will look into having several sheets of stickers printed. I will probably put them up on my website for sale, but for pachitalk members I will just send you a set if you need them for a restore. It cost me $36.00 to have the graphic work done and I'd like to get a little of it back if I can, so I would appreciate it if no one post up a jpg that anyone anywhere can download for free. At any rate, there are not many of them around, so I don't see much of a demand.

So I recreated all those stickers for nothing.

I already have PSD files of them ready for print.

[Rival]

Doh!

[Moparformances]

i would be willing to pay for a set of finished stickers..

I dont want to bother with resizing and making sure everything is just the right size...

if ya get a sent printed (that you are happy with) please let me know

[CarlW]

Sign me up for a set too... Beautiful work by the way!

[FREKKEN TEKKEN]

Sign me up for a set too... Beautiful work by the way!

Ditto!!! I'm negotiating for a machine right now and even if it falls through I WILL OWN ONE IN THE NEAR FUTURE! Besides if you have requests for a few more it may help keep the price down for everyone! Thanks for thinking of others with projects!!! Just let me know how much and I will Paypal or whatever works for You!

[Rival]

The graphics should be done in a few more days, and then I will take them down and get them printed. Incidentally, I am having them do the unique "superdeluxe" sticker on the tray, as well as the little "Shiroi Kamome" one that goes under the Nishijin badge. They should all come together as one complete set. I will try and have them done as vinyl stickers, but I have concerns that the high resolution of the originals may not be easily reproducable by the shop that does my playfields. Whatever it takes, I will make sure they are the best that can be made.

I am going to post up the playfield replacement on my website tonight in case anyone wants to do the full monte. It looks so much better when the colors are all there and brilliant.

[Moparformances]

I am going to post up the playfield replacement on my website tonight in case anyone wants to do the full monte. It looks so much better when the colors are all there and brilliant.

yes it sure does look better..

but baby steps for me.. with my job change i dont see the time to do a full playfield..

[Rival]

Playfield.

Playffiled Background:1975 Nishijin Circuit [50-CIR] - $38.00 : Pachinko Planet, Antique and Vintage Pachinko Machines

[mxfaiman]

Background graphics look great but I'm not a fan of the colors on it. The purpleish color should be a bright blue that didn't fade much. Also the green is too dark and the orange has too much yellow. Sorry I'm a stickler for correct color (and I can complain because I redo backgrounds too, so I know how hard / easy it is.)

Also for those curious here is all what all the objects on the background are. New Buys Machines 84 85

[mxfaiman]

as well as the little "Shiroi Kamome" one that goes under the Nishijin badge.

Your's says Shiroi Kamome? That is odd both of mine say Elex-Rotary.

[Rival]

Yeah, it's odd the variations one finds on machines.

The dyes used by Nishijin were very cheap and not chemically stable at all. Although UV exposure sped up the process, even if you put a machine in a dark attic for 40 years most of the colors would be gone. This is made apparent by the colored playfield portions under features. I generally look to the colors of machines that were made by other manufacturers during the same time periods (that used better inks) as they all tended to go with similar schemes. For example, early 1970's machines tended towards loud primary colors, whereas 1950's tended to avoid them. I don't think anyone will ever know for certain what colors these Nishijins were originally, unless color photos show up from that era. I tend to go with schemes as close to what I think they would have originally intended, with an eye to making them each unique and interesting. And then, trying to put together shades that compliment each other. It is all best guess, and a bit of art.

[Rival]

As an aside, I initially went with the primary colors as you appear to suggest, and it was very busy and difficult to see the design correctly. Thats why I went with the variations on the primary colors, it brought out the designs better.

Oddly, black was rarely used on machines in the 70's from what I can tell. The design told me where the black was supposed to be on this one, even though it had faded to a dull green. I wonder how many other designs used black that get mistaken for green. The nails really pop on black when they are polished, you would think they would use it often. But not so much. I just got back a 48S-C graphic a few minutes ago, where the red had faded almost completely leaving just a faint yellow stain. Under one attraction was a hint of pink to give the clue to the true original color. I could have used pink, and no one would have disagreed. But I went with red due to the zealous use of primary colors in the early 70's. Yellow would have been a red herring (pun intended) and totally incorrect.

[Rival]

FYI: 1950's tended towards subdued colors. Early 60's used lots of off-shades, and focused on complimenting the shades, they must have discovered the color wheel. Late 60's got bright, and lots of pink, magenta, and yellow show up. Early 70's went blazing primary colors. Middle 70's started experimenting with secondary colors again for a short time bringing back intermediate colors. In apparent repudiation of the mid 70's, the late 70s went right back to primary colors. The 80's brought an end to white backgrounds altogether and the playfields got extremely busy.

There are of course exceptions, but that seems to be the general flow.

[emmadog]

Cool info on colors and styles. Always interesting to pull off a playfield feature and see what you thought was just a faded color was in fact a different color entirely. IMO, the best playfield colors and schemes were machines from the 50's. I prefer the more geometric style then and simple, clean lines.
The one on eBay now in Mass being a prime example and this one.
ImageUploadedByTapatalk1360127910.754390.jpg

[Rival]

Additionally, I am a bit intrigued by the number of colors in each design. Four-color printing was pretty much the standard until around 1978. If you are looking at a design that has less than 4 colors you are probably missing something. It may be that the background was a color that has completely faded such as yellow, Sometimes even blue can disappear. It may also be that some colors that are part of the design have faded beyond detection. This is fairly common. I have struggled with the possibility that powerflash machines may have originally been black (to show off the nail forest) but they have all faded to turquoise and aqua. This is not all that far-fetched. We just don't know. I may have to do one in black, I bet it would look awesome. Surely the designers must have known how good shiny nails look on black. It may be that they were just not attractive enough in the low light of parlors, I just don't know.

Several designs from the era appear to show five colors, which is rather unusual. The circuit racer is a good example of five-color graphics. These appear to be anomalies though, and not found on "general" production machines. Until 1974 I am unaware of any machines that were built to a unified design with features specific to a machine such as powerflash, power roullette, circuit racer, UFO, and fish. Before then, parts and playfields were interchangeable between machines. It was not until these "themed" machines arrived that five color schemes emerged, and I think the Circuit Racer may have been the first. So much to learn, so little hard information.

[Card Shark]

Black background on a Powerflash. That sounds really cool. I would love to do that to my T-Bird Powerflash project. I have not done a cel replacement yet and I don't think ths the machine I want do my first one on.