Hey folks,

This is my first post on this forum....

When I was 12, my mom bought a used pinball machine for my dad for his birthday, a 1964 Williams Riverboat. It was in my basement growing up, and we played it non-stop! A year later, they added a jukebox; My basement was "the place to be".

Fast forward, I'm turning 60 in June, mom's gone now, and we're closing up & selling the old family home. I posted on CL for the jukebox and the pinball machine. The jukebox sold immediately, and I was well on my way to selling the pinball machine, too.

A prospective buyer asked me some technical questions the answers to which I didn't know. So I googled, and wound up watching a youtube video of this same model being played. The lights, the sounds....they really took me back, and made me ask myself, "why am I selling this?" I pulled the CL add and moved the machine from my parents basement into my shop.

When my sister and I left home and stopped playing it, it was pushed to a corner, but it always worked. I saw no reason why it wouldn't fire right up. And, in fact, it has required very little work to get it fully functioning!

Everything that rotated on a shaft (counter wheels, credit wheel, number advancer) was pretty well gummed up, but nothing that couldn't be cleaned. So one-by-one, I de-soldered the wires, removed & disassembled the devices, cleaned the hardened crud and reassembled.

The rubber bands were shot, but I found a restoration kit on eBay that came with everything I needed. I cleaned & waxed the playfield (it was filthy!), and this machine plays better than it ever did! Still working through a few kinks, but I'm close to being done.

here's a few pictures, just for the fun of it!

The back glass is in OK shape. There's some flaking here & there, most notably around the ladies' faces

It's "all there"....no missing parts or pieces. A few lights were burned out, but I've got plenty of #47 lamps in stock...

Now, I do have a question for you all: to the absolute best of my knowledge, this box is original. We got this around 1970, so it wasn't all that old to begin with, and there's no reason or evidence that this was repainted. Still, of all the Riverboat pictures on the internet, I have yet to see one with this stenciling. Any ideas?

Next, the serial number is on a card in the back. Is there any way to figure the actual production date from that?

Lastly, I do have one broken plastic piece, shown here. It is stenciled with the part number30C-299-1. Any possibility of getting a replacement? I'm betting not, but there's always hope!

So there we have it! Re-kindling the fun of my mis-spent youth! Pretty awesome, right?

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Thank you, one & all...!

As you can imagine, I've played literally thousands of games on this machine; I've won "free games" with 5 cards, all 10 cards, 3 jokers, high scores, etc. Even as recently as last night I exceeded the free game score of 1900 twice! And with a single bumper earning only one point, that's real work! And I'm loving every minute of it.

Thanks to Vic Camp for telling me about this site....and for NOT buying my machine when it was on CL! And, yes!....I'd love to come to your gathering.

I'm surprised to hear this has been re-painted, as I can't figure when or why that would have happened. We got this machine around '69 or '70 and most surely my dad didn't paint it. Still & all, I don't think I'll re-paint it. I might try a little alcohol or xylene in some unseen areas just to see what happens, but this weird paint job is all I've ever known. Time will tell; let's see how I feel in a year's time.

Backglass painting: I wouldn't mind touching up the paint, but I wonder how you paint glass and allow light to still shine through. Special paint that lays on in a translucent way? I'm eager to learn.

Mikala: you said that "my pops are crashed", and I confess having absolutely no idea what that means. That said, I googled "Steve Pinball Resource", and I see he's in Poughkeepsie. My daughter goes to college in P-town, so I suspect I'l be dropping some $$$ at Steve's!

Anyway, thank you all for the warm welcome. Yes, I'm very happy that I decided to keep this old friend!

Mark

I guess my problem right now is learning all the terminology...dead bumper skirts, pops, etc. I have no idea what any of this means.

Are you guys talking about the green & yellow "10 points when lit" things? Yeah, they're a little banged up, and replacing them would sure make things look better.

My first step is figuring how they come off. Do I need to begin by unsoldering the electrical connections under the playfield board? Seems to me that has to happen first, as the socket seems to be integral to the center part. Can anyone confirm? (or correct me..)

EDIT: Never mind......I figured it out. I have all 7 of those "bumper thingies" removed. The steel parts are in good shape; nothing a cleaning & buffing can't fix. But most of the plastic is chipped, distorted & bent. One stand is broken, and all of the tops are just about illegible. I predict a drive to Poughkeepsie in my near future! Anyone know if Steve Young is a store or only a web business? Is he open on Saturdays? Never mind...I just read his website: not a store, not open on weekends, doesn't take credit cards. Dude's certainly has the goods, but no cc's? No paypal?

No bark, no bite....Steve & I had a wonderful conversation earlier this morning, and he's hooking me up with the stuff I need. I had already scoured his website and assembled a BOM with his part numbers, so all he really had to do was confirm that I was selecting the right components.

I noted that his website gave the impression that he was not a "store", and he confirmed that to be the case, but since I'll be in Poughkeepsie on Saturday, he didn't have a problem with me picking up my order in person.

Onward & upward! This machine should be pretty much done in another week or so.

Before dinner, I sat with my computer, searching craigslist for pinball machines. My sick mind is already trying to figure how many machines I can fit in the rec room....

I'm 5-ish years from retirement, kids are grown, and re-claiming the rec room for my own man-cave purposes is doable! I just need to get my wife playing pinball....

This forum may wind up being very, very bad for me. Time will tell.

Well now!

Drove to Poughkeepsie yesterday, had lunch with my daughter, and picked up a box of supplies from Steve! By 9PM last night, I have 7 new bumpers installed, and the machine just plays so much better! Looks wonderful, too!

Just before closing up the shop for the night, I had a "I wonder..." moment. I grabbed some denatured alcohol and a rag, and WOW!! I'm not entirely sure what to do. It will be a very messy project if I continue....

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Well, Vic.....I think I know why this machine was repainted!

That said, this may be beat up, but it's "original wear & tear", which is better than that dirty speckled overpaint. Still, we're a bit beyond "touch up", so I'm not altogether sure what, if any, my next step is. But it's at least genuine wear, including the personal touches added by "DS", "Elaine" and "Mel".

For a machine that was designed in '64 (and produced over the next few years), and the few short years later when mom bought it in '69 or '70....this thing had a hard life! But it was the late '60s, right? You were either studying hard on a deferment, serving in Vietnam, a hippy or you were hanging out in the back of a hamburger joint, beating the crap out of a pinball machine! Cest la vie....

Xylene worked great. Denatured alcohol caused a little bit of bleed on the left side, but I can clean that up once the red & blue dry hard again.

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Didn't see this coming: My Wife says "I love it....don't change a thing!"

She thinks the wear & tear, being authentic, tells the story of the machine. "Just like life, scars & all"

Time will tell, but for now, I think it's time to move this from my shop into the rec room and see if I can beat my all-time high score! (3,364 on 6/3/78....which I wrote on the cabinet back when it happened, but it was erased this morning.)

Depends entirely on who you ask!

Would my River Boat like a "friend"? YES!

When my wife saw me searching craigslist for EM machines, did she share my excitement? Not exactly.....

I'm listening....

OTOH, there's something wrong in the drivetrain of my truck....might be the trans. (I'm presently tooling around in my daughter's VW while she's at college....pretty embarrassing vehicle on jobsites). Anyway, even if my wife would allow for a 2nd machine, chances are, right now the $$$ just ain't there.

...but I'm listening.

Well, it's been a few weeks, and I'm happy to report that the ole' gal is up & running like new!

The jury is still out on the question of repainting, but at least it's back to the original appearance, albeit a bit banged up. But all of the new components are installed, everything cleaned up, a few contacts needed help. I removed & cleaned all of the advance & score wheel mechanisms....cleaned the playfield, new balls, lots of new #47 lamps.....and she purrs like a kitten!

I put in slug diverters under the coin slots, so this machine becomes a piggybank, too! Livin' life large & lovin' all of it...all to the soundtrack of solenoids & bells. Lighting all cards, scoring jokers....Having a blast!

Oh...and this:

Getting 3 jokers and lighting the specials is fairly easy, based on the geometry of the playfield & flippers, but hitting the specials and getting the free game is tough. But there's a secret to doing this! Some might call it "cheating", but it's within the operational parameters of the machine, so I say it's "ok". I figured it out decades ago!

If you want to know, just ask!!

OK....like I said, some might call this cheating, but since it can be done without modification or deviation from the game, I say "no harm, no foul".

Lighting 3 jokers turns on the red bonus lights at the moving target as well as the top chute between the 2 dead bumpers. Hitting the moving target can be tough, but if you know your game pretty well, shooting a ball through the top chute is pretty easy.

So: As soon as you shoot a ball, immediately set your next ball and make it "ready to shoot". If / when you light 3 jokers, shoot the next ball and drop it through the chute! Free game!

Works like a charm!

On River Boat, the joker(s) which are scored are maintained for the duration of that one ball only.

As soon as the ball hits the drain and rolls over the "5th ball down switch" (irrespective of which ball it is), the circuit that holds the jokers 'on' is opened, and the coils of the relays holding the jokers are dropped and the jokers are lost. If all 3 had been lit (thereby enabling the specials), the specials are dropped, too.

If you need a copy of the schematic which shows the logic, I have one on pdf format.