I just saw this photo on Facebook and it reminded me how much I hate powdercoated coin doors. Lollll

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I’ve powdercoated heaps of pins, never done a door in a different colour. Generally it just looks wrong to me. Don’t know why - just doesn’t float my boat.

So, decision made! Standard stainless door it is.

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Yep, that’s the end game - first move is to get it all up and cranking first, then add the cream on top later.

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Haha! There’s always a first time for everything ...

I’m more meaning like yellow coin doors on Simpsons or Family Guy for example. Looks bad in my eyes. Maybe because the coin door is so much real estate on the front of the cabinet, it tends to dominate the whole thing.

I think either black or white would look fine on this machine. But not purple. Lol

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I think so .. like the Transformers combo LE lock down bar ..

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Thanks!

For my birthday this year I got the 2x Bladerunner DVDs, and the flu! Haha

Had it for a week now - it’s still hanging around.

Away from the workshop for two weeks ... when I get back I’ll get on to stripping and polishing that door and the surrounds.

Another job that needs doing is moving some of the lights in the backboard to match up with the new backglass positions.

Good times! (Bad times)

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Little bit of progress over the weekend as the playfield art is meticulously crafted in Texas ...

Sanded the whole playfield back with 800 grit to smooth out all the inserts etc. Some of the more scratched ones, I carefully rubbed by hand.

Then I laid a quick sealer coat to seal everything up. I’ll need to do the overlay “wet” to get the alignment right, so sealing it will make sure none of the wood grain raises up when it gets damp.

All the inserts look great.

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Then I started on the door restore and polishing.

No sooner do I have the door disassembled, than old mate Mitchell shows up with his barn find High Hand he’s been struggling to get running for the last month.

Silly old Dave said “bring it out some time and I’ll take a look” ... so ... 5 hours later ... we have a nicely running High Hand ... and no door progress. Lollll

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So this morning I had a couple of spare hours to get into the door.

First up, I polished all the surrounds with my trusty $15 polishing kit in my drill press. I’ve really got my $15 worth out of that kit.

All 4 surrounds plus all the bolt heads got buffed up to a nice shine.

Came up nice!

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Next up - the door itself.

This door skin isn’t perfect - but it’s the best I have to hand.

Hey, it’d be nice to just order a new one and have it show up tomorrow - but reality is, living in NZ that doesn’t happen. The freight cost is double the price of the door skin. So maybe next time I’m up there, I’ll grab one and bring it home in my suitcase.

So, the old one got polished up as good as it can be.

It’s pretty good for its age. Polished up nicely.

I got the door mounted up ... then ran out of time, I’ll finish the rest of it next time I’m home.

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I think the polished door was the way to go.

Looks pretty swish.

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I’ve left now - but it’s pretty similar to this one.

https://www.harborfreight.com/14-piece-aluminum-polishing-kit-98707.html

My one hasn’t got all these little pieces though.

I mainly use those medium ones in the press, (the cone looking one and the one next to it) and move the metal pieces against them while they’re spinning.

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Thanks!

I find the drill press helps ... I have a big old dirty drill press, bolted to my bench .. it’s pretty stable. So I can get my polishing kit in there, load it up with the compound, and lay into it. It takes a while ... each of those surround pieces is 3-4 minutes polishing I guess?

With the door front, I put that in my vice, and use Autosol metal polishing paste and a wool polishing pad in the drill. That door had 3x passes with that process. It was pretty scratched up - it still is if you look really closely but it is 200x better than before.

I did all the metalwork on my Evel Knievel restore on the press ... legs, door, ball trough, lock bar, everything. That one came up really shiny.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/rds-evel-knievel-restoration

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Boom!

I thought there’d be a pic of the drill press polishing setup somewhere in the background. Enhanced as much as possible.

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Yeah, I’ve seen those - haven’t tried them.

I reckon you want something really hard, not soft ... the ones in the polishing kit are solid. You really need to dig into it to shine them up.

Wear gloves too! The friction makes the parts get hot!

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Not much LZ pinball progress to report ... but in the mean time I can regale you with my recent Led Zeppelin adventure!

I mentioned back at the start, back in the 80s when I was a kid, I was right into Led Zeppelin. This book came out in 1982 .. I had it and had it all memorised.

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Alas ... about 15 years ago I lent it to a guy ... and it was never seen again!

Last week, that knowledge came into use!

Warners Music announced an on line Led Zeppelin context - I just happened to see an ad for it on line.

You had to complete 10 LZ quizzes ... song lyrics, timeline, band facts ... with some good prizes up for grabs.

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To be in to win, you needed to qualify in the top 100 to get into the final.

There were over 1200 entries ... and my 1982 memories got me qualified in 32nd place! Boooya.

So ... last night was the final.

They had done it very cleverly. They emailed you a special link ... you had to log on at 8:30pm and you had 3 minutes max to answer 15 questions.

Very clever, as there was absolutely no chance for people to cheat. By the time they’d typed the question into google the time would be up. So it was a real test of genuine knowledge ... so I thought I was in with a chance!

With the lack of my book, I did a quick online revision in the afternoon.

I was around at my buddies place watching some B movies - my phone alarm was set to 8:25pm so I could get ready to go.

Beep beep ... time to go! Sneak out of his cinema and head to the dining room to do my contest.

Shit!! The cell phone coverage is down!! F#*K!!

Phone into airplane mode. Back off airplane mode. Cell coverage came up, but no 4G! SHIT!

Shut down phone. Reboot phone. Still no 4G.

Run into cinema. YOU GOT WIFI? Yep! Sign me in!

8:29 and I’m on. The 30 second countdown is running!

Sit down at the table. Off we go!

I thought I was pretty clued up, but some of the questions I had no clue on. They’d really dug deep.

But I managed to get 10 out of the 15.

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The phone had a countdown down the bottom to see who won ... 10/15 wasn’t perfect, but the questions were tough and I thought I was in with a chance.

Alas! Not to be ... there were only the 3 prizes and I dipped out.

But it was a fun experience ... and it tied into this project nicely! How cool would it be if I won it!

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“It comes from the land of the bar bee que ...”

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Yes

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Brad is the man.

We’ve made a few tweaks, and she’s getting pretty close.

First up I’ll print a test print and check alignment with everything, then we can move on to printing the colour overlay.

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BradAlbright is weaving his magic over in Texas ....

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I wish I could draw like this ...

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That’s better than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - LZ hardly rated a mention!

Shocking.

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Funny! 25c .. score!

I was digging in my old boxes of cassettes the other day and found some of my original Zeppelin cassettes ... including the double album that started it all, as mentioned back at the start of the thread.

I’m sure I have more LZ cassettes around. I have a few on original vinyl too, but not many.

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So ... some other exciting things happened today ...

Playfield artwork test print!

Boooooom BradAlbright knocks it out of the park!

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Followed by arts and crafts time to cut it out ...

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The circles were ok ... the arrows were a pain in the ass ...

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After trimming it to size, and cutting out all the inserts and pop bumpers, it went on the timber playfield.

Thanks to the skills of Jeremy and Brad, it lined up with 99% of everything! A couple of minor adjustments to make, and we can print out the vinyl overlay.

I shot a video of the light test (shining light through the inserts) and sent it to Brad.

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Here it is with the pops and rails installed.

NOTE: rails will be painted gloss black! The shooter lane rail will be cut back to suit the side pop.

- white layer (under plastics) not printed here

- The side pop will be dropped down a little bit so the shot to the bonus collect hole can be made ... but it will be a tight shot! Miss and get punished!

- all the holes and inserts lined up - we need to finesse the area around the arrows a little

- need to bring in the border a little

Otherwise everything is going to plan!

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