Bally Bingo specials

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If only the best is good enough

Making a new playfield was still on my to do list but had so far not been necessary because I could always have a nice original field to use but that changed when I decided to go for a Miami Beach restoration for my own collection. There were still a few Miami Beach bingos in storage but none of the bingo´s had a playfield where I was really happy with. These bingo´s are all from the '50 years and usually many playfields suffered from age and playing but for me a reason to start my new project. Didn´t want to use an original playfield for this test and sacrifice therefore a playfield of a bingo that nobody wants anyway and often played a little, for me it was an old playfield of Ticker Tape because the layout was exactly the same as the Miami playfield.

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as probably the most bingo lovers know, our friend from England Chris Dade started some time ago making a sticker that could give a playfield a new life and although this looks beautiful we wanted to go further and use our knowledge of printing directly on the glass to make of a new playfield. That means you could have all the benefits of a new original playfield , although we understand that this way a newly constructed playfield without high costs could not be made. But we took the risk making one for ourself . One important thing is that the `rings´ around the holes must be just like an original Bally playfield so the ball moves exactly as if it was an original field. That would mean that the ball has his characteristic walking across the playfield and therefore sometimes take a curve from one hole to the other hole. Ball-run for me is as player very important, it has to feal like an original playfield. To get the right angle around the holes I made a special tool to sand the old paint away and keeping the sharp edge with the wanted angle.

The major problem appeared to be that the layer for printing has to be exactly aligned with the existing holes. Bally had problems with it also because we have seen several playfields where the colored edges around the holes were not exactly centered. When we had found a solution for this problem, we could offer the file (supplied by Chris Dade) to the printshop, after it first was made suitable for the printer of course. For our printshop this was also another first try, which they succeeded brilliantly. And after finishing the playfield with a wear-resistant 2K clear coat layer the new playfield is ready to be rebuilt.