How to repaint the apron of a pinball machine

A friend of mine contacted me recently with some questions.. he was busy with a complete shopjob/restore of his Medieval Madness pinball machine. Using my restoration guide he had a question about a part I had not written about: the apron.

It seemed his apron was quite damaged where the pinballs roll against the metal (I had never seen one that bad). Paint had flaked off and the metal was even rusted. Luckily this is a flat black color so a repaint was possible.

Here's the apron before anything has been done to it. Most aprons I've seen only have a line where the ball rolls against the metal, this however has large damage and is showing rust.

Just use sandpaper to remove the rust and make everything as flat as possible.
Then repaint using a semi-gloss black spraycan. It's best to protect the upper edge using masking tape and to put some old newspaper on the top side of the apron (which has the artwork) to avoid any overspray on the artwork.

The repainted apron.. looks so much better. To prevent wear you can install a small long patch of mylar where the pinball touches the metal.

Thanks to Tom VDB for the pictures.