I have a friend who's family owned a 1962 Williams Friendship 7 when he was growing up, and he and his brothers have lots of fond memories of playing that machine. I notified him that there was one for sale in upstate New York, and asked if he wanted me to get it for him. Turns out the seller was a very nice guy and accommodating, so the deal went through and it made it down here to Virginia without much problem. When it came in, the cabinet was pretty rough (photo 1), and the playfield had some areas in the middle with some wear, but in general, it was in pretty good shape. I didn't like the original art on the cabinet anyway (what's a red iron cross and green 4-leaf clover have to do with a space mission, anyway?), so I thought it would just be fun to do a whole original design for the cabinet and head.

The first thing I did was get it going electrically. Had to replace a coil or two and clean and adjust switches, resolder some broken joints - typical stuff. The machine was set to accept dimes, so I put a switch on the front of the cabinet and wired it for free play (photo 2).

01 cab 1 (resized).jpg
Free play switch installed - just wired it in parallel with the coin switch:
02 start button (resized).jpg

The playfield had something weird going on in the center area - a pitting, like someone sprayed something on it at some point that ate through the finish, don't know what that was, but I wanted to fix that. There are 10 small white inserts in a row in the center, as well as a larger red insert that had been burned, and a larger white insert. All the inserts were cupped and low, and of course the paint had worn off around the edges. So I removed them all, replaced the red one, sanded the white ones flat and re-glued them back in place - then painted around the edges. There was a good bit of wear around the pop bumpers too, (I liked the magic marker touch-up that happened at some point.) that I wanted to do something about.

Close-up of the pitting:
03 right side email (resized).jpg
All the small white inserts out - you can see the paint missing around the edges of the holes:
04 F7 inserts out (resized).jpg
Really??
05 red pop bumper email (resized).jpg
06 yellow pop email (resized).jpg

I've been playing with making decals on adhesive-backed laser printer paper, having them printed at Staples, putting them on, then clearing them, so this was a good opportunity to try it again. The first thing I did to reproduce that center area below the yellow target was to take a digital photo of the area surrounded by 1-inch square graph paper. (Photo 1) The straight lines on the graph paper allow me to get rid of lens distortion and also to size the decal accurately. After playing with it in Photoshop for a bit, I wind up with what's in photo 2. It's hard to get the color right, so I wind up getting these things printed several times before I'm happy with them. Photo 3 is with the decal in place, holding a spare one so you can see it. The last two photos are with the decal and 10 inserts in place and painted.

07 photo of center area (resized).jpg08 center decal F7 (resized).jpg09 F7 decal (resized).jpg10 F7 center decal on (resized).jpg

Now I did the same thing with the area under each pop bumper - two reds and two yellows. This is the file I had printed and cut out (photo 1) and photo 2 is how they looked installed. I put adhesive mylar circles over them, so they're protected.

I cleared the playfield with Polycrylic (by Minwax) to protect the new decals and level them and the inserts. I used a brush and sanded between coats - it's not going to give Kruzman any competition, but it seems to work fine for me. I just don't want to deal with auto clear.

So the last two photos are of the entire playfield and the upper arch with the arch lighting - I love that arch lighting! Sorry it went away on later machines, to save money, I suppose. For those interested, I use color-matched Comet LED's under the inserts on the pf, warm-white always, clear bulb housings above the pf where they can be seen.

My wife has steady hands and good eyes, and was a big help repainting the tops of the bumper and pop bumper caps. Those things are $12 a piece!

The pop bumper photoshop file:
11 F7 Pop rings (resized).jpg
Printed and laid down. Mylar went over them for protection:
12 red pop decal on (resized).jpg
The entire playfield. Fun artwork by George Molentin - very colorful!
13 F7 pf (resized).jpg
That arch lighting is so pretty:
14 F7 arch lighting (resized).jpg

Next, the backglass. The original had a good bit of paint flaking off, and I've never been able to touch up backglasses worth a damn, so I just bought a new one from Shay (3rd photo). It's purty!! But it's so nice, it makes the cabinet look even worse.

I generally use frosted warm white LED's behind backglasses, but I did put 2 yellow LED's behind John Glenn's face - really made his face stand out! The photo doesn't really capture it, unfortunately.

Here's the original backglass from the front:

15 F7 original backglass (resized).jpg

Here's the original backglass from the back - lots of paint missing:

16 original backglass (resized).jpg

Here's the nice new backglass from Shay....lovely!
17 new F7 bg lit (resized).jpg

Then end caps on this lockdown bar were kind of a mess too. I don't know what the hell happened to them - someone drilled large holes into them, and then dragged them down a paved road, perhaps? I was quoted a price of $200 to fix and re-chrome them, and that's not in the budget, so I'll come up with something later - hopefully.

18 F7 lockdown bar L (resized).jpg

So anyway, on to the fun stuff - repainting the cabinet/head! I got into Photoshop and talked over some ideas with the machine's owner and came up with photo 1. Way too detailed for an authentic looking cab, but what the hell - I wanted to have some fun. So, you know the drill - sanded the old paint off, filled the cracks and divots, sanded those down, primed it, sprayed a layer of black on for space. Just cut a curve on a piece of thick cardboard and used that for the outline of the earth in blue.

19 F7 attempt 1 capsule and black back email (resized).jpg20 sanded 1 (resized).jpg21 black (resized).jpg22 black and blue (resized).jpg

I had that photoshop file printed full size at Staples and used it to cut the stencils. Well, actually my wife cut the stencils. She used to work at a stenciling place - that came in handy! So here are some shots of the various colors going on.

Here's the green (land) and grey on:

23 grey capsule (resized).jpg

Here's lighter grey of the capsule highlights and moon:
24 white accent and moon (resized).jpg

Here's all the colors on - more black detail on the capsule and red:
25 all colors (resized).jpg

Next there was the black detail that I had to do with a paint pen and ruler on the capsule and moon. But space had no stars, so my wife took a brush and some white paint, and voila! Stars!

Without stars:
26 lines no stars (resized).jpg

with stars:
27 with stars (resized).jpg

Time to do something with the backbox. Again, went into Photoshop and talked over some ideas with the game's owner, and we came up with photo 1. Took the file to Staples, printed it full-size and cut stencils from it. Then the fun part, spraying the colors on, pulling off the stencil, seeing what you came up with. It went pretty smoothly - and again, thanks to my wife for cutting out the stencils - especially the "Friendship" text. I couldn't find an exact match for the text that was painted on the actual capsule - I'm sure it was hand-done and there is no exact match, but I came as close as I could and we changed the "e" a little bit to make it closer. Then detail again with the paint pen - moon's face and lines on the rocket ship. Added a few little accent stripes on the front.

28 Backbox side art 45 2 email (resized).jpg
Here are 4 colors on - blue, red, green and grey:
29 red,green,blue, grey (resized).jpg
Here it is with the white - the text. You can see we changed to "e" from the Photoshop file- looks more like what was on the capsule:
30 done except for moon face (resized).jpg
Here is the head and cabinet done:
31 done stenciling (resized).jpg

I wanted to do something fun with the coin door, so used the same stencil of the rocket ship I used on the head to tie things together a little. My wife did a little happy star on the front of the cab, just to the left of the coin door area. There are matching stars on the playfield and backglass, so again, it hopefully ties things together.

Then took it to a local guy who does powder-coating. He did the siderails and center of the lockdown bar a gorgeous purple that matches the purple on the backglass, and powdered the legs silver. If I had it to do over, I might have done the legs black...but it's done (for now).

Williams made 800 of these machines in 1962 - not a huge run, so I don't think there are a ton of them floating around any more. But it's a really fun game if you like EM's - Steve Kordek designed it and I think George Molentin did the artwork. I've really enjoyed playing and getting the know this machine, and it was a blast to redo the cabinet artwork! My friend who bought it doesn't have room for it at his home, but the owner of Decades Arcade here in Charlottesville was nice enough to give it a home. If you're ever in the area, stop in at Decades and play it!

The coin door and related hardware being repainted:
32 coin door (resized).jpg
Love this purple powdercoat (I think it's called "Dormant purple") - really matched the backglass purple closely. I have smoothed and painted the end caps at this point. You can see the happy little star my wife painted on the front left - matches other happy little stars all over the pf and bg - I'm starting to sound a lot like Bob Ross....
33 coin door installed (resized).jpg34 powder coat done (resized).jpg35 done right side (resized).jpg36 done left side (resized).jpg37 done backbox (resized).jpg

Thanks. I love the history of these machines too - knowing that they're already way past their expected longevity, but might go for another 60 years! (if we can all still find parts for these things then) That's just so cool to me!

Oh yeah, those endcaps - I wound up filling the holes and scratches with bondo, sanding them as smooth as I could get them, painting them silver, then clearing them with Polycrylic. They feel great against your palms now - I'll see how the Polycrylic holds up against hundreds of sweaty palms. Not as nice as chroming them, but I do have financial limits.