Finally having my first working EM!
(Never managed to get my far out running )

Have spotted one issue though, if anyone has an idea... At the start of a ball it will randomly (or so it seems) activate the extraball saucera and prevent the machine from switching from cross to circle or vice versa.

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Just picked up my first Gottlieb yesterday. As a wise person on here said recently, “you don’t find pinball machines, pinball machines find you”.

Got some things to fix on it and the playfield has wear and planking, (not to mention the horrible small area of touched up backglass but I’m glad this gem spoke to me.

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That’s a nice looking OXO. A game I’ve never played but always wanted to.

Congrats.

Extra ball lighting is because the relay in the bank didn’t reset. I had to add a small Dow rod to the bank reset bar right by that relay to make sure it pushed the relay lever far enough to latch.

Does the X O switching problem only occur when Extra ball is lit? The switching is controlled by the match unit in the backbox .

If you want to troubleshoot more, start a new thread and tag me in it

Something about Gottliebs of this vintage speak to me if that makes sense, I knew I wanted a Domino and a Hearts and Spades just upon seeing a video of game play. The art, the sounds, the layout all come together.
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I like this era as well. Drowsy Art Stenholm depictions and those games play great. I just don't like that lightbox on H&S. Almost looks homemade. Obviously the idea didn't go over well.

Dodge City looks nice. Interesting layout too. Should be fun trying to hit those gates.

It's like an early Steve Ritchie fan. I love Paradise as a similar game, but hitting the kicker holes in that game is pretty much pure luck. The gates on Dodge City are great for sharpshooting.

FWIW, the guy I bought the Flip a Card from has a pretty sweet looking Bowling Queen for sale too if your within driving distance of Charlestown IN.

Nice restore on that playfield, John.

Dodge city is great. Just put about a hour of play on mine. Just cant hit 2000 points on it. It's a tough one. I made my slings less sensitive and it helps with this cheap drains.

Dodge City is on my wishlist and I have a friend who says I'm getting his eventually.

Love the back glass animation

One thing that always goes through my mind when seeing the older beauties is just how many of them still exist. Your Hearts and Spades has to be pretty rare with only 615 produced from 1969. I wonder if you have 1 of only 100 left.

With some games like my SS Bally Eight Ball, you know there’s plenty out there with over 20,000 made but my new Flip a Card is one of only 1800 produced 50 years ago and it has over 106,000 plays on it. I’m purely guessing but I’d say there’s maybe 300 left worldwide? 250?

Thoughts anyone?

There is supposedly something called the "half-life" theory. With the passing of each decade, supposedly half of the number of any game title survives, while half succumb to attrition. Hopefully, the growing number of collectors and hobbyists over the last couple of decades have slowed this rate of attrition.

Melody, another rare title; spent yesterday getting cabinet repairs squared away. Today thoroughly cleaned the playfield with magic eraser and naphtha, hand buffed out with Meguiars #2 followed by Meguiars Gold paste wax. Replaced five GI sockets, installed Comet 1SMD LED for the GI and 1SMD non-ghosting for the inserts which were also cleaned, polished the metal posts, installed new elastics, cleaned and adjusted all playfield switches, polished the plastics. Camera washed out all the inserts closest to the lens, annoying as it doesn't capture how great it looks.

Plays good and spunky! Great game.

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I think about this with the old games too. Have a Spot Bowler, 1,000 made, and know there aren't that many of those left. Rescued a 1938 Swing, (1352 made, look up the back glass pics on IPDB, beautiful) from becoming a coffee table conversion, and could only find one other anywhere. Thankfully it is now in safe hands with Michael from PPM. Also have a 1966 Mayfair, with only 2120 made, probably not many left, and as one of Roy Parkers last games, need to keep as many of them going as possible. So appreciate that others think about the rarity and saving as many of these games as possible.

Just picked this up. Pretty fun. I enjoy low scoring games, and the bonus wheel keeps things interesting.

This one has been well enjoyed, but I doubt it ever saw wax.

Thinking this would make a cool table, , , ,

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Beautifully said.

slings are brutal, I adjusted mine so they are not so sensitive and game play is much better. I bet there was some angry pinballers in the 60's. Brutal pins.

picked this up last night. needs a good cleaning and a few adjustments, but should be a nice player.

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Fun game! Played one at Pintastic in 2017. You would think with just one bell it would be rather boring but with all those roll overs actually makes a lot of noise.

Restored by yours truly....

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The most challenging game in my collection. Get some Titans and a powerball in there and get ready to have your butt kicked!

Is that Frontier Village's poster from the amusement park that used to be located in South San Jose CA?

Yep. The poster is a reproduction but I also have a map of the park which is original. Also have a reproduction poster and original memorabilia from "Playland At the Beach" in San Francisco which closed in 1972. Miss both those places.

Very nice job Ken.

Thanks Wayne! Looks like you have been busy yourself down under. Great to see and follow all your cool restorations.

Cheers mate!

even after collecting and restoring em's since 1977 I still get a rush with a pbr order

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Box from PBR and Comet yesterday, woo!

PBR is the best. I always check with them first. If they have it, that’s who I buy from.

Road trip to Depot!

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Lol funny!
I miss Home Depot and Lowe's

It is great that you have the confidence for Home Depot to give you the colour match. Over the years I have found it increasingly difficult to get good matches from retail outlets. I suspect it is the over reliance on computer generated matches as distinct from a balance with the human experience. Finally I settled on a specialist auto paint store in Sydney. The colour matcher there in my experience never gets it wrong. I asked him one day of his background-'I am a butcher'! He explained he learnt the art of colour matching from his Dad an auto spray painter. I always find it fascinating how seemingly few people pursue in the long term their base qualification.

Actually I have little confidence for 3 reasons- Limitations of the scanner software, tool calibration and cabinet fade. However it does get you close and what I will do is take some good size blobs of the paint and will tint them up and down and proceed from there.

I used an app called color grab on my phone. Helps a lot to have a really nice phone camera like the latest samsung or apple model and good natural lighting.

I would think you’d be much better off going to your local Benjamin Moore or other quality paint store and have one of their more experienced paint guys match it.

As a Painting contractor, I’ve run into quite a few guys that are excellent at it. Of course, they are going to start with whatever you give them.

Good idea. Ultimately you are the one that has to be happy with it.

I'm very pleased with the results so far and will try to post a before and after pic in a few hours.

A friend cleared out his garage of a few old projects, and I got to be the lucky recipient of a free Space Odyssey + Space Mission.

First EM!

I got the chance to Frankenstein a working Space Odyssey out of the two.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/resto-space-odyssey-mof-20190630
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Some noticeable improvement I think, still tinkering.

Note the middle star on the right side of the head before and after.

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Lucky. Have fun

Got the hot line I picked up Monday 100% last night. What a great player. Tired of cleaning stepper units but worth it.

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I'm rather pleased with how it came out.

Some sweat, little carpentry work, lot of patience with the paint brush and its looking pretty good. Took me a few hours to get the backglass where I was "ok" with it. Used triple thick and the plastic wrap to flatten the delaminated area on the top right with only fair success. Might have been better off just cleaning all the loose paint off and starting from scratch.

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looks good all cleaned up
I look at this way gdonovan now you have a working game you get to play. You can always get a backglass later.

I'm more annoyed it didn't come out better, if I touch something I really shoot for 100%

Like when you have a new car and it gets a scratch, you notice it but no one else does.

Just spurs me to refining my technique on backglass repairs.

Game plays awesome, wife unit happy. Tough but rewarding. One of the very few EM that was still on our want list. Maybe a Fireball or Sheba if I come across one.

EDIT: added repair pics.

The cabinet back was missing a piece and the bottom was also damaged. The bottom was easy to cut and replace (along with a bunch of braces I had to cut and glue into position, all were missing but two) the back piece was roughly 22 x 4 and more tricky as it was not square. I had to find a piece of lumber that was roughly .835 thick and then make 2 cuts for the side joints and then a third cut to receive the bottom panel. Not as easy as it sounds when one edge is taller than the other. Clamped together while the glue dried which wasn't even necessary as there is 3 six inch long deck screws countersunk in holding the new piece in place. I didn't get too crazy on the paint match here.

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I'm glad you're making it pretty. I almost bought that game. Had the head off and in my van, and had already paid the guy. He went to fetch the key, and while he was gone, I saw that the back was blown out and the bottom was really damp and delaminating.
When he returned, I asked him if he would mind if I passed on it. If he would have given me a tussle, I'd have just taken the game anyway, but he was ok with it. He even helped me put it back together!
On another day, I'd have followed through and bought it, but I already had several projects in the works, and just didn’t need another.

My wife and I are appreciative you didn't! She enjoyed playing one immensely at Pintastic 2017 and I have been on the hunt ever since. I vaguely recall it was Sing Along but I'd much rather have the AAB Melody. One of the last EM's we were keeping an eye out for now that we are filling out a few spots with SS. I still have Hearts and Spades to finish, Grand Tour to web and stencil and dig into Bazaar. Sad, another full cabinet repaint.

It was "Melody" at Pintastic last year and this year as well. Brought by my buddy Mike in CT. His isn't for sale.
I've owned three of them over the years. Fun game for sure.