Dr@No's fun filled (and often long-winded) restorations

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
45 days left


Well, it's my 5th day working on this project and my goal was to get all the mechs in the head cab working 100%.
I managed to pop out every score reel and inspect them. All needed a good clean and some orange wipes did a great job of cutting through 55 years of grime.



5 out of the 6 reels worked great. The 'ones' reel for the High Score to Date, however, was not advancing reliably.
I had to carefully take it apart, remembering and marking the position of all parts so I didn't mess up the zero position. In the end it was just more dried up grease causing a small indexing finger to not swivel far enough to catch the teeth on a cog that, in turn, spins the wheel and position of the reel.



And, with that, all the upper mechs should be good to go for a long time.
I also spent a few minutes filing and gapping all the relay switch contacts.

Now, here is what lies ahead of me next!
I'm hoping to pull this entire panel out of the main cab tomorrow.

Just 45 days to go.

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
44 days left


I've been trying really hard to at least spend an hour a day with this project.
Not easy over the weekend with so much going on, but I did at least manage to start removing everything from the lower cabinet. The entire panel with score motor, relays, steppers, trasformer etc. came right out and there's just a little more wiring, tilt mechs, bells, door and this play counter.

Only 4 digits... wow! Any guesses on how many times this has rolled over?



The cabinet is almost ready for a REALLY good and much needed clean-up.
Luckily my new dolly can be laid down flat and is doubling as a rolling workstation too!






Not much else to report right now.
Just lots and lots more cleaning coming up

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
43 days left

Last night I completed the main cabinet strip.
I pulled out the door and all leftover wiring.
I'd really love to find a new door frame and some new coin chute plates, but will make due if I have to.
The cabinet was splitting a bit by the door so a quick glueing and clamping should sort that out.







[URL='https://flic.kr/p/rED9ME']


I also stripped the bumper off the playfield rails. My next stepp is to fill in any missing wood on these with some bondo and give them a fressh coat of paint.







Hopefully I'll be able to post up some shiny new red rails tomorrow [/url]

 

[Renfrew County]

Hi Drano,
I have bad ball ware marks in upper playfield, what would be a good filler?

 

[DRANO]

Hi Drano,
I have bad ball ware marks in upper playfield, what would be a good filler?

Depends on the game.
Can you post a picture?
For example, if you have an old EM and there's an arch carved into the exposed wooden top of the playfield, you really don't have any good options. No filler is going to mimic natural wood and, even if you filled it, you'd have to end up painting in a wood tone... Which never looks great.
You can attempt to sand the wood and kind of smooth or level it out, but then you end up with unfinished wood that is next to wood with old yellowed clear lacquer that you will never match.

If the wear is on a painted area, I like to use CA glue (Krazy Glue) to fill in fine grooves and chips. It bonds really well in these tiny areas and is very hard. Then I block sand it so everything is once again level to the playfield. Afterwards I can start any airbrushing or performing general touch ups before I clearcoat.

Every repair is different and must be assessed according to the conditions and artwork of that game.
I'm happy to comment on any pictures you want to post. If you don't want to do it here, start a separate thread and others can chime in as well.

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
42 days left

Yesterday's task was getting the playfield rails repaired and re-painted.
I used a little bondo to fill in any missing chunks of wood and then sanded and painted everything.





[url=https://flic.kr/p/rEDa53]


Later in the evening I spent a little time going through all the steppers and relays on the bottom panel.
I just have a few more relays and the score motor to go through and then I'll be disconnecting everything and moving it off the panel for cleaning and to re-paint the panel itself.

I did a small paint test on a small rough panel that I pulled from the head. It holds the player run units and lamps. The paint seems to be a decent match and, more importantly, not glossy!


[url=https://flic.kr/p/qK5o6D]


[url=https://flic.kr/p/rDzi3W] [/url][/url][/url]

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
41 days left

So, I did a lot of little things last night.
Tried to put the wooden rails back on the playfield. Damaged one paint job in the process and had to redo the right rail



I also tested some of the metal parts to see what I wanted to do with them.
I'd love to chrome everything but I don't really want to spend another $200-$300 to do that. I think I'm going to just try and tumble and polish as much as I can. I don't have a proper buffing wheel set up yet, so I'll make due. All I've done so far is just clean these up and I did a pass with some steel wool.

The metal bracket below hold the figures in place and also catch balls into the holes.
The game was missing one so I sent a sample to a good friend in Minnesota who offered to repro it for me.







These metal plates above sit under the foul line and have some ball trails. Rather than re-grain them and strip the nickel plating, I noticed that they are perfectly mirrored on both sides and I was able to simply reverse them and swap sides. Same for the 'single' trough above the foul line.





Lastly, I VERY carefully removed the remaining artwork and original labels from the head cabinet.



I'm just about ready to take the cabinets into my shop for repair and refinishing.
We're getting super busy at work so finding free time is going to be hard.

Thanks for following along.
Dr.@NO

 

[Renfrew County]

Drano your work looks great, thanks for the info on my post, I just picked up a Space Mission, wow its in nice shape. Going to clean up a bit before turning on.

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
40 days left

Playing a little catchup on my updates.
With 10 days in I've managed to finish cleaning every contact in every relay, stepper unit and the score motor.
No really sexy pics to post today, just a peek into the mess of switches that I had to go through.









Okay, maybe just one nice pic.
I decided that, at least for the score card holders, I would use a nice chrome paint. The nickel finish was too far gone and I'm not having these plated. The card holders are front and centre and should look good.
Just gotta let them sit for at least 24-36 hours and the finish should hold up very well.

 

[WARLOCK]

Bro, I am constantly amazed at your skillz. Thank you for sharing.
I kicked *ss this week in pinball accomplishments. (no posts online tho)

And, you still lead us and show us the way with most excellent advancements.

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
39 days left

Today was fun.
The repaint on my right rail was cured and I was able to get it onto the playfield and also install the card holders. It's a small thing but these small moments are what I love most about the process. That first time you can start to put things back together after all the tiny menial tasks that had to happen to get to that point.



I also completed the cleanup of the main panel and decided to unscrew everything and move it over to another panel so I can start cleanup on the original. I hate making an EM look great and then raising the playfield to a dusty, dirty mess. I've already gone this far, might as well make it as clean as I can get it.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/rqZUE1] [/url]

 

[DRANO]

Bro, I am constantly amazed at your skillz. Thank you for sharing.
I kicked *ss this week in pinball accomplishments. (no posts online tho)

And, you still lead us and show us the way with most excellent advancements.

Thanks man... but I think you had the bigger and more impressive step to take. I Dont want to trivialize it, but this stuff comes kinda easy to me. I'm not exactly pushing my boundaries... it's just fun for me and also distracting enough of a passtime to unwind to. Seeing you jump in with both feet, stepping out of your comfort zone and getting stuff done was more impressive. Keep going!

 

[Renfrew County]

Looks great, I'm jealous!!

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
38 days left




Weekends are pretty packed with family stuff and I'm also working on a bathroom reno so I don't get as much done on this project during Sat/Sun as I would like.
For several days I've been promising myself I would take a break for one evening. After all, even God got to rest on the 7th day... although, he didn't have an Allentown deadline

So, today was as close as I'm gonna get to a break.

I decided I would just catalogue views of the players from all sides and document how they were painted.
I ordered 5 new outfielders but I still have two other originals, plus the pitcher, catcher and umpire. All have slightly different painted details. SInce they will arrive un-painted... and these ones are prety chipped, I'll have to repaint them all by hand.

Ater they were catalogued, I dropped them all into a tub of mineral spirits. I have no idea if this will do anything to soften or dissolve the paint (Im sure it's lead based too), but if it doesn't I will try some Goof-Off instead.





Pretty light work

The last thing I did was simply to peel or pull off the original labels from the main panel.
Time permitting, I will scan and reprint these on some vintage looking manilla paper.





I'll bring the panel into work on Monday and run a sander over it for a quick cleanup and then throw some new paint on it and get all the relays, motor, steppers etc. back onto it. One more part to put into the log-books before I focus on the largest job... the cabinet!

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
37 days left



I've been a little lax these last couple of days with my progress posts. Dealing with SkitB fallout hasn't helped.
Anyhow, without further ado, Sunday...

In keeping with my day of rest theme, Sunday seemed to have just been an extension of my pretty lazy Saturday. Well, I got a lot done, just not on this project.

First thing to report is that mineral spirits do squadoosh to remove old paint.
I opened up the container and the liquid was clear and the figures unchanged after a 24hr soak.
After pouring it back into the bottle I brought out the big guns. GOOF OFF (a.k.a. acentone on speed).

I poured this stuff into the container and my nose hairs almost recoiled in fear (It must have real bits of 'goof' in it... that's how you know it's good )




The paint started swirling almost immediately and, within minutes, these guys were just melting like a Nazi in an Indiana Jones flick. A soft brass bristled brush got most of the remnants off and they are now ready to prime and paint. Now I just have to wait for the new figures to arrive so I can do them all at once.


[url=https://flic.kr/p/ruEZD2]


The rest of the night was spent clenaing up the shop. It was a disaster after almost 2 weeks of restoration and home renovations. I needed to invest a little time so that I could have some sanity and somewhere to work and not get hurt. I sold my T2 on Friday and that made room for a game to move downstairs. The Shadow is a minor project so I moved it down with some muscle I had available Sunday afternoon... instant free space!

At the end of it all I just had one last task. Collect all the parts that I wanted to bring into work on Monday for sanding, refinishing etc... and off I went to watch The Walking Dead!


[url=https://flic.kr/p/ruEZtT]


Dr.@NO[/url][/url]

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
36 days left



Monday was hectic at work and, while I managed to bring in some parts, there was zero opportunity to get anything done.

In the evening I got started on a few random tasks. If you do a lot of little things, they will eventually become a big thing. So, with that in mind, I tackled the cleaning and adjustment of the bell/chime and knocker mechs.
Took everything apart, cleaned what I could and bent some of the armatures back into place to ensure proper strikes.




The other thing I started was the control panel.
The batting mech has to be one of the filthiest parts I've encountered so far. There was so much grease and build-up that the whole thing was black and encrusted.
I spent some time taking everything apart and cleaning it with some orange wipes.
I'll have to drop all of this in the ultrasonic cleaner soon too.
I'm still debating the merits of chrome plating. The more I do, the more parts appear that would be good candidates; this bat being no exception.

Lastly, the top of the CP is made of a Formica/Arborite style product and is extremely durable, just like the playfield. However, one area that gets banged up a lot is the bat hole. I'm debating whether I should fill this in with some bondo and then clean up the paint? I don't like making things look too new, but this is right in direct sight of the player. And, will it just get damaged again?
I guess I don't have to decide immediately. For now, I have to figure out how to replace a rather good sized chunk of wood from one of the lower corners










Dr.@NO

 

[dnewman]

Very impressive Drano! You are breathing new life into it!

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
35 days left



I'm 15 days into the project and just trying to get through all the small stuff as I get ready for the largest part of the job... the cabinet. Since most of that work will have to happen at my shop at work, I'm focusing on a few other small tasks I can do at home first.

First, I want to get the bottom panel all back together, so I sanded it down and gave it a fresh coat of paint.
I also scanned all of the labels and went out and bought some antique looking card stock to print up somenew ones.



Afterwards, I decided to take apart to top-side of the man-running unit. the field was pretty filhty and I was amazed at the discolouration.







After a lot of wiping I got it all back together and it's looking pretty sharp.
The figures are made of cardboard so I really didn't want to handle this part of the game any more than I had to.




I still had a bit of energy so I decided to tackle the coin door.
I took apart as much as I could and then dipped all the parts in a rust removal bath. in a couple of days I'll strip it down and start the process of straightening and repairing what I can. before I polish and paint it.



Tomorrow, getting the bottom panel re-assembled!

Dr.@NO

 

[DRANO]

NO SLEEP TILL A-TOWN!!!
34 days left


Today I printed up some new feature adjustment labels for the bottom panel and new instruction cards.
I stapled and glued a few down and then proceeded to get the panel mechanisms all re-attached.













Always nice to see fesh cards on a game:





Dr.@NO

 

[WARLOCK]

Stellar work bro.