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Playfield restoration coming along. New bumper bodies, rod and ring, skirts, flipper and bumper rebuild, all rollover buttons replaced. New target faces, and re-rubbered.

The side rails and stained inner rail are just sitting in place, the rails need another coat of paint. Just need to do a bit of under playfield soldering and it's about done.

The kids love the new EMs. My 7-year old put up 1,335 on Ice-Revue!

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Ice Revue... wonderful, wonderful game.

Just brought this project home this week.

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Pretty!! Man, I hope my playfield cleans up as well. Where did the rollover replacements come from?

Pinball Resource. They are not cheap and there are a lot of them, but to me they were worth it. They come with a small plastic screw to attach them to the switch.

The old ones are usually yellowed or discolored in some fashion. The buttons are a prominent part of the playfield, they're right there in front of you, they need to look good.

Nice! Did you pay the full five cents for it or did you negotiate a better price?

Ha, it was very reasonable...but more than 5 cents. What's interesting is it has bunch of the original instruction cards.

Playfield looks pretty good. Are the parts for the animation in the backglass there ? Looks like a good project. I like the cigarette holders.
I also like the artwork on the apron for the Dancing Dolls. Cool that there are some original instruction cards with it. Paint on the side of the head looks good. Is the cabinet nice also ? If a repro backglass is available, that and some of your good effort and work might make it a real nice game. I'd like to see how it progresses.

Yes, the animation unit is all there. The cabinet is not too bad. Some nicks and scuff but very presentable. It's a pretty game, I think it will clean up nicely. Shay lists the backglass as being available but I haven't followed up on that yet. Fingers crossed.

I will try to post some pics as I get it cleaned up and playing.

Girlfriend came to visit last week and it was great - and she loved pinball, hooray! Long story serious long distance dealio and she lives far away and finally got to stop in for a nice long visit to me here for the first time in New Jersey and we got lots of pinball in, including stopping by not 1 but 3 pinball establishments (one by accident) including the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, NJ, and also of course my pinball room here at home.

Was feeling really down after she had to go back home after lots of airport goodbye hugs and emotions and whatnot so did some rearranging (not final) to cheer me up. Also got Vagabond finished in the nick of time before she came. Not perfect and has some pretty big imperfections but it's so much better than it was - no more flat black. Still not bad for spray paint, tape, and an x-acto knife. Yay!

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That Vagabond has found a home.

You're a trip, man! Coming to Pintastic?

Wasn't planning on it but now looking at it again, the drive is only 3 hours, I thought it was more around 5 or so. Not too bad. Might go!

Bringing anything this time around?

picked up a sleeper wedgehead. it is a game i have wanted but never could find one that wasn't worn. this one was cheap and is in great original condition. bg is mint, cab is really nice just a few bumps, pf was dirty but will clean up nice. the area below the kickouts tend to be bare wood but this one only has a few tiny spots that should be easy to touch up. the only minus was the coin door was gutted.

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Never seen one of those. Beautiful game, Dave.

That is one I've really wanted to do a mod 'what if' centre decal for ... And custom for extra lights in bg that light behind each zodiac sign when you light them on Pf !

Nice!

I played Aquarius on location and have a real nice one in my collection too. When the player completes the number sequence the special light alternates from the 1,3,4,11 and 12 on both kick out holes and stand up targets. Nice find!

Dude if you put her through all that and she calls you back...that is a keeper.

Way to go Boilerman you can add another to your collection.

I'm starting to think you do like working on them as much as playing them.

Most of the stops were planned out in advance and she's well aware of my pinball addiction and going into an arcade we found on the street was her idea. Flew halfway across the country for me and played a ton of EM (and SS) pinball with me! Definitely a keeper!

I wish mine was that nice.
My playfield is totally beat, and the cabinet has been re-painted.

That game really makes you work for your points!

Anxious to see it when you get it all cleaned up and running.

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most i looked at over the years looked like yours. i never thought i would find a nice one.
i thought vic had the only nice one out there..
there are quite a few of these sleeper wedgeheads that don't make "THE IT LIST" but are great players that can be had for a fraction of what those on "THE IT LIST" are going for.

There was an Aquarius for sale out here awhile back on CL, I think the guy wanted $400. I can't remember the condition but I let it pass. Cool game, but at the time I just couldn't swing it due to space limitations. If I was going to go over the limit it had to be one I really, really wanted.

Just finished with my Pro Football. Cleaned all steppers and score reels. Rebuilt the AS stepper, all new playfield posts and rubbers. Made playfield plastics protecters from lexan, rebuilt the flippers with everything associated with the flippers new. Stripped, cleaned, and waxed playfield, sealed area in front of flippers with polyurethane ( with help from Boilerman thank you). Sealed backglass,. Cleaned and gapped points. Game plays great. Credit wheel adds two games when start button is pushed. No big deal on that but I will look into it. I did clean the credit unit. This is not as good as alot of Pinsiders. Some of the work done on this site amazes me, but I'm happy and learn with each one. I have 5 this is my 3rd rebuild. Now I'm looking for another. I bought this at Pinfest so it's my 3 month transformation.

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May and June. That would be two months. Nice work.

Aquarius is definitely a sleeper
I also think this is one of the few EM that looks pretty good bathed in
bluish/green glow of colored PF lights.
(as opposed to standard white 44/47s)

Looks cooler with the lights off, as usual In the process of finally fixing up the pinball basement, excuse the slight mess.

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What kind of construction are you doing in the basement? I like the way you have your pins packed so closely together. Looks nice!

Thanks Vic! Still waiting to finish up the basement and once that's ready the whole NJ crew is invited over for sure.

Sorry for the long post but the construction has an interesting history:

My late grandfather raised canary birds in the basement so that's a lot of his old construction (he was a wonderful skilled builder, precise too), a lot of the drywall came down a few years ago because it was over 35 years old and moldy. New drywall is going to go up but I'm thinking of cutting the divider wall he put up half down vertically before I do that to keep a divider there while still keeping the room open to view and will probably make air flow nicer so it doesn't get too hot down there during parties and whatnot.

He also built two giant bird cages called "flights" (you can walk in them, it was cool as a young kid to be surrounded by many birds) on the bird side of the room (divider wall he put up at the same time in 1977 along with the flights, to separate the birds from the normal basement storage side, smart idea, the side with the most machines right now was the storage side) that I'm still in the process of taking down too. Sad to see it all go and taking apart such great craftsmanship feels like a bummer but after being there for so many years and sitting unused for the last 5 or so after my grandfather passed away and slowly being taken apart by not only myself but other family members that want it out too, it was time, and luckily makes room for my last row of machines.

He also built a ceiling-high shelf structure to serve as more bird habitats for when they nest which probably had 25 or so individual rectangle boxes in it for each bird each with a professional wire formed front which held the food and the water and the access door. Reached the ceiling down to probably knee-height, but that was taken down and out a few years ago as well. Professionally wired up all new electrical himself going across the beams to power two plug-in automatic timers that controlled both normal lights (3 fluorescent light fixtures) and night time lights (2 of those old incandescent miniature light bulbs that fit in normal light fixtures which he also mounted and wired) inside that room and the flights. Still use that work today to plug in my machines, interesting how that worked out. This basement sure has a busy hobby history.

Here are some photos of the above (This drywall portion I didn't take down yet, there was a walkway and then the rest of the wall would have extended where those beams can be seen in the other photo where the drywall was already knocked down)

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Looks like one of the games escaped from its cage in the last photo - better check the rest of your basement, there might be one pin hiding somewhere.

Thanks for the info.

What are the measurements of the basement? I see some metal ductwork, is there central air in the house or just a forced warm air heating system. Looks like your running out of space? Keep up the good work!

We don't have basements in So Cal. At least not very many. Something to do with the water table or earthquakes. But if I did, I could almost double the size of my collection.

Didn't measure yet actually, I really should. Just heating, we still use window A/C and the main one is built into the wall upstairs. Good enough for me. Basement stays a steady temperature year round so luckily I don't need any air conditioning in the basement (very comfortable) and it stays pretty warm in the winter because of the heater and the warm house above it, maybe a light jacket if anything during the winter, also good for the machines without any harsh temperature shifts so I am thankful for that down there.

Definitely running out of space. Trying hard to save the last of my space for nice wedgeheads and trying to limit myself to those since they're what I really want, as I'm not one to sell (I usually end up missing them too much) but I have so many different ideas so we'll see what happens.

Hopefully starting a good job after the summer to hopefully fund those over time. Being pretty low budget for the rest of the machines has allowed me to lower my standards a little and find some good diamonds in the rough that not many other people have and I'm thankful for that but definitely looking forward to scooping up some more well-known titles in the future.

I brought this home last weekend--just set it up today. I have been jonesin' for a Big Hit for several years and a friend of mine passed a great deal that he got onto me. Rock on, Bill!

I have to admit, my pants were a little snug bringing this home.

It will need a good cleaning and some work, but it is in pretty good shape. Sorry for the crappy pics.
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Cool game. A local Barcade has one of those in their EM lineup. One thing it could benefit from would be a pair of PBR's orange dot flipper coils.

I think it has more to do with the lack of need to get water pipes below the freeze line,
California does not get cold enough to worry about freezing,
so no real need for basements and the added expense of digging one.

I love my basement though, now that I moved to Oregon,
where they are more common than California,
that plus my house is >90 yrs old, when it was just a common default
to have homes built with them back then.

Last time I lived in a house with a basement was over 50 yrs ago
when my parents lived in a basement apt, while going to school
getting their masters in teaching back in Aberdeen South Dakota
during the hot and humid summers.
The basement apt was relatively cool but humidity could be a problem,
so to combat that my parents would stuff old nylons with calcium chloride
and hang them in the corners of the basement with a collection bucket underneath
as they acted as a de-condensate.

It's addictive, isn't it? EM's are just super satisfying to rebuild by hand... very Zen process. I also have a Pro-Football and would suggest using orange dot coils on the lowest two flippers if they need a little pep. On most games I find the default coils work fine after a full shop-out, but on this one the orange dots made it feel "just right".

One other tweak that might be worth consideration is double-lighting that center star rollover. I always install a second lamp socket on the other side of the switch blade to eliminate shadows. For the final touch I use frosted red LED's which makes the filament invisible between the cracks... but bulbs are also fine if you are a purist.

Have you tried aligning the flippers so that the top two and bottom two meet evenly (like a single unbroken line)? I've tried it both ways and the ball tends to roll more smoothly when they are aligned. It also makes hitting those vari-targets a bit easier instead of hoping for a glancing rebound.

As far as future tweaks go, I haven't tried this yet, but I have a similar game (2001) which also has an upper pair of slings. By default, they're just a little weak. Resistance is 4.8 ohms. I remove 24 feet of wire to drop the resistance to around 4.2. Not a huge difference, but enough to make the game a lot more fun and feels more balanced. I'm thinking Pro-Football might benefit from this tweak as well. Pretty sure the coils are the same... I might try removing 12 feet first if so.

I know I've seen/heard of at least one or two of you here with a Williams HEAT WAVE; one of my favorite EMs.
Does anyone know what the drop target art looks like? I know it's a sun with a face.... but the middle is worn out on every example Ive seen.

I did put orange dot coils on the bottom flippers. I like the results going to leave it that way I didn't realize there's different ways to set your flippers on a 4 flipper game till it was time to put them back. The way I have it now makes it a little harder to play which I like the brochure has the bottom flippers horizontal. I ordered soft white LEDs they should be in this week along with a couple of different colored ones just to experiment I never used LEDs on EM but I'm going to experiment to try to get a little bit more brightness in the game it's reversible so it's not hurting anything.

I just picked up my 1st "EM" today! Plays great, Just needs a good cleaning.

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Real nice Beat the Clock! Welcome to the em club.

The basement does stay cool but humidity is a real issue, especially when you have a finished basement. I run a big dehumidifier in the finished area and a small one in my shop all summer long. It removed the dank smell you can get from the high level of humidity. Also, I have a wood stove in the basement, and getting the flue swept before the summer heat and humidity helps a ton-when it rains you get the nice creosote smell if you don't.

I went to my WMS parts catalogs to see if they at least had a line drawing
of the face of the drop target for Heat Wave,
but it is not included in the line-up available
in both the '64 and'69 parts catalogs.

They had the drop targets for games before and after though?!?!?!

There is a picture of it and others in the Williams '66 parts catalog.

They are hand-drawn though and are more or less there just to identify a specific target to the part number.

I believe heat wave and skill pool had the same art but different colors

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The middle is worn out on my Heat Wave. I've always thought the face should look like the "angry sun" off the back glass but I don't have the skill to make a scan/decal for it.

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If someone else ever does this mod, I will buy one!

That's the one! Thanks.

I'm sure that, with this image and the colors from my existing target, I could create art for this.

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This would not be hard to do at all. Maybe I'll do it at the same time as the original.

What water table? If you had one anywhere near ground level, I'd be out there selling well pumps!
There's areas on my property where the water table is like two feet down. I have a basement, and it stays dry all the time (luckily).