brought home "the one that got away" yesterday.

[ANGRY GARY]

okay the twisted lead are not evident in the picture. i am surprised the leads are that pliable to allow that much twisting. either way i bow to your superior abilities!

[emmadog]

okay the twisted lead are not evident in the picture. i am surprised the leads are that pliable to allow that much twisting. either way i bow to your superior abilities!

There's no superior ability here. The twisting of the leads is simple. All I'm doing is placing the resistor's lead up against the LED's lead at the base of the LED. Then just twist. The pigtail automatically forms and snugs up against the base of the LED. When the pigtail is about a quarter inch, I stop and put a blob of solder on the pigtail near the base and clip off the excess. If you can twist two pieces of wire together, you can do this.
As for the restoration, it's not that difficult as I've stated before. Anyone can polish metal and plastic. Painting the parts mounted on the cel is usually very easy because each colored area is bordered by raised wall so you're just dropping paint in there. Airbrushing takes a little skill but again I'm not painting an actual picture, just painting areas that respond best with an airbrush. The center feature was airbrushed dark blue because its a space "scene" and that was the original color anyway. I really used an airbrush here because I had the perfect deep blue in a Tamiya lacquer spray can. I sprayed it out into a small jar, let it out gas, and ran it thru my airbrush. I coulda used the can but since there were hard to get interior spaces, I needed the control of an AB. Cleared it with matte since that gives the look of a deeper color as opposed to gloss.
I use both friskiet film to mask and a liquid mask that's great for small areas and peels easily when dry. I use new nails in my restorations. That's really about it-all my "secrets" laid out. I learned all m techniques through trial and error. As far as I know, I was the first to do restorations or at least on this forum and very likely the first to do arrangeball restorations. Member Eddie did some great, highly thorough cleanings of his arrangeballs but they weren't restos. I'm not bragging at all, only saying that anybody can do this, just takes lots of time but is extremely rewarding.
Also, the instruction card, chrome Satomi Miracle badge and the atomic symbol on the top pocket are decals that I had made. I did the digital cleanup on the instruction card but other than that, it was easy. I just took pics, measured the dimensions and passed that info to the decal company. Speaking of decals, as soon as I get a pic of the instruction card from your parts machine ill be making the correct instruction decal since mine pays on the diagonals. I'll send one of those to y'all since Aaron may convert his and send you a decal of my instruction card since that will match your machine.