RESTORATION COMPLETE

Here is the finished product - the rest of the thread outlines the process.

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Hello,
I've been very slowly working on a BOPP restoration for some time. I didn't want to start documenting until I had some advancement so the thread wouldn't be too much of a bore to follow, and also because I wasn't sure I would stick with it to the end.
I've advanced a fair deal, with still more work ahead of me than behind, but with the time invested so far, and the more time I put into it the less I want to think about how I could have invested that time in a scheme to make myself rich, but as one George Mallory who famously said "because it was there" about why he climbed Mount Everest, I have to complete this restoration because I have this beat up BOPP in my basement.

As you'll see I'm starting with a very rough example. I'm a cheapskate and like squeezing the last ounce of usability out of everything so I'll try to use as many of the parts I already have instead of getting replacements where I can avoid them.
The point is not to have a collector quality game when I'm done, but a more than decent looking player's machine.

I'm not too good at taking before and after pictures but I'll try to give you a good idea of what I started with first:

===The Cab===

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===The Playfield===
I got an extra playfield with the machine which is the one I'll be using. Sorry I don't have a full playfield picture...

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The pictures will get better as the thread advance because since then I got a better camera.

Hello Bill,
no I don't have a list. The plan is to write down what parts I need and when one of them becomes a bottleneck I'll put an order for everything at once. I'll get a full pre-packaged rubber set.

Alright, so let's get started here...
First thing I did was I sanded the grime out of the shooter lane and top hole and sanded out the ball track.

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Still kinda dirty, let's sand some more

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Alright! That looks clean as a whistle...

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...but waayyy too wide. Just looks stupid.
I'll get some wood epoxy in there then, I'll have to fix it up later.

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This time I used a broomstick as the sandpaper guide instead of batteries. Shape looks just right.

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Next up should have been a thin coat of clear to lock everything in and to smooth out planking before moving on to painting. I believe it was winter time by now and I didn't have the large back shed I have now, and didn't want to wait, so I moved on straight to painting.
I created some extra work for myself by doing that and I advise against it, but am still happy with the end result.
Also, don't expect any visible wear holes to fill up with paint or clear very well. You should fill in everything flat and smooth with Bondo or some other wood filler or clearcoat before painting.
Also, you should mix very large amounts at once. It's pretty hard to get the exact same mix the second time around if you find out you need to fix anything, and you'll end up redoing everything.

Red is done
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Then the blue
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Color matching...

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Here's what I mean with filling in wear holes before painting. I luckily had a lot of red mixed, so I later reshot this whole area. This is what I mean with the extra work I created for myself.

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This is what I was looking at after the reds and blues were completed. I also used some shellac on the ball trail to get it closer to the actual color. I'll have to repaint all that stuff anyway, but I want to try and keep seeing the wood underneath so that should help.

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Reds are horrible in jpg image compression, sorry about the quality. I later got a decent camera too, so again later pictures will get better.

It looks like I didn't get pictures of the black and white, but I shot them both as well.
The thinner black lines and circles will be done later with decals.
I also did some touchups to the letterings with a tiny paintbrush.

Now on the to back of the playfield.
Removing everything, fixing with wood epoxy and painting. I later sanded to smooth out the finish.

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Now winter has passed, I built a larger back shed to work in, and I'm getting ready to shoot the first thin coat of clear I should have shot in the first place before I go back and reshoot a bunch of stuff.

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That's one of the things that separate what I'm doing from CQ. I do cut around them, meticulously you could say, but I don't go nuts trying to perfectly outline the text and lines. I trust that my color matching is pretty good and that people won't stick their face to it, because it is noticeable when you're looking for it.
I'll post some pics tonight.

I did put a lot of effort in the playfield, but you'll see when I start restoring the hardware, some of that stuff is so rusty that I attempt to get it clean looking with a rust bath and buffing, but I don't go that extra step of either replacing it with brand new or powder coating/chroming/etc.

*deleted*

Actually I had some scans of the in-work playfield I sent to somebody a while back. If you look at the delimitation of the white, you can see how I didn't perfectly line it up to the adjacent colors.
If you look at the "Canada" inside the maple leaf, you'll also notice that I didn't bother to go between the letters.
I'll show some not too close close ups of the completed playfield later in the thread and you'll see it's good enough for my power player certification.

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Alright,
now back to the shooter lane.
So the initial plan was to match the wood pattern, then to shoot a transparent wood color over all the wood and blend it in.

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Turns out I wasted my time a bit on that one because my wood painting wasn't all that transparent at all.
Instead I tried faking the classic ply pattern.

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But I still wasn't quite happy with it because it was too pointy to look natural, and I thought the middle ply color was off.

The main wood color I was pretty happy with, though, so I shot the sticks and the indian's face too so everything looks the same. The indian will get decals later.

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I then reshaped the middle ply a bit and I think I shot a thin coat of then main wood color to make both colors closer and figured it was good enough.

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Next up was another thin coat of clear, sanding with 1000 grit, IIRC, then applying decals.

I made those by scanning the playfield, fixing up with Gimp and printing on decal paper on the office laser printer.

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Next up was a thicker layer of clear, thinking I was pretty much done.

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If you look at the decals, you'll see that I had some issues, however. For some reason, most of the decals had bubbling in the clear. I haven't understood why since I cleaned with isopropyl alcohol beforehand, then used the appropriate decal paper, and used decal setting solution. My best bet is that the office printer wasn't doing a good enough job. Next time I'll go to a professional printer instead.
I was disappointed but the good news was that all the bubbling made it all the way to the top of the clear, so I figured some sanding to "open them up", then another layer of clear would fill them up and fix the issue.

So after another thick coat, I still got a little bit of bubbling, but way less than last time, and it all made it to the surface.
So I just worked my way from 400 to 3000 grit sanding to smooth everything out.

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And after some buffing, no more bubbles

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Now I'm done with the top side of the playfield, here are some shots after more buffing and waxing.

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The time between the posts just shows when I have a minute to come and post here, not how much time passed between the actual events. I've been working on this for well over a year. I'm quickly catching up to where I'm at now, updates will get much slower then.

The longest off time has been between when I figured I had done enough painting and when I shot the first coat of clear.
Then I pretty much shot clear on the weekends and did painting (Createx / airbrush) or applying decals during the week.
At some point the red color faded to a pinkish hue on the upper area after a spot fix so I redid the whole area and waited longer to let it cure. I didn't have any issues with the paint besides that.
I believe I must have done the decals maybe a day or two before I cleared them, so that might have been part of the problem, although I wouldn't have thought I'd need to let those cure.
In any case, next time I'll go to a good print shop and see what's the best laser printer they have.

I used SprayMax 2k and I believe I went through 5 cans.

Alright, now with the top side done, it's time to start taking parts off the source playfield, cleaning up and installing on the target.

A couple of pics I took to help myself remember where everything goes that gives you an idea of what I'm starting with. The machine was playing fine if you can believe that.

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Thank you, that's really appreciated.
However I'm almost done with the cleaning and transferring of the assemblies (the thread is quickly catching up to me), and so far with the Rust Remover bath (can't find the better EvapoRust around here anymore) and some buffing and / or some Mother's metal polish, everything is looking good enough for my "power player" seal of approval.

Nope, they all worked fine so I just hypersonic'd and buffed them. If I see some are iffy I'll replace the bad ones after the fact, but I'm pretty sure they're all good.

Bahaha that's great I hadn't caught that. There some gems in those warnings, marquees and instructions.

Here's one I really like from the Gottlieb North Star schematics. "The proper amount of amusement for the coin inserted".

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Alright, so let's get started with the transfer of mechs.
First, the drop target banks. These are a rusty mess.
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First, a Rust Remover bath. Again, my local Canadian Tire stopped carrying EvapoRust in favor of Rust Remover - if I were going for top notch quality on this I wouldn't have settled for that, but good enough here.
Can anyone guess what the container is? (Hint: pinball related)

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Looks like this coming out of the bath:

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Then some Mother's metal cleaner. I didn't buff this assembly because the parts were too large and I was already happy with the results.
I got some new targets.

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Reassembly:

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QA testing:

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Installation:

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Alright,
I'm going to be placing an order for some parts now, the time has come... My main issue is that I'd be ready to do the harness transfer, but I was thinking I'd keep the switches on the harness, and fix them up before the transfer.
Every plate at the top of the switches is destroyed by rust, so I want to get new ones. I figured I need about 40 and I'll put the order at Marco's because they're the only place I found an up post replacement, which I also need. I'll have that shipped to some family in Florida and get it for christmas.
Now my question is...
What should I get??
http://www.marcospecialties.com/control/keywordsearch?SEARCH_STRING=switch%20plate&VIEW_SIZE=60&sortOrder=SortProductPrice:DEFAULT_PRICE

I'd like to go with the 25c ones, but I'm not too sure of the material. If not, the 1.10$ ones look about right, but still feels kind of expensive for such a small part...

Alright, looked up the 25c part with the serial number and looks good enough.
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I would think that ideally you would want to recoat it.
It's like when your car has chipped paint, the clear protects it from the elements and it will start to rust around the chip.
Now, inside a house with proper temperature and humidity levels, I would think that it will remain fine for many years.
That's my bet anyway, I'm not recoating anything.

So the treatment I'm giving the light sockets is hypersonic -> Rust Remover -> buffing.
Here's a before / after of the buffing step.
I didn't notice I had left a bunch of fingerprints, but you get the idea.

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Light sockets installed.
You can also see my "rotisserie"

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Actually the rust remover and ultrasonic are two separate things.
As I said, all light sockets were functioning properly before, and I didn't see anything that looked really wrong with the insulators so I don't really think it rejuvenated anything, but who knows...