Thanks for another great guide Vid! Here's what I have to work with. This baby soaked up some water for sure. Looks like it swelled a good bit. Debating if I should try to repair the back or just replace? Figure if I replace the back I'll slide the bottom board out and replace it also. As much as I was hoping to avoid it, I'll most likely end up sanding it all down and getting a set of stencils to redo the whole cab and head.

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Same debate on the "neck" fill and glue or cut new? The top is planking from getting wet too and I would like to get that smoothed out.

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Wow !!! That's a doozie... Gonna make you stronger.
-mof

If anything I'll get some new tools out of this project.... I swear I need a router honey...

I was watching a video about restoring a torch and the guys painted the cabinet with a brush, is that common? It seems like you could get away without all the masking but at least with my painting skills it would be difficult to get a smooth even cabinet.

6 min in:

For touch ups its common... for wide areas it usually leaves an inferior look due to the brush marks. But people have done it for decades... but it's not a great look. Best way is mask and spray if it's anything but scratches, spots, etc.

Update: all figured out... with the help of Home Depot and Michael’s store.

Sand it down. Fill/smooth with a filler. See if you can find a stencil kit and re-paint it. It will never get rid of that planking/flaky look if you don't sand it smooth I bet

I want to stay away from sanding the paint part. I would be fine with a planking/flaky look. I just want the game to be safe in the home environment and not get any worse.

There are no stencils for this game that I can find? If I could touch up the paint and seal it. the next person that owns it can make their own stencils. sand, prime and re-stencil it.

It's not that bad, just play and enjoy it.

Hello,

I have a TAF that I want to restore but I have some questions for the restoration:

- when buying the front of the cabinet had no decal is it seems that the wood was replaced .. wonder if it's normal? (see attachment)

I ordered a decal at https://www.pinball.co.uk/game-specific-parts/addams-family-gold/front-cabinet-artwork-addams-family/ but I'm not satisfied (too glossy and the quality makes cheep)

I found two solutions to rebuild the front
Stick vinyl and make the decals with the airbrush.
Or paint the cabinet with enamel paint.
I found some here http://www.pinballuniverse.com/PinballPaints.htm#
but they do not deliver internationally, can we find it elsewhere?

thank you in advance for your help

(and sorry for my bad english :-/)

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Hey Everyone

I'm thinking of doing some touchups on the cabinet body/head of my Gottlieb Amazing Spider-Man. I've read most of the posts in this very informative thread, and am considering a semi-gloss clear over the cabinet paint. Do you guys recommend this as a preventive measure, sealing the existing paint (and possible touchups)? I love the artwork and want this cabinet paint to stay looking sharp. The scrapes and dings always annoyed me, but it's not too bad. As for any blemishes, I may use Scrubbing Bubbles or an alternative cleaner if needed.

Would using a carnauba wax (blitz paste) be enough to protect the paint, and keep it looking nice?

The cabinet front had holes drilled for some ugly rectangular security bar (wood filler in holes needs to be sanded and repainted).

I appreciate any feedback you guys have.

As for color matching, I'm thinking of bringing the cabinet head to my local Benjamin Moore to get the blue, red, and silver.

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These guides are great and have provided so much great info, including this one. However, I struggled with finding a good finishing putty to cover pin holes and tiny scratches in primer/basecoat. I wanted something that could be easily and quickly applied, sanded and re-topped without issue... I have heard great things about a product called Evercoat Clear Sand, but I needed something I could purchase locally and quickly.

Well, I picked up a few tubes of 3M Bondo Glazing Spot Putty, and I am very impressed with the final results. I used a credit card to apply a feather coat on top of my kilz primer, let dry 45 minutes, and then sanded. It's nice that it's a 1 part system so no hardener/mixing required. It's extremely easy to sand, and I was able to apply a further topcoat immediately after the initial dry time. it easily filled pin holes and minor abrasions that I missed with wood filler applied prior to the base primer.

https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/company-us/all-3m-products/~/Bondo-Glazing-Spot-Putty/?N=5002385+3293241079+3294066550&rt=rud

Forgot to mention that this putty is available at most auto parts stores, Walmart, etc... some carry it, also available same day pickup.

Hoping this is the correct thread to ask this one. I recently picked up a super nice Harlem. There are 3 small areas where a previous owner did some blue touch up. Touch up is a nice color match, but is shinier and lumpy for lack of a better term. I would like to either remove the touch up with as minimal damage to the original paint or make the touch up blend in better. The 2 main areas of concern are at the front of each side of the cabinet. This area is normally worn due to finger wear, right below the side rails. I have MOTSENBOCKERS LIFT-OFF 5, CITRISTRIP and GOO GONE, in the liquid and gel form on hand. Pics coming in a moment.

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I would leave those alone.
Trying to remove them will in my opinion make things worst .

I don't mind making it worse, if needed. What would be a good grit of sand paper to knock down the texture of the touchup and maybe tone down the sheen?

Gave the whole cab a mean green bath like I usually do and the touchup sheen got knocked down a little. I'm just gonna be happy with the game as is. It really is an excellent survivor.

Here's my attempt at flattening a sagging floor in a 1990 Williams RollerGames. It would appear that something had been spilled into the cabinet at some point. The floor had become wet and sagged under the weight of the transformer. In looking at my other system 11 games, the transformer support board was deleted somewhere between Taxi and Bad Cats. RollerGames had the transformer mounted directly to the floor which appeared to be made from some sort of Masonite-like material. It wasn't that big of a deal and I never considered replacing the floor. The sag didn't seem to be hurting anything and the rest of the cabinet was reasonably sound. I had the sag sitting on a jack for a few weeks without much effect. Then I got the idea that I could flatten the sag by reintroducing a bit of moisture.

I removed the transformer and speaker. Then I covered the floor with a plastic trash bag. I found a piece of ¾" plywood with about the same surface area as the sag. I put the plywood on my jack followed by another trash bag followed by a wet bath towel. The towel was "wrung out wet". It was wetter than damp, but no where near dripping. Then I jacked up the sag on the towel. By "jacked up" I mean the front legs of the game were a bit off the floor with the rear legs on the floor. I balanced the transformer on the cabinet cross-member to provide a little more counterweight against the jack.

I let the game sit on the towel for a bit less than 24 hours. By then the floor had flattened out. I removed the towel and bags and then let the game sit on the plywood and jack for a week. At that point the floor appeared to be dry, flat and stable.

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Maybe I could have left well enough alone. But I decided to glue and screw the floor to the cross-member behind the cashbox. Then I made my own transformer support board from a piece of ¾" plywood. The plywood had a slight warp to it. So I cut my board such that the warp would oppose the old floor sag. I glued and screwed the board to the floor and added longer transformer mounting bolts to reach the original T-nuts.

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Nice work!

I just moved my pins and when I went to reassemble, I noticed the head was loose/ wobbly on my Dolly Parton. The neck area has broken free from the back of the cab. In the photo I am pulling up on the neck so you can see the crack better. I read through the whole thread and didn’t see any similar issues, so I am tempted to just try to squirt some glue in there and screw some ugly L and T brackets in, but the machine is really nice otherwise, so figured I’d ask here and see if Vid or anyone could suggest a less half-assed fix?

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That is a pretty common problem on those cabinets. I usually drill down from the top of the neck flange down into the cabinet back. I use Kreg cabinet screws these days but have had success with long deck screws. I counter bore down a bit so the head of the screw is well below the surface. The Kreg supplied bit does it all in one go. I test fit the screws then put some wood glue down the hole and secure it one last time. Doing it this way there is nothing exposed. It looks like your cabinet has the MDF back so using a good coarse thread on the screw is important.

Thanks for the advice. I was worried the MDF wouldn’t bite the vertically driven screws enough, since the break is being pulled from that same direction. I’ll give it a go.

Update - Four countersunk deck screws worked great. Nice and solid now.

What about this? I have a MGOW cabinet that looks like the back was kicked in or something. The very back of the cabinet is warped in a bit, as seen in the picture.

How can I straighten this back out?

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Hi,

I believe inserting a vertical plank, or two, will do... The back is not too much warped... If it has been more, only replacement could have been possible.

Ok so you used rustoleum 2x in the spray can. For Harlem globetrotters bc I'm about to restencil mine.

Quick question everyone. I'm using kilz original for my primer on my Harlem globetrotters. I'm planning on rolling all my paint on as I dont have anywhere to spray adequately so what is a good brand of base coat for my white.im thinking of using createx for my blue and red and just need to know what brand should I use for the white.and can I clearcoat over a rolled paint job.

Did you ever get an answer - I'm doing a Bally Playboy, and sounds like we're doing the same approach!

Kilz original is pretty smelly.
As far as clearcoating over latex, i have clear coated over createx but not other latex paints.

No but I ended up using rustoleum 2x gloss white for my base coat and it turned out amazing

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I am gonna do my stencils in about a week or 2

I've got a question on the best way to 'restore' some of the metal parts in the cabinet, playfield, coin door, etc. These parts seem to be made of of steel with some sort of galvanizing on them. Most of the parts I'm looking at are not too bad, but feel a bit rough, some with a bit of corrosion (rust?), so I've smoothed them with a Scotchbrite pad, and waxed them to prevent further deterioration. Does anybody have any better process?

Process I use for metal parts that fit:

0 - If rust or corrosion is present, soak in EvapoRust for 24 hours. This has cleaned up so many rusted parts (like legs and coin door skins) that I would've otherwise thought to just throw out.
1 - Use a mixture of Mean Green cleaning and water (70/30) and run parts thru a heated ultrasonic cleaner. I picked up an ultrasonic cleaner for $35 on Amazon.
2 - Run parts thru a tumbler (Amazon, about $45) with crushed walnut media for 24-48 hours.
3 - Run parts thru a tumbler with corncob media and an ounce or two of metal polish (like Flitz) for 24-48 hours. I bought two tumblers so I can do the walnut and corncob media runs in parallel.

For stuff to big to fit in cleaners/tumblers, I use sanding bits on my cordless drill or dremel to get them cleaned up a bit and then polish them with a bench mounted wheel buffer (Amazon, about $65) and Flitz metal polish.

Some examples below - first set of pix is before Ultrasonic cleaning and tumbling and after. Second set of pix is before and after of a coin door skin that just soaked for overnight in a Evaporust - no scrubbing at all, just wiped it dry.

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Tumbled metal bits and a fresh coat of paint....almost better than new.

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Everyone's system is their own and more power to them, but for my time & monies I have found I was running through some extra steps.

I don't ultrasonic metal parts if I'm going to tumble them, and I also just eliminated corn media after walnut. Both of these things, I am shocked but happy to say, didn't really give any benefit over a simple 1 step tumbling (of course there is the evaporust step if rust is present).

There's also been some talk of people not seeing any diff'rence betwixt walnut or corn media, so I'm going to try to switch to corn only and see if that cuts down on the ungodly amount of dust it makes.

Again, just another opinion.

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I’ve def feel like there’s a noticeable difference between walnut and cob. I’ve switched to only tumbling in walnut with a metal polish. I tumble for 4 days. Parts come out smooth, uniform and mate. From this point they are quick and easy to polish on the bench. Same time, less steps and quick to polish.

Cool, thanks for the heads up, I'm interested to find out .

Personally I find the corn cob media does not get the tough stuff off. I found I need the walnut to do the dirty work.

That's what I initially assumed. Well, either way i have been building a hood out of scrap wood & foam to put over my tumbler to keep the dust and noise down. Frikkin coated everything in my work room!

Thanks all for some great ideas! Hope everybody is getting some resto work done these days, and staying healthy!

If I am looking for a high sheen, I've found that corn cob after walnut does make a difference. The issue is that it isn't uniform. On some parts, its pretty noticeable and on others barely so.

So, to TheLaw's point, I have found that the most time-effective route is tumble in walnut media (make sure to change media when it starts to get dark) and then hand polish with Mother's Chrome polish for those parts that I might want that extra sheen.

If you REALLY wanna go nuts, wheel stainless and you can get a finish that is equivalent to chrome. You have to be extremely careful with pressure not to bend or blue the part, but the results are spectacular.

Does all of this polishing remove the original zinc plating?
Is the metal more susceptible to rust?

You'll want to spray the metal pieces with can clear to keep them shiny anyway.

I have been replacing the removed zinc coating with clearco 99% galvenizing spray to protect them.

http://www.clearcoproducts.com/pdf/other/np-silvercoat_spray.pdf

It keeps them from getting corroded again.

Welders use it to protect welds from rust/corrosion.

Zinc plating will usually be removed from walnut media. Corn cob, not as much. A buffing wheel will strip it right off.

I've never had the need to spray these parts in my home environment, as moisture is simply not an issue. However, if I had games in a garage, I would spray them. It's probably good practice just to spray them anyway.

Would something like this wokr as well?
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000KKKZD2/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_7ClHEb7QK346P

Yes, I think any galvanizing compound rich in zinc would work.
I just happen to have a case of Clearco from my welding days.

I have used rice as tumbling media with beautiful results. It is not the best for heavily corroded items but gives a beautiful shine , removing rust and grime from metal parts.

I have not tumbled parts but seeing those parts shine made me think the plating was gone.
They do look freaking fabulous though.

Here's how mine turned out following this wonderful guide.

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Wow that looks awesome. Never done a repaint yet.