Firepower: My first pin, my first teardown

Firepower is the first table I've ever owned. Other than playing pinball, I have zero experience with shopping or fixing a machine. That being said, isn't part of the fun of owning tearing the thing apart and making it better?

Mechanically my machine works. I don't have anything to trouble shoot, the electronics seem fine. I'll get to rebuilding the pop bumpers, rebuilding the flippers. I need to adjust the contacts on some of the targets as they'd register maybe 75% of the time. In other words, the table definitely needs a tune-up, but it is totally playable as is. It's just not as fun as it should be!

I picked the table up for $500 from a guy that had owned it for the past 15 years. I don't think he did one lick of maintenance on it. Put it to you this way...the batteries were 17 years old based on the best used by date. Fortunately there was no corrosion and somebody had put in the battery holder away from the boards. The playfield has some wear. It also has a really horrible touch up paint job right in the center. If this table was ever waxed, it's long gone now.

My game plan is to deal with the playfield first. At the minimum, deal with the bad paint that is now bumpy and horrible to look at. I've looked at Vid1900's playfield restoration thread, and he's offered to guide me through doing mine. I don't have remotely the budget to just buy a new CPR playfield, so using this as an educational plunge into the deep end it is!

So here I am, a month after purchasing. The playfield is now completely depopulated. Apart from an initial wipe down when I got it home, I haven't cleaned it. Let the journey begin!

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Gonna throw a bunch of pics up. Give ya a taste of what I'm up against.

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Did the original playfields start out white too, or was that a CPR choice?

One member emailed me a file with the entire playfield broken down 12 hi res jpegs a few weeks back. I could stitch them together in photoshop and color correct if need be.

Or are you suggesting someone with a brand new playfield like Andy_B there maybe pm's me with some nice photos? (hint hint)

I'll get the paint in the next week. In the meantime, shouldn't I clean this first? Not sure what to use, or will anything be fine?

Happened to have a can of Naphtha in the garage, and the wife has a magic eraser, so I guess I know what I'm doing this weekend.

Be careful with the eraser.
It is the same as 1000 grit sandpaper, so you WILL be removing paint if you are not watching what you are doing.

So just use a rag instead? Or use the eraser only for spots that warrant it? Guess I'll use the rag first and see where it gets me then.

I did stitch together that file of playfield images. I really don't know if it's a photo or scan, though I don't see any curvature to the image so I'm leaning toward it being a scan. I played with the brightness in photoshop to get the whites white without washing everything out. The upper field doesn't line up nice like the lower, off by little fractions. Even the lower, you'll notice on the left at the orange burst, it's slightly off but corrects real quickly.

I also put in an email request to one of the guys I interviewed at FarSight, who make The Pinball Arcade. Crossing my fingers that maybe they can provide me with what they used to recreate Firepower in their game. It's a long shot, but you never know.

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Ha! I actually just noticed something about that image that changes my mind about it being a scan. If you look at the holes, you can see the inner edge on the upper portion of each hole EXCEPT where the left flipper would be, which is the exact opposite! Would think with a scan you wouldn't see any edge at all. Still, the planet pattern is well represented.

Also, I made mention of the upper playfield not lining up nicely and therefore didn't bother showing a pic of that. Just wanted to clarify. This was also something I whipped up without spending much time on. I have a friend with much better Photoshop skills, if push comes to shove I'll give the file over to him and see what he can whip up.

Okay, close up pics of table after I went over it with a rag dipped in naphtha. Took these outside so the 'problems' would really pop. Yikes!

There are areas all over on the natural wood, usually around screw holes, with some kind of black schmootz, yet to the touch it is flat. No matter how hard I scrubbed with the rag, nothing. Then ya got all the pink circles, which is from the red posts that hold the rubber. Lovely. Or even just the difference in color of the wood that was hidden compared to that which was exposed.

It seems anywhere there was a bell spacer (under the metal ball guides) or red post, it looks like it was torqued good and hard so there is a physical ring in the playfield. Will that need to be filled? Or is that just what happens anyways? There are some areas that will for sure need filling, like the pit that was created when the original post holding up the end of the left inlane guide got broken off into the field, and a new post was screwed in just below it, creating a nice trench!

I haven't removed the mylar protectors yet, around the pops and the slingshots. I have the canned air to freeze 'em, or I have a heat gun to melt. Or do I leave 'em?

I for sure need to replace one of the star inserts, should I just replace both? For that matter, should I start fresh on all the inserts? The 3 blue inserts on the right for the targets, they're light purple (why, I don't know). Nothing seems cupped, but then I haven't taken a metal ruler to everything yet either.

You'll notice the discoloration of the red laser and the yellow afterburner. The cracking in the 'white' area. The chips of paint exposing wood. And then there's that botched retouch. That's gotta be sanded, yeah? Actually, most of the screw holes have wood raised up around them. Push it in or sand? Some idiot had used too long of a screw from the underside and it split the surface wood. I used some wood glue and a clamp and flattened it as best I could. It's under the apron though, so not really concerned.

Please, comments are welcome. I'll pick up my Createx paint tomorrow, as this weekend didn't allow me to get to the store for it. In the interim I dusted off the undersides of the inserts, straightened bulbs. Okay, I just felt like touching things on the thing!

So....next step Vid?

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More...

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Last ones...

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Wow. Fast answers!

Thanks Vid, that helps. I'll check those inserts with a ruler then. I don't plan on going with LED lights, but maybe instead of replacing the purpled inserts, I'll correct with those instead.

Show a pic of the inserts lit by daylight from behind .

Here we are. Sorry for the quality, was balancing playfield upright with one hand and the camera with the other!

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Okay Vid1900...next step?

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What kind of grit should I use for sanding the lumps?

I'll get an order in too for those inserts. Would now be also the time to re-seat any of the arrow inserts that are slightly poking up?

One last question for the night...

The inserts with decals on them that are not 100% (or all of them for that matter), should I remove the existing decal now too? More importantly, what do I use to remove them? I'll have the new decals ready to go in a few days.

Took a ruler to all my inserts...virtually every one of them is cupped The only ones that aren't, yeah that'd be the 3 that are now purple!

I watched a video on removing inserts (use heat gun till warm, nut driver to tap 'em out). Same series of videos showed how to sand 'em down (400 grit to start, then progressing all the way to 1500). Seems doable, but then I also read a thread on here about how easy it is to crack inserts upon removal. What to do, what to do. The 'proud' inserts are my arrows, and I didn't see a trick for removing those.

Because I don't do anything without knowing there's a safety net first, I've been trying to track down replacement inserts just in case. Of coarse, I can't seem to find replacements for everything in the rounds. My hesitation toward replacing the purpled inserts is that I can only find starbursts, while everything else on the table is not. I'll have to think a bit about that. Also, I'm really trying to not spend where I don't need to.

Hmmm, time to find more videos!

Well.....I went a little nuts last night!

I went to remove the bad star rollover, used a little too much heat gun, and melted it a touch. No biggie, since I needed to buy a new one anyway. Figuring I may as well replace both, I tapped out the other one cold. Didn't take much, it came right out.

Why stop there? I tapped out the 3 purple inserts. Again, didn't take much to convince them to come out. By the way, they be purple through and through. I don't think they ever started out blue, as even the edges are purple. They can't be original, can they?

Before I knew it, I was tapping out everything. Yep, even the arrows. The glue wasn't holding things is too well, and like I said, EVERYTHING was cupped, so I figured do it all. This morning I went to finish the job. All I had left were the white opaque bonus inserts. First 4 came out no prob. Then it finally happened. Tapping the same as I had before, when #7 came out, a piece of the edge stayed behind. Dammit, first broken. Not having learned my lesson yet, #6 did the same thing! So out came the heat gun, but with much more care this time, I'd warm up an area for 5 or 6 secs, tap a little, warm again, and then they'd pop right out.

So now I'm gonna sand the lot. Needed to buy some 400 grit to smooth out the raised paint, guess I'll throw some 600, 1200, and 1500 into the cart too for some wet sanding. As for the broken inserts, pbresources sells 'em, so I'm not worried there. Depending on what color they restore to after sanding, I might need to just order up new whites for the lot.

Now, here's my question regarding removing mylar. Freeze or heat? Someone raised the point that freezing is good for newer playfields, not so good for my era as it might take up the paint. Thoughts?

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I'm right by Costco at Beach and La Habra Blvd. You know you wanna help o-din!

o-din, throw out the invite and I'll find the time to take you up on it!

Looks like Bay Area Amusements has the blue flat back inserts...unfortunately they're all sold out of the white opaques. Why can't one store have everything I need?! I'm gonna keep looking, since I've got a wee bit of time before needing to put them back in.

Was chatting with a few other pinheads, and this idea got thrown at me...replacing the opaque white with a starburst clear. Wouldn't that be a lot of light blasting up since those bonus lights are lit most of the time? One of the guy's was thinking of doing that to his Grand Lizard.

Good news bad news today.

Under good, I removed the mylar with zero issues. Freezed it, put some flour on the adhesive, poured some naphtha on it, and rubbed rubbed rubbed. Fingers are a little raw, but all's well otherwise.

Now for the bad. I was putting down some low tack tape to mask the area I planned on sanding. I moved one piece, noticed flakes on the back of it. Pulled all the others, same story. One spot on the planet came up bad. I put a small piece on a portion of the playfield I thought was good...a small amount of flakes came up. Dammit.

Vid1900 says I need to put down a light layer of clear, otherwise I'll never be able to mask for the real painting. I don't have a sprayer, or any experience with clear coating at all. Was hoping I could get away with an aerosol can version until it came to the final clearing. Anybody have any experience with those?

Also means I need to get my inserts ordered and put in beforehand. I was all set to dive in this weekend, and now I'm derailed All part of the process though, right? Guess in the meantime I'll try and polish metal, clean the inside of the cabinet, clean the inside of the head...cleaning is boring!

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