(Topic ID: 256547)
Linked Games
Firepower
Williams, 1980
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Put the better playfield on the rotisserie and finished the tear down.
I sprayed enough Mean Green on it in hopes that’ll it’ll piss off 
vid1900 enough to log back in and scold me.
I got halfway done with cleaning it up tonight after the family left from our holiday dinner.
I’ll remove the pop bumpers and finish the top half tomorrow.
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Kirkwood, MO
How far are you taking the rebuild? The one playfield looks reasonably good. Going for the "player", or doing a hardtop & cabinet paint? Whichever way you go, in the end you will have a really good game to play.
Dumpster reference caught my attention. Built one up two years ago, a player, from accumulated parts. I don't want to tell you how long it sat around before I got to it. Had a planked cabinet from an open shed, where the head had rotted away (pulled boards and left the rest for the trash). The playfield survived thanks to the glass over it, and an operator applied clear coat. Found another backglass and head at a pinball show.
Quoted from Biffbar:
How far are you taking the rebuild? The one playfield looks reasonably good. Going for the "player", or doing a hardtop & cabinet paint? Whichever way you go, in the end you will have a really good game to play.
Dumpster reference caught my attention. Built one up two years ago, a player, from accumulated parts. I don't want to tell you how long it sat around before I got to it. Had a planked cabinet from an open shed, where the head had rotted away (pulled boards and left the rest for the trash). The playfield survived thanks to the glass over it, and an operator applied clear coat. Found another backglass and head at a pinball show.
This is a project to keep me busy so I plan on doing as much as I can. I’m actually going to restore the one playfield. So I’ll touch it up after I get it clean, then I’ll replace a bunch of inserts, and in the spring I’ll clearcoat it.
I’m also going to hardtop the other playfield since it’s a complete mess.
More than likely I’ll put the hardtop in the machine and then sell the restored playfield.
Took the beat playfield outside this morning to sand it down.
Seems to be a bit of mouse piss damage and a couple broken screws.
I’ll drill out the screws and dowel the holes.
I have a few cracked plastics I’ll need to replace. I might just buy all new plastics, depends on my mood I guess.
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Calgary, AB
Quoted from mrm_4:
Going to need a backglass. Was surprised to find that CPR doesn’t have any. Unless I missed something.[quoted image][quoted image]
mrm_4
CPR committed to restocking all of their plastics and backglasses that they made over the years. Try can’t make everything at once, so they’ve asked that if you want something that’s out of stock that you post what you want in the below forum. It should be back in stock on their website within a week. If it isn’t pm kevincpr.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cpr-floodgates-open-plastics-amp-glasses-releases
Removed the curled up arrow inserts, pop bumpers, and the Mylar. Everything was going fine until I started removing the adhesive with alcohol and flour and one of the pops the paint rubbed right off like it was a sheet of paper.
Really strange.
Oh well I’ll repaint it, I think it’s ready for some touch ups.
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D8A9EBCF-9DAB-4281-B2B2-9247CB474F1D (resized).jpegTo practice getting the feel for popping out inserts, sanding, then reinstalling them, I threw the beat hardtop play field on the rotisserie and pushed out the ones that were cupped so bad I couldn’t properly sand them.
Now this is not something you HAVE to do for a hardtop install but I did it anyway for the practice.
I’m going to pop all the inserts out on the good pf to level so I don’t have to screw around too much with eye dropping clear coat later on during this project.
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Wachtebeke
Quoted from slochar:
Mayfair probably has the backglass in stock with their seemingly "endless" supply of NOS firepower and black knight glasses.
I actually have a lead on really nice one. More to come on that.
I'll be following as well - picked up one of these a month ago and maybe I can be forewarned of any pitfalls.
I get very aquatinted with my new machine
You worked on it until you were blue in the face?
Quoted from Gornkleschnitzer:
You worked on it until you were blue in the face?
Yeah pretty much 
My wife stopped down in the basement to see how I was because I was quiet for a while. She interrupted herself when she saw what I was doing with:
“Hey babe, you doing alri...JESUS! Why are you such a psycho?!!”
I think it’s necessary
2 weeks later
I decided to pop out all the inserts. Sanded down with 400 grit and reinstalling to hopefully avoid ghosting. Got some help in the firepower club thread with finding all the insert key lines to apply after a level layer of clear.
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E7CC9F4B-32D2-44FD-AACA-FC28A50CFA43 (resized).jpegI wanted to up my game with doing restos so I decided to get an airbrush. Found a nice kit on amazon for $90 came with 3 brushes and a compressor.
Never dabbled with airbrushing before so I tried a few color transitions.
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357653A7-31A2-4F9E-806A-61DD5A230987 (resized).jpegThe first thing I’m doing is painting all the reflective areas under the plastics white.
Makes for a major difference. It’s actually pretty easy doing it like this compared to a regular brush like I normally do.
Although I’m not a fan of cutting the frisket. I cant seem to get the feel for pressure, speed, accuracy, plus making sure that the blade gets changed when it starts to dull.
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E2FA0B0A-0111-48B6-AEE2-55BB8D9252FF (resized).jpegI got bored doing the white. I wanted a challenge so I decided to redo all the red and fix the laser burst up to the right. I’m addicted to airbrushing!
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EA501F62-2C0E-46E9-8B07-1FB1821F9D91 (resized).jpegRedid the pop bumper burst that got screwed up when pulling the mylar and finished the white. Just need to do some white pin stripes around the outside of a few areas.
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1 week later
There’s gotta be an easier way. The whole time the little voice in my head is saying. “Just buy the hardtop”
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I couldn’t seem to get the aged white to be perfect so I got it close, flooded the bare wood areas, then fanned the surrounding areas with the off white.
Then had to paint all the planet designs back on to hide the touch up.
Not happy with it but whatever.
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Nice work! I may be heading down the same path soon with a Black Hole playfield. Several astronauts are missing arms...
I wanted to up my game with doing restos so I decided to get an airbrush. Found a nice kit on amazon for $90 came with 3 brushes and a compressor.
Never dabbled with airbrushing before so I tried a few color transitions.[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
Sometimes painting red over a grey undercoat helps.
There’s gotta be an easier way. The whole time the little voice in my head is saying. “Just buy the hardtop”
[quoted image]
I couldn’t seem to get the aged white to be perfect so I got it close, flooded the bare wood areas, then fanned the surrounding areas with the off white.
Then had to paint all the planet designs back on to hide the touch up.
Not happy with it but whatever.
The planet looks great. I'd be happy with that!
Quoted from Schwaggs:
The planet looks great. I'd be happy with that!
Thanks!
I’m really hard on myself, and I’m especially frustrated lately with color matching. I had a good streak of hitting colors dead on the money but lately I can’t seem to get it right.
I set the playfield aside for a bit to give my eyes a rest.
Started cleaning the wires for the displays and attempting to repairing the master display board.
They were filthy. The mud dripping off these after spraying mean green is in unreal.
I probably need to replace all the connectors. The thought of doing this for 300 wires makes me nauseous.
I move some unused traces over to replace the missing ones and glued the glass back onto the board. Need a few resistors and I should be ok.
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80E39802-78A8-4AFC-8D86-2C85B593ABC1 (resized).jpegThanks!
I’m really hard on myself, and I’m especially frustrated lately with color matching. I had a good streak of hitting colors dead on the money but lately I can’t seem to get it right.
I set the playfield aside for a bit to give my eyes a rest.
Started cleaning the wires for the displays and attempting to repairing the master display board.
They were filthy. The mud dripping off these after spraying mean green is in unreal.
I probably need to replace all the connectors. The thought of doing this for 300 wires makes me nauseous.
I move some unused traces over to replace the missing ones and glued the glass back onto the board. Need a few resistors and I should be ok.[quoted image][quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]
The resistors you mention are all the 10k resistors near the top of the master display board, right? Several look toasty in your pictures.
Be careful with those display connectors. Those contacts have long been discontinued and are pricey to replace if you can even find them. They rarely fail anyway. If you have a bad contact, try lightly cleaning the contact fingers on the board with a fiberglass sanding pen.
The resistors you mention are all the 10k resistors near the top of the master display board, right? Several look toasty in your pictures.
Be careful with those display connectors. Those contacts have long been discontinued and are pricey to replace if you can even find them. They rarely fail anyway. If you have a bad contact, try lightly cleaning the contact fingers on the board with a fiberglass sanding pen.
Yes I believe they are all 10k resistors. I’m about to buy a bunch. Might just shot gun it and replace them all to keep myself occupied. As for the contacts the transfer went pretty well. As you can see in the last pic I got them all situated. I really hope this works.
Does anyone know of a way to test the displays without having them installed. I won’t have this backbox ready for power for quite a while and I’d like to see if these things are working.
Maybe alligator clips and a battery on certain points. Anything just to see if the digits light up?
Just wondering if you have any pics and what you used to glue the display back on? The double sided tape on mine has failed and is leaning away from the pcb. Thanks
I just superglued mine back nothing fancy
The resistors you mention are all the 10k resistors near the top of the master display board, right? Several look toasty in your pictures.
Be careful with those display connectors. Those contacts have long been discontinued and are pricey to replace if you can even find them. They rarely fail anyway. If you have a bad contact, try lightly cleaning the contact fingers on the board with a fiberglass sanding pen.
Deoxite works great. Wipe a little on the board edge connectors.
Yes I believe they are all 10k resistors. I’m about to buy a bunch. Might just shot gun it and replace them all to keep myself occupied. As for the contacts the transfer went pretty well. As you can see in the last pic I got them all situated. I really hope this works.
Does anyone know of a way to test the displays without having them installed. I won’t have this backbox ready for power for quite a while and I’d like to see if these things are working.
Maybe alligator clips and a battery on certain points. Anything just to see if the digits light up?
Original plasma displays need high voltage to work. I'm not aware of any way to test them without the original power supply board.
Your pf painting brings back a lot of memories doing mine.. although I hand painted (airbrushing is so much better!!) I only planned on doing touchup and bare wood repaint but ended up going farther and farther, repainting all back and star background and off white over all the scoring lettering. Tedious!
Caution with those key lines — I used the same ones. If your auto clearing it’s prob fine but if you’re going with hand paint or spray can Clear — I sanded and leveled all my inserts and those damn key line stickers Raised the areas and made it impossible to get a really flat clear layer even after a ton of coats (I was using spray cans)
Quoted from Mbecker:
Your pf painting brings back a lot of memories doing mine.. although I hand painted (airbrushing is so much better!!) I only planned on doing touchup and bare wood repaint but ended up going farther and farther, repainting all back and star background and off white over all the scoring lettering. Tedious!
Caution with those key lines — I used the same ones. If your auto clearing it’s prob fine but if you’re going with hand paint or spray can Clear — I sanded and leveled all my inserts and those damn key line stickers Raised the areas and made it impossible to get a really flat clear layer even after a ton of coats (I was using spray cans)
I’m going to print the key lines on water slide decal paper so hopefully it’ll be ok. Thanks for the heads up!
Quoted from ViriiGuy:
Mayfair's emails seem to not work. Are they still in business?
I tried to reach out to them last year about a Shangri La backglass and never got any response.
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