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