(Topic ID: 25425)

Ever Flossed Your Siderails Off?

By NM

11 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

  • 33 posts
  • 20 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 11 years ago by markmon
  • Topic is favorited by 2 Pinsiders

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#1 11 years ago

Have to remove the siderails on my AFM to send to Alex Levy for Black Chroming.

The rails have no dents and I'd like to save them.

The quandary is my AFM has mint original cabinet screening--and I obviously can't take any chance on damage (would rather see the rails go down in flames).

Heard about the dental floss removal approach to "saw" the double-sided tape (old Car Guy trick for removing body molding)...anyone every tried this?

Would like to aid the process with some heat: is a heat gun too risky; use a hair dryer instead?

TIA.

#3 11 years ago

Understand that rear nail is a Beeotch.

Heard of someone who used a Dremel cut-off disc to score it--then twisted it out with a flat blade screwdriver.

#10 11 years ago
Quoted from smassa:

Arent new side rails like $50 bucks? Sure seem like a pain in the ass & a lot of work to save yourself $50.

Yes, they're $47 at PBL.

Trashing them is indeed percentage-wise of little consequence relative to the big picture of this restoration I'm working on, but I figured why waste $47 if it's unnecessary?

Even if you approached the job from the mindset of trashing the rails, it doesn't seem to me like you'd save that much more time--because as I mentioned, extreme caution has to be exercised because of the mint original screening.

So if I did trash them, how do you remove rails without risking damage to the screening? Take a set of needlenose pliers and perhaps a putty knife and start prying, bending, and pulling.

Doesn't seem like that much less of a pain in the ass to me--or all that much of a time savings.

Please LMK if I'm missing something.

#11 11 years ago
Quoted from johnwartjr:

The procedure I posted with a putty knife, dead blow hammer and blue painters tape works real well with no damage.

John: where is this posted?

Thanks.

#13 11 years ago
Quoted from John_in_NC:

Floss would never work,

I was equally skeptical about this too; but believe it or not, I definitely recall reading a thread on RGP where some guy claims it cuts through the tape like "a knife through butter".

Exaggeration? Unknown.

Another guy suggests piano wire.

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#17 11 years ago
Quoted from Pinchroma:

When you send them please remove the tape residue

Will do Alex; lacquer thinner should do the job in no time...wish the same could be said for the residue on the screening!

#18 11 years ago
Quoted from johnwartjr:

I would definitely try to remove the originals if they are in good shape. Heck, if even *one* of them is in good shape. The aftermarket replacements are not always bent exactly the same, and if you have 1 good original rail, I like to save it, in case another cabinet has only 1 bent rail.

Great point John--always best to go with original factory parts on any restoration.

#19 11 years ago

BTW, just learned piano wire is available in diameters as small as 0.006".

The analogy of using this approach would be one of those cheese slicers with the wire strand used to cut blocks of cheese.

Something about the physics of this seems to make sense.

In the end, I'll probably use John's tried and true method--but the piano wire approach seems interesting in theory.

Thanks for everyone's input thus far.

#21 11 years ago

I think I may have accidentally just come up with an interesting removal approach:

I was in my garage poking around and observed my bandsaw blades are 59 1/2" in circumference. Went and measured the rails and they're 47", and a comfortable working wingspan seems to be about 60". Bandsaw blades are actually thinner than putty knives. The math looks promising.

So the plan is to rip a bandsaw blade in half and see how that goes.

Thinking it'll saw through the tape in no time, and this may be an ideal tool for the job--by posing zero risk to the screening. Duct tape over the ends will act as makeshift handles.

May not get around to this for a few weeks, but will report my findings back in the thread at that time.

Thanks to all once again.

-1
#25 11 years ago
Quoted from jrivelli:

Just buy new rails from pinball life. They don't really cost that much. Mine as well save yourself a ton of time and just do it proper the first time.

This was covered in the initial post and discussed subsequently in the thread: the cost of the rails is insignificant--the chief concern is not damaging the unfaded original AFM silkscreened cabinet.

John Wart Jr pointed out reproductions many times don't fit as well as original factory parts.

KCpinballfan, myself, and others have noted that the original rails still have to be removed carefully to avoid damage to the screening even if reproductions were purchased.

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