(Topic ID: 96445)

Comet Restoration - First Playfield Restore Job

By thedefog

9 years ago


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  • Latest reply 9 years ago by Aeolus7
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There are 53 posts in this topic. You are on page 1 of 2.
#1 9 years ago

I decided to try my luck at a playfield restoration, along with restoring the rest of a beater Comet machine. I've only done touch-ups and topside tear downs and cleaning previously on playfields, so this is new territory for me. I'll end up paying more in the end than it is worth when I'm done, but I could care less as I'm just doing this for fun. Worst-case scenario is that I'm out a few bucks and I have to part it out if I totally screw things up. Hoping that won't happen.

The machine was a mess. Cracked ramps, plastics, wear down to bare wood, board work needed (battery corrosion). Cabinet was the only thing in decent shape.

I started with the board repair. Haven't fired it up yet, but spent a good deal of time repairing battery corrosion damage on the MPU and rebuilding the PSU, fuse holders, board hacks, etc. Also re-capped and had to replace some pin headers and connectors. 10 hrs work I'm estimating there. Checked traces, all looks good. I'll find out later when I fire it up.

Tearing down the bottom side is a daunting task and very time consuming. I thought I picked a simple machine to tear down. I can't imagine how long it would take to tear down something more complex, so I have a new found respect for those who do this regularly. I also made labels for each and every switch, coil, bulb. It took a good two nights working for about 2 or more hours to do it, separating everything into labeled baggies.

After the tear-down, here is the wreck I was looking at, AFTER mylar removal and an hour with a few Magic Erasers:

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#2 9 years ago

Now **that's** Williams quality!

#3 9 years ago

The wood rails will also need to be sanded down and re-cleared.

After bondo filling and sanding, I'm ready for the initial clear.

filled.JPGfilled.JPG

And here is where it is currently, outside:

cleared.JPGcleared.JPG

The usc spraymax 2k clear really is amazing. What a difference it made having that initial coat. Makes it very easy to see what needs to be painted. Filled in a good deal of areas I thought I'd absolutely have to repaint. Making the waterslide decals will be interesting.

#4 9 years ago

Good start... Keep us posted with your progress and some pix.... THX>

#5 9 years ago

One of my favorite machines! Cant wait to see the progress!

#6 9 years ago

Started the airbrushing process last night. Brush was giving me a hard time though.

#7 9 years ago

Sometimes you have to turn up the air pressure.

Will the brush spray water?

Did chips of dried paint fall into the cup?

#8 9 years ago

I have two airbrushes. One is an Aztek/Testors kit I got years ago, the other is a standard compressor and cheap master airbrush. They spray water/windex/denatured alcohol fine. When I use the Createx right out of the bottle, they don't spray correctly. I usually have to either add water, windex, or denatured alcohol to thin them. On the other compressor, I had it up to 40 psi and it made no difference. The Aztek is set at 30 psi. They were thoroughly cleaned as well. Of course the issue with thinning it is that you get more boogers and splatter at different stages of the paint feeding. I'm going to play around with them some more tonight and see if I can find a consistent thinning mixture ratio.

#9 9 years ago

I've sprayed at 50psi with the Harbor Freight little airbrushes and Createx if the paint is the last 1/4 of the bottle and has thickened.

Don't leave them plugged in overnight at that pressure or the Oring might blow, lol.

#10 9 years ago

I have a NOS cycle jump plastic for sale along with a repro plastic set if you are interested.

#11 9 years ago
Quoted from vid1900:

I've sprayed at 50psi with the Harbor Freight little airbrushes and Createx if the paint is the last 1/4 of the bottle and has thickened.
Don't leave them plugged in overnight at that pressure or the Oring might blow, lol.

Whenever I've gone higher than 40, I've had the nice little lid explosions with the gravity feeders. Not fun cleaning up. On the the others, the paint starts shooting out of the airhole on the bottle.

Last night I had some luck with just using water to dilute. Used about 20% water. The only problem at that point is that there is a fine line between being too watered down where it doesn't cover as well as it should and you have to wait and make multiple passes or you'll end up with a river of wet paint.

#12 9 years ago
Quoted from mcclad:

I have a NOS cycle jump plastic for sale along with a repro plastic set if you are interested.

Thanks Mcclad for the offer. My cycle jump plastic is trashed, as most are I'm guessing. The plastic is so thin on them that I'd be concerned about getting a NOS one. Same goes for the spiral ramp. They made them out of like 1/16" thick molds. It is seriously as thin as blister pack material. If I cannot repair them with plastic welding methods, I'll probably end up getting a reproduction one that is heavier duty.

#13 9 years ago
Quoted from thedefog:

They made them out of like 1/16" thick molds.

More Williams quality.

Can you imagine if Stern or JJP made ramps out of 1/32" plastic? Pinside would explode.

#14 9 years ago
Quoted from thedefog:

Thanks Mcclad for the offer. My cycle jump plastic is trashed, as most are I'm guessing. The plastic is so thin on them that I'd be concerned about getting a NOS one. Same goes for the spiral ramp. They made them out of like 1/16" thick molds. It is seriously as thin as blister pack material. If I cannot repair them with plastic welding methods, I'll probably end up getting a reproduction one that is heavier duty.

No problem. Just thought I would mention them. : ) Good luck with the project!

#15 9 years ago

Nice start! Your playfield looks pretty stable compared to my Comet. If you need flat-bed scans of anything let me know - I might have some of the art that is worn on yours.

#16 9 years ago

Nice work. I'm restoring a comet right now as well and I am at about the same stage you are. You are being more thorough than me though, looks good. I cleared right over the mylar and didn't fill the divots... If you need anything let me know.

#17 9 years ago

Made some more progress last night and got the yellow down. The airbrush was being a pain in the ass again though. I changed to a heavy flow tip on the Aztek, which helped a ton. I also found a 5 ratio of paint to water worked best. Denatured alcohol caused certain pigments to clump, so I stopped using it. I stopped using the windex due to the coloring, but will pick up some ammonia to experiment with another time.

I also discovered that the 3M blue painters tape I was using for masking slightly discolors paint you've already put down, even after it has been dried with a heat gun, so now I'll have to redo the green unfortunately. Blue tape goes directly on frisket, then masking paper behind it. Lesson learned.

Going to move onto the off-yellow racetrack tonight. Looks like frisket hell will follow up after that (ladders & warm gray areas with all the people), followed by the white, which doesn't look bad.

I decided to frisket out the characters and touch-up paint them to avoid using waterslide decals in case something happens during the final clear stage and they melt. I am considering adding in a few easter eggs for fun too because I can. I thought of putting in Pinbot, a Python, some Bad Cats, and the Bride into the spots that were worn down to bare wood.

#18 9 years ago
Quoted from thedefog:

I also discovered that the 3M blue painters tape I was using for masking discolors paint you've already put down, even after it has been dried with a heat gun, so now I'll have to redo the green unfortunately.

Look for the "delicate" 3M blue tape. It looks exactly the same, but the roll it comes on is orange. It is lighter tack and removes cleaner. I've used it a lot on Createx paint and never had any issue.

http://www.scotchblue.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Scotch-BlueBrand/Scotch-Blue/Products/Catalog/?N=3294340634+4336+3294529207&rt=rud

#19 9 years ago
Quoted from radium:

Look for the "delicate" 3M blue tape. It looks exactly the same, but the roll it comes on is orange. It is lighter tack and removes cleaner. I've used it a lot on Createx paint and never had any issue.
http://www.scotchblue.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Scotch-BlueBrand/Scotch-Blue/Products/Catalog/?N=3294340634+4336+3294529207&rt=rud

Thanks for the advice. Will pick some up next time at the hardware store.

#20 9 years ago

Anyone ever notice the what looks like a naked girl tied up on the railroad track with the guy trying to save him on the bottom left? The more time I spend with this, the more little things I notice. Crazy with all the detail, and nobody in a busy arcade would have ever noticed.

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#21 9 years ago

Made it through frisket hell last night. Even sprayed down color. I decided to not go ultra-precise with the frisketing of the characters, and will touch-up paint the finely detailed stuff tonight. I've been dabbing with bamboo skewers to paint fine detail areas, works well and no brush strokes. I went with a grass-green color instead of a warm gray, slightly darker than what was on there to start with. Making progress. I'm guessing I'm about 1/2 way through now. I'm gonna wait for the finished product before I post any pictures... I'm slightly embarrassed at the moment as I'm learning a lot, aka not exactly turning out as good as I hoped. But then again, I started with a complete beater, so anything would look better.

#22 9 years ago

Ran out of frisket sheets. Bought a roll and waiting for that to come in. In the meantime, had a nice little transformer smoke mishap. Seems there was a short in the transformer, and the result was a nice plume of black smoke and the mains and the green pair 9vac on the secondary burning up. Correct wiring and fuse as well. At least the flipper coil transformer is fine.

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1 week later
#23 9 years ago

I replaced the transformer with the $50 eBay find and all is well again. MPU isn't booting, error code 1, so shotgun replacing 6808s, RAM, EPROMs, and sockets. Will break out the scope and do trace testing again everywhere if that fails.

On the playfield, I'm about finished. Just doing final fine black & white touch-up and a few waterslide decals. It isn't perfect, and I admit I got a little sloppy at times, but definitely leaps and bounds better than before. The circle template with the Molotow marker made insert outlines a breeze, as well as thicker black outlines with a ruler. Been working steady 1 - 2 hours each night during the week. Probably 20 hours painting in total - 3 of them fighting with the airbrush, 1 mixing colors, 4 hours cutting frisket, 2-3 repairing screw-ups.

Important lessons I've learned so far:

1. MINIMAL PRESSURE is needed on the x-acto to cut frisket. Just use fresh sharp blades, and NEVER cut at any angle other than straight down. I accidentally cut into the clear and lifted it in many places on the playfield and did some damage because I was holding the blade improperly.

2. Thoroughly clean your airbrush every night - that means taking everything apart, running water/cleaner through it until you see zero pigment, then running water through it again after cleaning it. It is amazing how much pigment is in those paints.

3. TAKE YOUR TIME! If you start getting sloppy, just walk away from it. Work on something else or take the night off. I have spent more time repairing sloppy work than it would have taken to just do it right the first time.

4. Mask off larger areas than you'd think. Airbrush paint gets EVERYWHERE!

5. Don't use any other brand of paint other than Createx. I bought some off brand of white and yellow at AC Moore when I ran out the other day, and the white just peeled off the playfield like rubber.

6. Dry each paint color area before moving on or you'll end up with paint on your hands and have to redo other areas again. Same thing goes for fine touch-up. Dry the area, then move on to avoid accidentally bumping/touching and smearing paint.

7. Don't expect to be an expert right away. Your first restoration isn't going to look like a pro job.

1 week later
#24 9 years ago

Not perfect, but a big improvement from the original state. I'm happy with my first pf restore and learned a lot in the process. Future jobs will be much cleaner.20140802_192836.jpg20140802_192836.jpg

#25 9 years ago

Just have to sand n spray again now, then onto the rest.

#26 9 years ago

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1 month later
#27 9 years ago

Finally got this beast re-assembled on the bottom, coils and switches cleaned, new sleeves. Onto the top reassembly now while I wait for parts to come in so I can finish Centaur. Still battling with the MPU on this Comet as well, but I think I finally narrowed it down. Pictures soon.

#28 9 years ago

G.I. is a go! MPU battle nearing the end as well. Topside assembly started last night, moved along pretty quickly, got like 1/2 of it done while insomnia was running in full force. We will see what other fun discoveries are made once the MPU boots. I'll post pics and video when everything is complete with some before and after shots.

BTW, if anyone needs lots of photos of teardown, I have them available if you're having trouble with re-assembling some areas.

#29 9 years ago

Looking really good.... Nice ..

#30 9 years ago

Thanks. Some of the characters had to disappear, since I didn't have scans of those areas in high quality. I actually tried to do a little python tribute there with a pinbot, but after laying down some waterslides didn't like it and gave up on it, especially since that area is pretty much covered anyway by the comet ramp.

#31 9 years ago

"Tearing down the bottom side is a daunting task and very time consuming. I thought I picked a simple machine to tear down. I can't imagine how long it would take to tear down something more complex, so I have a new found respect for those who do this regularly."

Couldn't agree more. I haven't done a full strip on the bottom side yet, but I've done a few partial shops/refurbs on the top side. The sheer volume of parts and intertwined assemblies on pins is astounding. Well done.

I assume you took lots of pics, did you do other things to organize before the rebuilding phase?

#32 9 years ago

Yep, well over 100 pictures of teardown for top and bottom. I take pictures of exploded views of assemblies/parts/brackets for reassembly too. I also use an electronic label maker and create labels for each and every part connected on their wires in case they break free, and for parts that needed to be disconnected/desoldered. For switches, I take 3m painters tape and wrap it around the switches along with the screws to keep them together in place. That always seems to work well.

I used ziplock bags to separate things like pop assembly parts, specific/unique parts, then generic stuff like wood rail screws, bottom side nuts and screws, etc. I end up with about 20 bags of parts that are labeled in the end. Then most of that stuff gets thrown in the tumbler, bag by bag, or hand polished/cleaned.

#33 9 years ago

So I made an interesting discovery on my MPU. After even closer inspection, it turns out that a previous repair of a replacement IC was the wrong type. How the board was working like this previously, I'm not sure. Perhaps it was put in as a vein attempt and then given up on, but it was a 74HCxx CMOS IC instead of a 74LSxx TTL part, and I had overlooked it as it tested out on the meter properly, and the silk-screening on the IC was so faded it was difficult to make out that lettering.

I ordered more parts, I'm willing to bet that the board boots after this. Incredible. I think every single IC is socketed at this point, minus 3-4. At least it will make for easy repairs in the future, haha. Probably not a bad idea on a board that had battery damage anyway. But overkill. At least logic is cheap.

#34 9 years ago

I think you did a great job on the pf from the photos you posted.

Chris

2 weeks later
#35 9 years ago

Still working through the MPU on this one. I was pre-occupied with finishing Centaur II. Playfield is assembled.

1 week later
#37 9 years ago
Quoted from thedefog:

Anyone ever notice the what looks like a naked girl tied up on the railroad track with the guy trying to save him on the bottom left? The more time I spend with this, the more little things I notice. Crazy with all the detail, and nobody in a busy arcade would have ever noticed.

Oh yeah, we noticed. My friends and I were also the geeks in the local arcade hovering over the Cyclone machine between games, pointing out its details.

#38 9 years ago

Got the MPU working finally... Turned out a brand new 555 timer was faulty. I picked up one of those $20 Chinese logic testers off eBay and it confirmed that. Leon's test rom boots, have 1 bad PIA to replace/socket, then off to plugging stuff in with the game roms.

Topside of the PF is re-assembled now. Still working on a hack for the entrance to the ramp that is missing/cracked, as well as the wire gate for it. I started making one last night out of sheet metal and steel wire. Cracked entrance is being repair with a combination of sheet metal backing and lexan plastic of the same thickness of the original ramp.

I'd imagine I'll have it running by the end of the week, granted the rest of the boards check out okay. Still need new displays for it though, which will bring my grand total WELL above what I was hoping for when all is said and done. But I was expecting to loose money on this one as it was a test bed for learning PF restoration. On projects like these, I stop counting, otherwise I get depressed, ha!

I'll probably keep it for a few months and make sure all the kinks are worked out of it (unless I fall in love with it), then sell it towards acquiring a SoF.

1 week later
#39 9 years ago

Back to this one again -

COULD NOT get the sys9 board to work consistently. It would run the test rom for a bit, then crash, then run, then crash. Same with the actual game rom. I tried everything, multiple RAM ICs, replacing sockets again and again, PIAs, CPUs, ICs and iterations of them. Just gave up on it. It is probably just too eaten up with alkaline damage. I'll probably just yank all the ICs out of it, take any other parts that are worth anything, and pour lighter fluid over it and watch it burn. I've never spent so much time on a single board. I feel like I know the sys9 in and out now though.

I've got a non-working Sys 11B coming in the mail today. Just gonna burn combined ROMs for it, but have to populate the audio section and fix a little battery acid damage/2 missing PIAs. Hopefully that pans out better. At least I have experience with sys11.

I've never run a sys9 game off a sys11 board before. Anyone have any advice or important information needed? How does speech/music get mixed now that the offboard audio is onboard with the sys11?

Now that I found out SoF are changing hands for much more than I thought, looks like I'll be keeping this guy afterall. Probably a good thing, as I'll be well over what it is worth when I'm done.

#40 9 years ago

Almost there. Got converted roms burnt for a sys11 board. Just have to get one of these boards working and I'm in business.

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#41 9 years ago
Quoted from thedefog:

Finally got this beast re-assembled on the bottom, coils and switches cleaned, new sleeves. Onto the top reassembly now while I wait for parts to come in so I can finish Centaur. Still battling with the MPU on this Comet as well, but I think I finally narrowed it down. Pictures soon.

how difficult was the removal and replacement of the bottom side? I was considering doing this to my comet but the underside scares me.

your game looks good

#42 9 years ago
Quoted from Amarillopinball:

how difficult was the removal and replacement of the bottom side? I was considering doing this to my comet but the underside scares me.
your game looks good

Looks can be deceiving. It is far from perfect, but i'm excited to play it.

The underside was really not so bad. This game doesn't have some of the more PITA stuff like subways and drop targets. Just label every goddamn wire and take tons of pictures. I have photos too if you decide to shop it out and are missing any.

#43 9 years ago

Labels everywhere.
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#44 9 years ago

Looks like a night and day difference on the playfield restoration. Good job on your first playfield resto , looks great!

#45 9 years ago
Quoted from vwallat99:

Looks like a night and day difference on the playfield restoration. Good job on your first playfield resto , looks great!

Thanks. When I get the chance, I'll take closer pictures with my real camera to show you the truth though, hahaha. It is player's condition at best. Had to reshape the main ramp and repair the cracked entrance, also needed to make a wire gate from scratch out of aluminum sheeting and steel wire for it. Hopefully illustrating the mistakes I made will help others avoid them.

#46 9 years ago

out of all the playfields to restore. You picked one of the hardest and most time consuming. Cyclone, Hurricane, and comet are a huge PIA to do. That gray always has to be redone, so you have to hand paint around every damn person in that amusement park. Not once.. but twice, because gray doesn't cover well in the first layer. I'm glad they repo'd Cyclone, and Hurricane is DP'd. But comet, is left out there. Nice work. I could see that playfield taking 200 hours to restore easy.

#47 9 years ago
Quoted from CaptainNeo:

I could see that playfield taking 200 hours to restore easy.

I didn't get that crazy with it like that. I'd guess around 30+ hrs, I didn't keep track. I also didn't bother with the gray, knowing how difficult gray is to match. Kept it the greenish color it turned into. It went from pavement to grass/weeds. This park has been a little laxidasical with its upkeep.

#48 9 years ago

Thanks for the pics. For some reason, the staples are what scares me the most, I know its weird, for some reason the fact that some bulbs are just held by staples and what appears to be glue(?) scares me.

Did you have any problems with those parts?

#49 9 years ago
Quoted from Amarillopinball:

Thanks for the pics. For some reason, the staples are what scares me the most, I know its weird, for some reason the fact that some bulbs are just held by staples and what appears to be glue(?) scares me.
Did you have any problems with those parts?

I desoldered those parts and left the bare GI wire lines in tact. Also left a few jumper GI lines and just took photos and labeled those wires to I could solder them back in place. They're stapled down then they applied solder to the staple/wire braid.

It wasn't the best method, and over time they break loose and will and do cause problems in games. If you have any dim bulbs even when they are new, that is usually why.

#50 9 years ago
Quoted from thedefog:

I desoldered those parts and left the bare GI wire lines in tact. Also left a few jumper GI lines and just took photos and labeled those wires to I could solder them back in place. They're stapled down then they applied solder to the staple/wire braid.
It wasn't the best method, and over time they break loose and will and do cause problems in games. If you have any dim bulbs even when they are new, that is usually why.

how much soldering is required for the playfield swap? THis part I am worried about, I am not the best with the soldering iron, and I have a pretty crappy one.

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