Alright, so I've been slooooowly working on this Data East Slap Shot machine I got a few years back. The playfield is decent, the machine plays right, but the cabinet was pretty rough and it had no marquee.
Although it's pretty rare, I know this isn't some A-List pin and I'm definitely not shooting for perfection here (HEP), so let's say I'm going for a Medium-End Pin level (MEP!). I just want the thing to look clean in the lineup next to my BOPP restoration which I did put more effort in (https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bobby-orrs-power-play-from-scrapper-to-power-player).

One thing I had done prior to taking these pictures was touch up the side decals since they had many scratches. That highlights one of the main challenges of this restoration: there isn't any aftermarket stuff available for sale for it, be it the side decals, the marquee or the apron. Even good pictures of a good condition example are kinda hard to find.
As you can tell by the past tense, I'm almost done at the moment of writing this. I didn't take a ton of pictures so this should go by pretty quickly.

I didn't really get any pictures before I started stripping it down, but here's an idea of what I was starting with:

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Keeping in mind this MEP mindset, I decided I was not going to strip the whole cab. I could have scanned the side decals and have reproductions made, then gutted the whole machine and removed existing decals, but I decided I would rather touch up the existing decals which were in overall pretty good shape, and fix the cabinet around them.

Here are some examples of the touchups. When looking close up they are noticeable, but at the end of the operation (which you'll see more of later), I'm quite happy with the overall results.
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Next up was wood filler to try and make the cab as smooth as possible. There wasn't any major chipping going on, mostly superficial scratches and planking so no structural fixes were necessary.
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Once that's been sanded nice and smooth, I went with Kilz whtite primer, shot through a spray gun.
In retrospect I'm not sure the white primer was such a great idea given that the cab is blue - in the end it came out looking good, but I'm not sure what's gonna happen if it ever gets scratched up. I'm guessing it's probably show up more than if I had gotten a paint/primer mix instead.

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Another challenge, I dragged this thing out until late September. The kids aren't in bed until 7 and at that time it was already getting dark. It's a pretty cramped space, so harder setting than if I had taken care of business in the middle of the summer.

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Still managed.

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Some more stuff to take care of.

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Glued the coin receptacle back together, painted, hit the plate and bolts with mother and coated the plate with ProtectaClear.
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As stated before, the machine came without a marquee and I couldn't find one for sale.
Luckily, the lettering is the same as the one found on the side of the machine. So what I decided to do was to scan the side letters and rebuild it from scratch.
Here's the picture I started with

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An example of the scans I got of the side of the machine

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It is! The downside is that being a redemption game I don't think it was targeted for bars, so the gameplay isn't competitive - it's one player only. Had it been a 2 player with emphasis on trying to beat the other guy I think it would have made it more fun. Still, when people come over it's one of the ones that gets played a lot.

Next up will be redoing the apron.
Here's a scan I got of mine.

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Special thanks to my good friend BEAN for doing the line drawing

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Yep it does. Not sure it means much though

IPDP says
"Notes: Early Production games did not have a tilt mechanism. Later games in the production run had a tilt pendulum"
mine has one.

As far as production numbers, nothing either on IPDB or Pinside.

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Printed a mockup of the apron - it looks like I have some adjustments to make as the layout seems a little larger than the original.
I'm not sure how that error got introduced since I started off a scan in the first place, but I'll try to make some readjustments.

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Actually looking up at the scan vs the picture it's pretty obvious that I somehow didn't scan the whole thing.
I had gotten these scans a while back for somebody here and I guess I should have double checked. Not a huge deal, I'm pretty sure I can bring it all back together.

Saw it at the Tacoma, WA show a few years back. Slapshot is a cult classic in this part of the world and I'm a hockey fan so when one came up around here I got it. Only time I saw one pop up around here ever since I've been into pinball.

Alright, that's gonna be it.
I'll try to get this printed this week if I can...

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Should get the apron print from the printer tomorrow! Updates coming soon!

Sanded flat

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Sticker applied

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Thinner than original but it is for home use. I have a spare and if I see it doesn't hold up well enough I'll redo with some kind of protection.

All done!
Here goes!

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Alright, we're going into overtime!
The flywheel that carries the balls up was remade at some point using plexiglass. The bracket holding it was something that was put together using whatever the person had on hand as well, and I had issues with balls falling to the bottom. I thought I'd adjusted everything just right but then after I set the machine back in the lineup I started having frequent ball drops to the bottom of the cab.
With the back door now hard to access I decided to rework the whole thing.

This is what I had:
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I looked at videos on YouTube to see exactly what it's supposed to look like. TNT have a good one where you see the wheel working.

It's really 6 holes and not 3 "doubles" as I had and it's a metal wheel. I kinda liked the plexiglass look and it's not too hard to work with so that's what I decided to use.
As for the bracket, I took measurements over to a colleague at work who manages the mechanical engineering department. This is what he cooked up for me:
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He 3D printed that at the office and I made the flywheel using a grinder and press drill. Seems to work perfect with what testing I gave it so far.
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