Swords of Fury
Williams, 1988Hello, I just purchashed my 1st pinball machine. It's a Williams Swords Of Fury and I paid $455.00 from Ebay. It works pretty good but needs a few repairs that are obvious 1 weak and 1 non working flipper and a drop target doesn't pop back up and some lamps need replaced. Any check list out there that I should follow so I can give this machine a good going over? Other then playing it.
Nice choice on the machine. I would like to find one! That particular one has the Williams system 11B in it. I have 3 games with that system. If you have the manual for it it can pretty much give you the 'checklist'. If you don't have it I would recommend getting it because it is a REALLY good source for info. You can download it and print it out at the Internet Pinball Machine Database. IPDB.org.
Other than the obvious, you can go into the diagnostics by pressing the menu button on the inside of the coin door. You can go through all the tests with the lights, switches, solenoids, everything to do with the machine to see what is working and what isn't. Not too many aftermarket parts for the playfield for that game available, but all the boards/displays/coils are pretty easy to find.
I'd take a good look at the power supply and see if it has been upgraded over the years,
if its still original you might want to replace the big Capacitors they only have a certain 'life' I think its 20 years but not 100% sure. I went through my Gorgars P.S. and it made a difference.
I was giving things a look see and discovered that at least 1 of the flipper coils is a parallel winding, (was in a hurry so couldn't look at everything). The machine powers right up so I'm thinking it's had some work done, prior owner said he got it from Pittsburgh PA. a arcade closing down or something he had it for 2 years. I got the play field glass out of it and cleaned it up, that made a major difference in how things looked.
Looks like I'll be practicing my airbrushing on the play field while I'm rebuilding some flippers. It's going to be a fun rebuilt!
Sounds fun, what a great hobby. If you really want to, you can wind your own coils. It takes a little work, but its not as hard as it seems. you can use a drill or preferably a drill press or lathe on low low speed to wind the wire on the solenoid spool. Tools needed :
micrometer to measure the wire size
Ohm meter/multimeter to measure coil resistance( digital) If you own a pinball machine you MUST have one of these.
any air dry varnish to paint on coil while winding
5 minute epoxy for outside of finished coil
Just make sure you wind the coil in the same direction and the same number of turns. If the coil is totally fried and you can't count the turns, measure the good coils resistance and wind the new coil until it is roughly the same size, just wind it tight and even, then add or remove turns untill the coil has roughly the same resistance. 5% difference is ok as temp is a factor. Just holding the wire in your hand, body temperature will change the resistance a little.
Any electric motor repair shop will have many wire sizes on hand, and for the amount you will need very inexpensive, probably less than $5 of wire for two coils. they might even do it for you. I know I would.
With a little time and effort you can totally rebuild a pinball machine yourself. I know coils are resonably cheap. But if they are no longer available you might find trying it yourself more satisfying.
I personally work in a motor repair shop and have done my own coils. Along with my own circuit board repairs. Just read up on coil winding online. They work just as good as NOS. And you built it!
OK, I'm ready to start cleaning and painting my pinball machine. Starting with the play field, then onto the cabinet.
Paint Scheme: I was going to match the original colors and keep it factory colors but decided to go from mild to wild. By "wild" I'm planing to use pearls, metallics, candies anything that will look good up close and stand out at a distance (across the room) and under different lighting, also considering black lighting.
Questions:
1) What is going to work well with the play field lights and with room lighting?
2) Should I repaint the base then the outlines?
3) Following my plan as is, how would you go about it?
4) Have any of you pimped out or seen a pimped out paint job on a pinball machine?
I found several good manuals and painting help on this web site www.pinrepair.com. They have several playfield restoration manuals that although the do not "trick" the playfield out, they do show you painting techniques etc. One word of caution with completely changing the playfield look, I don't think a collector is going to think that was a plus.
So here I am a year later FINALY started making the time to get this finished. I know that right now the paint work looks like crap but airbrushing is a step by step process, plus I need to get back in practice etc...
Will post more pictures in the coming days. I'm also going to make some changes to lighten the load (stress). Like around the bulb holes I'm going to take the paint all the way to the edges instead of leaving the wood grain ring around the hole. On the cobble stone path ways (light blue) there are just tons of little tiny stones in the black, they are getting painted over. It would take a extra month to do those alone.
Call the short cuts "mods"! 
I'm thinking of doing a dark brown instead of black to look like dirt, what do you think of that idea?
Playfield_Repaint_001.JPG Playfield_Repaint_002.JPG Playfield_Repaint_003.JPG Playfield_Repaint_004.JPG
OK, I'm getting back into the groove of using the airbrush lol. You got to use them often to be good with them, go figure...I'm also going through the pains of getting my positioning to reach the play field and get the detail better, on to the pictures.
Playfield_Repaint_005.JPG Playfield_Repaint_008.JPG Playfield_Repaint_012.JPG
Looks like it is coming along,But it also looks like you are about to the point that you could remove the playfield from the cabinet to gain access to those hard to paint areas.
Quoted from v8torino:But it also looks like you are about to the point that you could remove the playfield from the cabinet to gain access to those hard to paint areas.
Oh no no no... 
I wont be unplugging those plugs unless it's necessary. I'm not going through the pains of replacing the plug pins on the boards. I will manage the painting... 
I just came across these on Ebay ebay.com link: ws My board has 4 chips on it and the picture shows 2. I sent the seller question about that. Is this a good price for used chip set?
I managed to get some more painting done.
looks good jrrdw 
not sure about the $ for IC Chips ?
I'm sure BD can help you on that subject matter
Don't buy those ROMs. John Wart Jr. will burn you new ones for less money. Great seller!
Thanks for the info, I let the auction go. Been polishing plastic, needed a break from painting (the detail is hard).
Wow what a differance.
Pinball_Plastics_Post_001.JPG Pinball_Plastics_Post_002.JPG Pinball_Plastics_Post_003.JPG
I will be glad to make/reburn/etc any ROMs for Pinside members if I have the chips or are supplied the old ones to erase. All I ask is the postage be covered like always. Thanks to several of you though for the little gifts after getting things sent/back.
Quoted from jrrdw:Thanks for the info, I let the auction go.
Talk about a delayed response!
Quoted from mystic:I feel like I'm looking at a damn time capsule! Two years.. 1 year.. 3 months.. 4 hours.. really? Longest ongoing shop job ever?? I thought I was procrastinator..
LOL
Brand new Star posts are like $0.40 each multiplied by what looks to be roughly 30,give or take, that you need. That is $12, plus lets say $4 shipping. My estimate for the time it will take to make all of those old post look almost new is 4hrs. Time is money... if you make $16 an hour at your job for one hour to do something you know how to do well, isn't it to your advantage to only spend one hour to get what you want vs spending $64 the hard way? Just a thought.
Quoted from mystic:Two years.. 1 year.. 3 months.. 4 hours.. really?
Yup, really. I don't get much time to spend working on my machine, not like I would like to have. I'm lucky to get a hour in when ever I can.
That counts for cleaning, painting, rebuilding everything that goes into a restore.
Quoted from Brokedad:I will be glad to make/reburn/etc any ROMs for Pinside members if I have the chips or are supplied the old ones to erase. All I ask is the postage be covered like always.
Thanks Brokedad! When the time comes I'll sent you a Pinsidemail message about it.
You have had one unplayable game in your collection for 2 years now and it's still not up and running?? Just BUY new legs dude!!!! Haha
I love this thread....NEVER GIVE UP!
Thank you and that's right!
Pictures of how I leveled the playfield and the levels I used. If anyone is interested in these levels I got them here: ebay.com link: itm
I poured the clear and will get pics of that tomorrow.
Leveling_Playfield_0001_RS.jpg Leveling_Playfield_0002_RS.jpg Playfield_Repaint_022_RS.jpg Playfield_Repaint_024_RS.jpg
man, i thought it took ME a long time to shop out a machine... 
gotta admire the perseverance though...
Quoted from Thor-NL:Haha, you sure are not realy into PLAYING a pinball, are you ?
I love to play, but as to the restore I ran into a funds for it shortage and time has always been short. The goods news is I'm kinda sure I have spent and got all the parts needed to finish, now it's just a matter of time....and thats starting to happen as well. If it's ready by next years York show I'll bring it up to play. 
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White Hall, MD
Alkmaar
Grimsby, ON
or I would have had new legs already... So, Silver or Gold? 
