I’ve been wanting a Doodle Bug since I got back into pinball.

The pink has faded all the way to white.

Just bought a polishing motor & wheels etc from Eastwood.com . 1/2 hp polisher on sale for less than the HF one.

Up to now, I’ve been polishing all my metal by hand.

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The turquoise will match the orig pretty closely. For the pink and green I’m going with hot pink neon and the neon hot green. Might buy a blacklight rug to go under it.

Will stick with incandescent lamps. Going with red silicone rubbers, with pink accents (tip, rebound rubber, and the posts inside the doodle bug).

It’s a hard game. Addicting. I played it on vacation as a young teen and have always remembered it.

Sanding the cabinet reveals that the pink had not faded all the way to white. The pink was underneath. Someone had painted white over the pink.

The credit and huge thanks for the cabinet work goes to my friend Jets_1479 . He did a fantastic job on my Flipper Fair, which had come to me painted yellow, and also my GulfStream, which I haven’t gotten to yet.

My polisher ought to be here within a week and I can post pics on how the metal shines up. Will also have to polish the large insert covering the doodle channel, which is quite hazy.

The one I played was at the Flagship Hotel in Galveston, Tx. The hotel was right by the beach, with its own fishing pier and bait shop. Doodle Bug was in the bait shop.

Found holes in the playfield under the left and right lower plastics that look like there should be a lamp socket. The plastics probably need a lamp under them. There is no sign that there ever was a socket or wiring to the holes.

I'm asking around to see if other owners have installed GI in the holes or are leaving it be. Whoever shopped the game before I got it left it alone. Maybe they didn't notice. New looking pop covers. The rubbers look pretty decent- probably replaced within the past two or three years. I'm going with colors from Titan.

Just ordered new pop springs and coil sleeves from PBR.

The polishing wheels and rouge have come in from Eastwood. Just waiting on the polisher motor...

Cabinet is at my friend's for painting. Old thirsty cabinet has sucked up three cans of primer so far.

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Meanwhile, all the rest of the game is in pieces on the floor.

The lockdown bar mech was nasty and was very hard to operate. Soaked in Mean Green, but it turned out the problem was the adjustment screws.

They were screwed in so far they were keeping the bar from sliding. Guess a past owner put in the wrong length screws. Easy fix. Will cut them short with the Dremel. Now I’m thinking of my other projects where the lockdown mech is hard to operate.

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In other news, two new toys arrived this week.

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Gonna polish me some metal!

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New huge lava lamp really ties the room together. The pinballs are along the other wall.

Slow going on polishing legs. Soaked in evaporust . Polishing on the wheels doesn’t give a noticeable improvement.

See if you can tell which is polished .

Two choices - go back to wet dry polishing or spray silver. Sprayed silver on some other legs and they look great.

Will give wet dry a try. Would be more satisfying than painting .

Maybe I need a stiffer polishing wheel. Using a spiral wheel and a loose wheel for buffing.

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Painting the cab is problematical. The base coat is the blue. For the green and pink to pop, the stencils have to be gone over with more white primer, then with the color. A little white bleed is unavoidable. I’ll have to go over the edges by hand. No pics for that, yet.

Meanwhile, I’ve been on vacation. Finally got to play some more with my new polishing motor and different buffing compounds yesterday, but the results are no better than if I didn’t spend the $ on all that. I’m going to try one more test on a leg and then move onto the coin door.

So far, the easiest and best looking solution for pinball legs is silver spray paint. But I’d rather have a nice polished metal leg, if I can get it looking nice.

So, restoration is moving slowly as I teach myself how to polish on the wheel and my friend finishes the cabinet.

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Coming along nicely!

Hand sanded then polished a leg yesterday.

Polished the other three on the wheels tonight, with a different set of polishing compounds.

Can’t tell the difference, except real close up the hand sanded one is a better.

I could try another combo of wheels. I could go down to rougher grit to start with by hand. It all looks very nice, matte finish. But it seems like I ought to be able to get a clear mirror finish.

Checked the polished legs against a new machine’s legs. Looks pretty darn close. I’m moving on to the other metal.

Before

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I think I have polishing figured out now. Best result I’ve had.

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Here are my steps, you'll want to read up some on polishing metal, if you haven’t done it before.

Clean the metal, if needed. For this piece I used Mean Green & a stiff plastic brush. If rusty, soak in Evaporust.

This piece is plated metal. Based on this piece, I’ve concluded that you can go as far down as 400 grit and not harm the plating.

I use wet dry sandpaper (wet). I use it on my fingers and on a soft sanding block. For the sanding block I used pieces of Styrofoam packing cut to a sanding block a good size for the piece. I’d just bought something that came packed in styrofoam. A friend who polishes knives recommends cork sanding blocks. I haven’t tried them yet.

Wet dry sandpaper 400 grit, 600, 800, 1000, 1200, 1500, 2000, and 3,000. I finish with Mother's Mag & Aluminum polish.

Sand in all directions, and mostly in a circular motion.. You'll never get all the scratches out, but you can still get a mirror finish on many pinball metal surfaces. For the early grits, you can apply some pressure, but lighten up as you advance. Remember you're polishing, not sanding.

Wipe the piece with water between grits to remove the last one before stepping up to the next one.

Cut your pieces of sandpaper and soak the sandpaper in warm water. I lay out a flat Tupperware. Add just a drop of dishwashing liquid to break the surface tension of the water. I let the pieces soak as I polish.

After the sanding, wipe clean and gently buff in the Mother's Mag with a soft cotton or microfiber cloth. Use sparingly. At first, the cloth will get very black. Keep going until it eases up. End up gently buffing with a clean cloth. It isn’t going to look good until you get to this step.

You don’t always have to start at 400. A lot of times you can start at 1000 or 800. You'll learn with experience. I’m still learning. Start higher and see how it looks. You can always start again at a lower grit.

Best luck with your polishing!

For small bolts like around the coin door, you can usually get away with Mother’s Mag on a polishing wheel on the dremel.

Update: went back to redo the coin door. Started at 400. Gave up on the styrofoam sanding blocks. Using my fingers.

Finished with Mothers Mag polished by hand, then soft wheel with no rouge, then final polish by hand.

Maybe it would be even better with a sanding block or going rougher than 400.

But it looks pretty good

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Three times with Mother’s Mag & a soft cloth.

Does it look better? I think so.

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Look at the fine work Jets_1479 did!

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More hand polishing, with a little buffing with the Dremel.

The shaft was discolored & rusty.

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The coin flap is polished. Compare it to the 'before' picture. That's the best that metal would do. Maybe it was originally plated and the plating was all gone.

Could not get in between the letters. Tried a brass brush on the Dremel, polishing wheel, and more. There must be a tool for that, but I don’t know it.

I guess I could paint it silver.

Thanks!

Still need to clean & wax the playfield & install the new rubbers.

First I have to figure out why it’s not wanting to start a game now that it is all put back together.

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Got it working.

Two problems- the start button looked ok, but needed adjustment. The other problem was the maintenance plug for the motor. The label for the plug says "on" & "off", but that could mean either the motor is on or the maintenance mode is on. I’d guessed wrong when putting the game back together after the cab was painted.

Not bad at all. I’ll post some pics. Real life may have me too busy to work on projects for a bit.

Also, I’m working on a side project— I picked up a small drawer cabinet at a garage sale. Painting it to match Doodle Bug. Will help me get my pinball stuff organized.

The marks by the flippers will clean up, I hope.

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I’ll let you know when it’s all fixed up! Nice open pf, which I like