I picked up a CV from a fellow pinsider a few months ago and ordered all sorts of new parts as soon as I got it home. The machine is a decent and solid player but I wanted a perfect machine that I couldn't find when I was looking. Now that I'm downsizing the collection, I'd like to have this one nice as it's one of my keepers.

The Cabinet: I ordered from Paul at Virtua Pin after having one of his IJ restoration bare cabinets I got last year. It was perfect and saved me a lot of down time having to strip and prep the existing cabinet. That version I got bare and did the painting, decals and silk screening myself with help from cyroute (and my wife with silk screening). It was still a ton of work. This time I ordered a CV restoration cabinet painted (I opted the paint the inside black to the bottom inside sides of cabinet but you can choose factory or any way you want) and decal'd. It came out stunning and he now includes the blocking as the originals have. This isn't a big deal to some people, but it is really nice when you just have to swap over the parts and not try and find some wood to use, shape, and paint, etc. I've seen his decal work before and this came out fantastic as well. Saved me a lot of time and headaches.

Playfield: I ordered one from Mirco when he released them the other week and had it in less than a week from Germany. It looks great as expected. I'll give the playfield a few months to cure and take my time tearing things down for cleaning, tumbling, etc. I have sent out some playfield parts for chrome and have been collecting odds and ends for months. It should be a pretty basic swap over once the parts are cleaned and prepped.

Trim: I had chrome trim ordered and installed months back when it was done. Rails, lock down bar, shooter rod, rear glass channel, and hinges. I had sent out a few other playfield parts that will get swapped in: ringmaster spring and some small accent parts. I'm not a fan of the chrome and brass coin doors so they'll be original black.

Some pics of the new cabinet and playfield. Karolina just had to check the clear coat. Wife and I got the silk screening done a few nights ago. I need to spend more practice on them as I wasn't extremely happy with how this one turned out. The screens work great merfeldma but I need more practice between a year of use.
New Cabinet wrapped up
New Cabinet upwrapping
New cabinet
New cabinet
New cabinet
Power box and speaker blocking
Karolina inspecting new CV Playfield
New mini playfield
Matt's Screens
Silk screen completed

I was thinking about just using the cheap ones to save a few dollars. Just kidding! The new HD plates are installed already. I need to get the pics off the camera and post the progress. I'm trying to strip the cabinet so I can take it to Pinfest.

The old cabinet will be for sale. It's solid and has no water damage. It has some nick and scrapes in the art work and a few dings. It had the scrolls screwed to it so there's holes from them. But will be a good, solid restoration cabinet for someone.

Pics of the original cabinet:

IMG_4887 (resized).JPG
IMG_4883 (resized).JPG
IMG_4886 (resized).JPG
IMG_4878 (resized).JPG
IMG_4877 (resized).JPG
IMG_4875 (resized).JPG
IMG_4874 (resized).JPG
IMG_4873 (resized).JPG
IMG_4871 (resized).JPG
IMG_4872 (resized).JPG

I went with the Satin finish and you can select options. I chose painting to the bottom vs. original overspray, original MDF bottom, and added leg protectors as I was going to buy them anyway. Already have the patent silk screens so no need to pay to have it done. But I'd recommend it if you don't. Total cost shipped to my work was just over $1200. But you can do your own decals and get it bare, etc. Really however you want. Paul does good work and really happy with his cabinets.

http://virtuapin.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=19&products_id=135

Not much to show but some of the progress.

IMG_4902 (resized).JPG

IMG_4903 (resized).JPG

IMG_4904 (resized).JPG

Nightwish is popular with us lately.

It does save a lot of time getting that stuff done. You can literally have a turnkey cabinet without the mess. Don't get me wrong, I do like the work, but having a small shop/garage that is used to park in and constantly making a mess coupled with a game that is down for weeks or months, it's worth it to me.

Paul's very good at calls and emails so you could ask him if those rails would work.

Thanks @mustangpaul. It's always great to give yourself free time to work on the 'stang!

Not much to show, but I did get the slides drilled and mounted. Yesterday and tonight was prepping for tumbling and ultrasonic cleaning of parts and harnesses. I ran out of ground braid so will be at a stop between parts and waiting for wet parts to dry/tumbling completed. Should be able to finish backbox with what I have over the week. I decided I would drill and install the playfield lock (locks playfield when upright). If it drives me nuts, I'll remove the bracket, but thought it was best to have it.

Plan is to get cabinet 100% and put in the existing playfield in while the clear on the new playfield cures. Will take advantage of chroming a few cabinet parts while machine is down in a few months.

DSCN4026 (resized).JPG

DSCN4025 (resized).JPG

DSCN4024 (resized).JPG

DSCN4023 (resized).JPG

Few exterior shots:

DSCN4022 (resized).JPG

DSCN4021 (resized).JPG

You can get a shipping quote right from his site. Pretty sure you can order the leg braces or just call and ask him if it's not an option.

Wow, you guys really shouldn't say they're restores. They're an amateur refresh with some parts cleaned or swapped.

Some minor progress today. I wanted to make some room so installed the old playfield back in. Apparently my measurements were right on and works fine. A word of advice that I should have caught. Note in the first picture below where the barrel nut is. I thought it was replaced at some point over it's life and put in a matching barrel nut like the other three. Here I find the playfield hits so it needs to be short or it will catch the VUK bracket.

My 1/4-20 T nuts came today for the transformer and bracket. Power boxes installed and will get chromed when doing playfield swap. Support bar will get sent out with some other odds and ends I need to have done for my other project.

Make sure you use a short barrel nut here
DSCN4050 (resized).JPG
DSCN4049 (resized).JPG
DSCN4047 (resized).JPG

Been working on and off as I've gotten time. Mostly ready to swap the rest of the parts over that haven't already like the wire harnesses.

For the metal mesh screens that go in the back box and bottom cabinet, I cleaned and used something that is slightly off but I prefer the look using Steel-It paint. A friend uses this at his work that does manufacturing of large industrial equipment. The color is a bit darker, but I like the look.

Did a dry run of the back box install. It's ready to go after I swap in the board plate. Hardware and plastics are all cleaned.

IMG_4944 (resized).JPG

IMG_4959 (resized).JPG

IMG_4931 (resized).JPG

Mostly there now. Need some tubing to cover the ground strap for the back box, but everything is installed other than putting in the back box wiring and DMD/related.

Now if I can find someone to make me some decals like Allen from TC did I could wrap it up completely.

IMG_4973 (resized).JPG

IMG_4972 (resized).JPG

IMG_4971 (resized).JPG

IMG_4970 (resized).JPG

I should have more pictures tonight or tomorrow as I'm 95% completed with the cabinet part. Everything fits/works perfectly so my hats off to Paul at VirtuaPin for making these with the high level of detail.

I ran the rest of the wiring and tidied up what was there. The prop rod and some other parts will be sent out to chrome. The plan is when these parts come back, I should be ready to swap playfields.

Everything worked as it should including finding the rear pop up post soldered lug broke so had to repair that. Waiting for a few decals from a fellow Pinsider and will be able to slide it back in the line up.

IMG_4999 (resized).JPG

Starting to tear down playfield to do the swap. Few items pulled so I could get the rails off to Taylor for templates. Not sure on his time frame, but when he's ready, there will be templates for others.

PF removal and tear down pics will be coming soon.

IMG_6435 (resized).JPG

IMG_6434 (resized).JPG

IMG_6436 (resized).JPG

IMG_6433 (resized).JPG

IMG_6432 (resized).JPG

IMG_6431 (resized).JPG

IMG_6430 (resized).JPG

IMG_6429 (resized).JPG

Had a few hours today to work on this while tumbling and ultrasonic’ing other projects. Top side is mostly clear.

D9E12C4F-DBB4-4596-A8FE-5B78EB3B2CF5 (resized).jpeg

19454828-5F2D-42EA-8EA9-5CBF87131707 (resized).jpeg

5E8F758F-7421-4468-AF30-8C57A492ACF2 (resized).jpeg

7EBC68C4-9A2E-4361-A830-7000B4330194 (resized).jpeg

1E518ECF-46A0-4ED8-B73D-FFB068364CD8 (resized).jpeg

D8527E9E-2609-448D-8785-228828364DB2 (resized).jpeg

9161DD21-EEE0-45DF-B957-1BA4A8582D84 (resized).jpeg

006CF2D9-2B6D-463F-83BC-77372ABE2E29 (resized).jpeg

Thank you! So far it’s been tearing down but will likely need some help on reassembly.

Playfield is stripped top side and starting to clean up parts. Some pics of Ringmaster assembly. It’s petty huge.

364D165F-5F36-4FC5-81D3-CDC73FBA9817 (resized).jpeg

3101B2CD-C907-416D-8F72-7070AAD8F27F (resized).jpeg

CD8C726A-98C2-4EDD-B095-A99A958AF4FC (resized).jpeg

8302FFDD-8C97-468D-8802-D2B952C6F6E7 (resized).jpeg

0DC4A234-2443-42D4-85F0-09EBE4C5B183 (resized).jpeg

2B6FB1E3-FB28-44B2-86DE-1C739EC8B284 (resized).jpeg

BF28F0D2-1963-41A1-B91E-F18A303CA3AB (resized).jpeg

221BD390-2125-4415-9F7A-DA6E786EC68F (resized).jpeg

Things are moving again. Chris has chrome parts in que (Thanks sc93cobra !), Reese’s Rails TaylorVA are here, and have PF stripped down and more parts tumbling.

AC5361B1-5E0D-44A9-B159-5AB010A21A23 (resized).jpeg

There should be just the one closer to coin door that’s shorter. Let me know if you need a measurement.

031113D9-43C4-47D8-938C-78D261BBFE89 (resized).jpeg

Now that the Avatar is done, I should start having some playfield reassembly flowing now. Mechs are still not apart and ultrasonic/tumbled but hoping to have that starting this week.

Not much done at this point.

819FAFEF-D366-4D15-9F5E-5E37136C5325 (resized).jpeg

Not very far from pics but had to open up all posts and wire form holes which takes time reviewing all the pictures. Still need to order some parts but do have ultrasonic started. There are a lot of parts on this game compared to a Stern. Just one picture of some parts. The rest are in boxes or in the cabinet.

024751A1-DDF5-4C74-8FB2-B65AA4999F64 (resized).jpeg

D4C8B8C8-8931-4F21-BF51-98089D2D2DDC (resized).jpeg

349A7FFF-C3D2-4789-A8CC-EB4335C5166A (resized).jpeg

043ECDEB-A6C0-4576-BE80-94192D7EA122 (resized).jpeg

79B3ED68-BD85-47A7-809A-075DFD27AE34 (resized).jpeg

3C0BE87A-8970-4CC9-BD87-4EEC3CB7D436 (resized).jpeg

I like the Titans but not really my taste. Will be white rubber and some colored post sleeves. Keeping with orange pop skirts. Debating if I put on the multi color matched-to-playfield plastic posts or going all original orange.

Looks good Jakuso. Yours is really nice and Ron's work will really make it perfect.