(Topic ID: 228205)

1953 Gottlieb Flying High. Rescue, Not a Restoration.

By Darcy

5 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

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  • 11 posts
  • 6 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 5 years ago by tfduda
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#1 5 years ago

So here is the progress on this Flying High I bought in September 2017.

Wanted a wood rail to add to the Gottlieb line up. Woodrails are hard to find for sale here in Alberta. Found 2 of the same wood rails for sale in Saskatoon, a pin and a parts pin. This is a great way to start as the parts pin can be compared to the game being repaired. That is roughly a 9 hour round trip. The game has been well played, and had been in storage for 17 years. The backglass was no good, and could pass a window. The rails and legs were also in tough shape, very little original finish remaining. Cosmetically this game was showing its age.

Flying High is a 'Trap Hole Game', Gottlieb made many trap hole games. The game ends with all 5 balls trapped in the holes. If you can get 4 balls in a row a Replay is rewarded. There are a few ways to win replays. 4 trapped balls in a row, hitting the pop bumpers 1 thru 7 lights the Special Hole and Special Button, High Score, and High Points.

The trip to Saskatoon and back was an adventure for 2 of my employees. One from India and one from the Philippines. Driving East from Edmonton, they both kind of freaked out that there were no people or houses for miles. On the return trip we took a secondary road, to which my guy from India asked to stop so he could take pictures of nothing. Open fields of Canola and Wheat, He states, "We have been driving for 2 hours, and haven't seen a farm house yet". It was kind of funny.

Got the 2 games home and almost immediately plugged in the complete pin, and it had power, manually tripped some relays and it slowly sparked up. Motor was spinning, score relays trying to click. Well that made me feel much better. The score relays were gummed up with 65 year old grease and graphite, which was expected. That old graphite is tough to get off your fingers as well. Even the plunger was gummed up. For the mechanical stuff I think I have around 20 hours of filing, soldering, and cleaning. As for the cabinet, legs, and lock down bar, that was another 35 hours of cleaning, sanding, and staining the wood.

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Loaded up, heading home.

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Flat on the floor, assessing the next step.

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Set up on its legs, looks even better than 6 hours ago. Need to order some parts.

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Things that were inside. Nice fuses, with foil from a cigarette package, these were in the fuse holders. The white rubber ring was interesting, first thought it was something dead. Nice string tying.

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Polished up the coin chute and both plungers. Cleaned the red Shooter Base, and the Ball Lift Base.

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New glass on, with the redone rails and legs.

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This playfield was the best one of the 2. Cleaned, buffed and waxed, as much as I can.

#2 5 years ago

Part 2.

Still need some further work. Pop Bumper Skirts, Shooter Gauge, need to be replaced. Also the relay for the single points needs a further look at.
Going to need a new plastic set, as the original ones are so warped that they block the contact switches below them.

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The 'Tilt Light" has a falling airplane along with the Tilt.

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Testing the look of the refreshed lock down bar.

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#3 5 years ago

Some more photos...

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Dirty and worn playfield.

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The various Score Cards that were in the game. A good find, as was the original schematic.

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Game counter has most likely been rolled a few times.

#4 5 years ago

This pin had some home made side blades installed. The rough cuts and galvanized metal certainly was a mod. I did remove them from the game.
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The Side Blades were installed many years ago. As some 'up to no good doer' had drilled a hole in the left side of the game. So they could trip the 5 points rollover.

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#5 5 years ago

Good rescue, playfield looks really good for its age.

#6 5 years ago

Impressive rescue and story!

It looks like you added a stain when you refinished the wood. If so, what did you use?

#7 5 years ago

Nice story to let folks know that storing a game for 1-X years after you save it from the dump is not a bad idea if you are GOING to do something with it and help others in the process. Thank you for documenting and sharing your progress.

#8 5 years ago

It's always quality time when saving a machine. Nice job!

#9 5 years ago
Quoted from tfduda:

Impressive rescue and story!
It looks like you added a stain when you refinished the wood. If so, what did you use?

I used Varathane. For the colour I took the lockdown bar to the lumber store and tried to match up the old colour with a new shade. I chose a 'Pecan' which did look fairly close. Look at the wood bar between the playfield and the backbox. It is original. How ever the 'Pecan' turned out darker than other Gottliebs I have seen, but since the game is mostly orange, it doesn't look too bad. Then once the stain was fully dry. I applied a Semi-Gloss clear Varathane. A light sanding between coats, and it turned out good enough. The top coat could be lightly sanded then polished, but that I might wait a few months to test a section for smoothness. Semi-gloss clear, was suggested by @jrpinball, instead of a full gloss top coat. Overall the legs and rails turned out just fine.

#10 5 years ago

Great thread and way to go on sharing your project with Pinside. It's inspirational to those of us that have a game waiting to be brought back to life in our possession.

#11 5 years ago
Quoted from Darcy:

I chose a 'Pecan' which did look fairly close.

The refinished wood looks to be a nice match to the piece left intact—great choice on stain!

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