DISCLAIMER: I am not selling or providing any reel strip making service, images, etc.. The following is for informational purposes only for those who may need to replace some damaged or hard to find strips that they already own. This was done for S+ strips but could be applied to other non-backlit strips.

There are a few threads about having Kinko’s print scanned strips but I wanted to find a cheap way to do it myself. First I needed to find some paper. I found some 4" wide Epson glossy paper rolls on e-bay cheap (discontinued printer). Next I had to figure out how to get my printer to print on it. It took some finessing of the custom paper sizes, but once that was done I was ready to proceed.

Now the time consuming part was coming up with a symbol library.  I found that scanning the whole strips and trying to fix them up with photoshop to be more trouble than just using individual symbols that you only have to fix once and then pasting them onto a blank strip template. In some cases, I made new symbols from scratch.

After pasting the symbols onto a strip template, I drew a 1 pixel wide line at each end along both edges. This will be used as a guide for cutting the strips later. Then I printed the strips centered on the 4" wide paper. This will give the results shown in the first picture. Note: I intentionally made the 3 bar symbol a different color than the original, but it’s easy enough to change the color once you have the symbol made. The second picture shows the cutting alignment marks better.

nice job, poppo.   

Excellent!  K+ for taking the time to document this and share it with us.

Depending on the thickness of the laminating material, you may be able to get by with laminating both sides. If not, the 'paper on the back' should work the same way as long as the lamination sticks to the front of the strip. I was hesitant to use a heat based laminator because I was not sure if the ink would bleed. Plus they are pricey.

The laminator I used came with a 'sampler' 15' roll. You can buy 60' refills, so strip length is not a problem.

http://www.amazon.com/Xyron-145612-ezLaminator-60-Foot-Cartridge/dp/B000MK4SGU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=arts-crafts&qid=1303421441&sr=8-1

The thin paper on the back is just to keep the lamination from sticking to the strip and is removed. I've thought a lot about how to make backlit ones, but I don't see any easy way to do it. Perhaps printing a black 'negative' of the strip on some transparency rolls (if they even made such a thing) and then just sandwiching them together and hope things line up. But I don't have any S2000 machines so it's not really on my to-do list.

<edit> LOL you posted your pictures as I was typing. 

La, la, la, la. I didn't hear that.

Ill bite, How can my s+  use back lit reels?

 

Seriously, I thought I saw a thread where someone (Bunker?) made some.

McGuyver job

   
"Batteries Not Included"

lol  To weigh the jackpot symbols for these reels,
you stick some cheese about 90 degrees below the pay-line symbol.