Had another "oops" moment this evening. As I finished up putting the wire harness in, I noticed that I forgot to put the two T-Nuts in my CPR playfield (they secure the apron). Obviously the best time to put those in would be first, before you do anything to the playfield, so you have a nice, flat surface to hammer them in. Haha! This playfield swap is almost done, and I've got to get the T-Nuts in. At least there are only two, and they're near an outside edge of the playfield.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I propped up the playfield and used a c-clamp to apply enough pressure to set in the T-Nuts. Worked like a champ.

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I found a Comet LED strip in my lighting case and temporarily rigged it up behind the drain. Here's a shot of where it is, and what it looks like with the apron sort of on (clamps on the rotisserie prevent the apron from fully resting on the playfield, but you get the idea).

I think I like it and may keep this.
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Here's a $6 bet that paid off.

Determined the classic Stern knocker in my Meteor project is missing the nylon tip. I searched hi and low, new and used, and have been unable to find a replacement plunger. Knowing the classic Bally knocker plunger is shorter and doesn't have the groove at the bottom end (for an e-clip that holds on some washers), it looked to be the same diameter as the classic Stern so I added a new one to my last PBL parts order. Came in today - using vice gripes and pliers, I was able to pull the nylon tip out of the Bally. And with a heavyweight hammer, I pounded it into the Stern. Bingo!

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I see what you did there.

With the playfield more or less done until I can reassemble everything and see how my swap went, my attention is moving to the cabinet.

While structurally sound and surprisingly with very little dings or gouges, both sides and the cabinet front suffer from some pretty decent planking. The ridges are fairly deep and rough to the touch. The ridges are present only below where the side rails went....the wood under the side rails is nice and smooth. This pin must've spent a lot of time in a garage or some other non-climate controlled area.

I'm experimenting with one of the sides to see how I'm going to approach the rest of the cabinet. I took the first layer of paint off with acetone and then used an orbital sander to see how the cabinet side would smooth out. While visually it still looks like there are ridges, the side is now totally smooth to the touch.

So now I'm wondering....if I proceed to the primer/paint stages, will this ridge/planking problem re-emerge at some point? Or possibly show thru the new paint and primer? I was thinking of putting down a thin layer of bondo but I hate working with bondo and would like to avoid that if at all possible.

I may section off a several square inch area of the cabinet side, put down some primer coats, and then put down a paint coat and see what it looks like. Fresh paint like that will come off in seconds with acetone when it comes time to start over for the Pinball Pimp stencils (or if I decide to put down a layer of bondo).

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Thanx for that....never heard of it, and just started reading up on it. Certainly looks easier to work with vs. bondo. Looks like a trip to Home Depot will be on my errand run tomorrow.....my local store shows more than a dozen in stock.

24hrs in a tumbler with walnut media - nice difference, especially the bolts and washers that secure the head to the lower cabinet.

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I picked up some Durham's today and practiced on some spare plywood with different mixing ratios for viscosity, from thicker putty for filling in holes to thinner glaze to smooth out scratches. Not too bad. It's more flexible than bondo in that way, and more importantly it does not set as quickly as bondo giving me more time to work. Within 20 minutes it was set hard and touchable. In under an hour, it was sandable. 4 hours later, hard as rock.

Going to finish stripping the paint this weekend and then working on rebuilding some edges with wood epoxy. After that, and perhaps a little more practice on scrap plywood, I think I'll try Durham's for smoothing out the cabinet sides (and front and rear) to cover up that planking.

It's been a few weeks since my last Meteor update - life gets in the way, you know? Plus....I had a long, drawn-out multi-week saga with JB Weld's QuikWood.

I've been a user of this product for years and like many others here who have recently reviewed KwickWood on various websites, I was beginning to wonder what happened with their quality control. I'd purchased 6 different packages over the last 5 months at Lowes, Home Depot, and Walmart and all had the same issue - the center/core was yellow-ish instead of white-ish, and fresh out of the box it was already hard in spots and very granular. It could not be kneaded or mixed without it falling apart and crumbling in my hand, and it would never seem to "set" or "kick" (it's supposed to be sandable in an hour). In the times that I could actually kneed it smooth and apply it, it would crumble at the lightest sanding even after letting it sit for more than 24hrs.

I contacted JB Weld through their corporate website complaining about their product's performance as of late and the next day, a customer service person emailed me back and explained that they indeed had an issue with their "chemical process" earlier this year and that there are bad batches floating around (and apparently still sitting on store shelves even today). No announcement or recall from them, no notices of how to identify the bad batches or how many date codes are affected, but at least an acknowledgement of a manufacturing issue. They took my shipping address and 4 days later I got a box of twelve 3.5" KwikWood sticks! Sure enough, these work fine and I'm back in business filling in small gauges and cracks in my Meteor cabinet.

I'm sure I'm late to the party, but a few weeks ago I discovered a little flex-tube thingy that allows me to hook up my shop vac to my orbital sander. Not sure I'd want to use this indoors, but it really does improve the saw dust / bondo dust collection while sanding.

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Here's some bottom edge work on the left side of the cab along with some filling in some of the deep gouges. The bottom edge has been sanded and blended in nice and smooth while the gouge-fills still need to be sanded down.

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So here's the back of the lower cab. I stripped as much paint off as I could, repaired some rotten/delaminated wood in the lower left corner, and used Durham's to put down a thin layer to get a good, sandable surface that hides/protects the aging wood.

Durham's seems pretty good and easy to use for small areas, but I don't want to use it for the whole cabinet....just too hard to work with. I like the fact that you can change the consistency as you're using it (add more powder to thicken it or add more water to thin it) and it doesn't kick to quickly. But for spreading it out over large areas, I didn't care for it.

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So, back to bondo. I've used it in the past with a lot of success, but I didn't like how much work it was to get it sanded down smooth (lots of pin holes and what-not that needed to be sanded down and blended). I've since discovered I was mixing it wrong - with my last two cabinets, I was using a porous surface and mixing the putty in circles with a wooden paint stick. Wrong. I've since gotten a non-porous mixing pad and am now kneading in the hardener with the bondo spreader before applying it to the cabinet. Much better.

In this photo, I experimented with bondo in the center and sanded it down smooth (white-ish color). Then for the second application, I put it down (gray-ish) around the first application.
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Sanded and feathered smooth and flat. I think I got enough coverage here and will move on to the cabinet sides sometime this week.

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Inspiration arrived from CPR last week - a brand new repro backglass. Can't wait to put this on a newly refurbed and freshly painted and stenciled cabinet.

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Yes - I typically use Rustoleum 2x Cover rattle cans (oil based). I've gotten good results with it on my previous cabinet projects and it works well with Pinball Pimp stencils. After repairing/prepping the cab with 180/220, I'll put down a couple coats of Kilz primer, sand 320, then base color, then the other two colors, sand stencil edges 800, then clear (all rattle cans). I usually do this work on the weekends, so there's at least 4 to 6 days between the primer, base, color 1, color 2, and clear stages.

Right now, at least for the lower cab, I've gotten the corners, edges, and gouges repaired. The sides were planking pretty good, so I've sanded them smooth and put down a layer of bondo (one side so far, plus the back). The back turned out fine, but the left side needs to be leveled out (got some highs and lows that need to be flattened). Hopefully can knock that out this weekend and start the same procedure on the right side, then the front.

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After ultrasonic cleaning, walnut media in the tumblers to start, then corncob media with a couple ounces of Flitz liquid polish. That's my go-to routine for most metal pin bits for the plating on these old Sterns is so bad it just doesn't do much. But it's clean!

When I see under-playfield pix of other's Meteors, Tridents, F2K's, etc. I see the same type of tarnishes on the bigger mechs so I know I'm not alone.

Almost there - both sides and back are bondo'd, as level as they're going to get, and nice and smooth. The red marks are bondo glazing putty spots that cover up nicely the pinholes and small craters left behind by the bondo (this is my 3rd bondo project and I'm STILL trying to nail down an accurate mixture of hardener and putty).

I'll be working on the front over the next couple of days. Maybe I'll be able to start laying down the first coat of primer this weekend.

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I may look into that next time, but it's pretty pricey. You can't beat a 16oz tube of Bondo Putty Glaze for $5 at Walmart!

We're ready for primer this weekend! Everything sanded down level and smooth (with some tooth for paint), vacuumed, wiped down, and gone over with a tack cloth.

If you noticed the front part of the cab having more of a red tint for the bondo, there's a reason. In their infinite wisdom, Bondo includes a tube of WHITE hardener with the can of gray putty filler. What do you get when you mix white with gray? Basically, more gray and you hope it's mixed well. I wised up and purchased a separate tube of hardener with a RED tint. Now when you're mixing, you can tell how consistent the hardener is amongst the putty.

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First primer coat done (Kilz). Got a few drips I need to address once it dries, will probably do that and a second coat tomorrow morning. Later this afternoon I'm going to get started on stripping the backbox.

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Started on the backbox this afternoon, got most of the paint off. The sides and top are planking like the lower cab, so I'll be doing some glazing work before I get to painting. Need some repair in a few spots as well. Sounds like a good activity to start tomorrow.

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First coat of black base is down. Tomorrow I'll sand out the drips and put on a second coat. Might be able start the stenciling, at least for the lower cab, next weekend (but will mask off the cab and paint the neck red first). I'm still working on backbox repairs - might be able to primer that next weekend.

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Painted the neck yesterday, and will hopefully start the lower cab stenciling this weekend. I started preparing the front this morning and quickly discovered that the cardboard cutout I've used on the coin door space to prevent the stencil from sagging doesn't fit. Duh! To date, I've re-painted 3 cabinets but they've all been Bally, and the coin door area on this classic Stern has slightly different dimensions (slightly larger all the way around). Going to need to make a new cutout before putting on the front stencil.

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Got some time this weekend to work on the cabinet - front colors down.

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Also got the red down for the left side. Edges are nice, sharp and crisp....very happy with that stencil job. However, there is a strange drip line across the M and E....it's actually in the black base and not the red stencil I just laid down. It's perfectly smooth....you can't feel it, and from most angles it's not visible. I actually didn't notice it until this morning, and I've been staring at this cabinet after laying down the black base a week or so ago. I'm not going to sweat it - you gotta been at a certain angle with light just right to notice.

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Yes - Pinball Pimp:

http://pinballpimpstencils.com/meteor/

Left side stenciling done. Got a couple of boogers that should touch up fine....will do all the touch up work after the stenciling is complete. Weather permitting, will start the right side Friday.

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Good question - I felt that would be more work when it comes to masking/re-masking to protect areas of the cabinet that I don't want to get accidentally painted on or misted (including the cabinet interior).

I wrap the entire cabinet with a few layers of packing wrap - takes only a few minutes. I exacto-knife cut out a panel of the wrap, like a hinge, to expose only the side I want to work on at that moment. After both colors are down on that side, I bring the hinged wrap back up, tape it down, move on to the next side, and repeat the process of hinging that side's wrap.

Another reason is that I spray paint with the cabinet on its side so it's laying flat - helps to avoid runs if I accidentally spray on too much. With all of the other sides already masked, it helps protect the rest of the cabinet from scratches and dust/dirt while it's spending time in my driveway and garage during this process.

That might seem like more work to someone else perhaps, but it works for me.

I'm using Kilz for primer and Rustoleum 2X Ultra Cover for paint, one of the recommended ones for Pinball Pimp stencils. Works well for me, this is my fourth cabinet for repainting.