Great story, great game. One of Norm Clark's best designs.

I had a nice RB once, but needed room and ended up selling it. Miss the game.

I had picked it up from a fellow in PA who worked for Herr's snack food company and he gave me a big bag of snack foods (pretzels, chips, cheese puffs, etc) for the ride back home. I bought it as a total project because the PF and cab were in nice shape. When I got it home, found that every score reel and stepper was seized solid with some kind of red goo that resembled the coating on a candy apple. The seller didn't do it; he was just flipping the machine. I had to completely disassemble every moving part, soak it, and scrub with an old tooth brush. Then, I rebuilt every bumper with new plastic parts: 5 pops and 2 passives; what a piece of work. The Riverboat ended up playing great. I should have sold something else

Mikala, Your Playfield looks nice! I can see that you were unable to find purple dead-bumper skirts either. (If someone knows of a source, there is at least one regular on this forum who would like to procure a couple).

Lee

Mark, just FYI. The red, green, and yellow bumpers on RB will both score points and propel the ball away from the bumper (when the metal ring pulls downward and squeezes the ball against the plastic skirt). Williams called these "Jet bumpers", while other companies called them pop bumpers. The purple and white bumpers at the topmost part of the playfield just score points and do not propel the ball (since they don't have a moving metal ring). These were typically called "dead bumpers". They require a slightly different skirt and body than the jet bumpers. PBR will have all these.

Sounds like you figured out how to remove them all. Need to desolder the leads to the lamp sockets, which lie underneath the playfield. Then remove the 2 nuts which bolt the metal ring to the under-playifeld assembly and remove the two screws that fasten the bumper body to the playfield wood. It should then lift out. Leave one bumper assembled while you rebuild the others so you make sure and remember how they fit back together.

PBR is in a tucked-away obscure location off the North side of Commerce st in Poughkeepsie. They generally don't encourage visitors to the brick & mortar store as it takes someone away from the mail order business, but it has been managed by some if yuo are nice and act appreciative.

Lee

Mikala, Definitely post here if you get around to trying the dye. That's what I suggested to the Pinsider who bought my RB, but he hasn't gotten around to it either. LOL.