Well hot off the completion of Sorcerer, I have started my next project: A restoration of a Fish Tales Machine.
I first encountered Fish Tales int he basement of the Student Union at Oregon State University in 1992. It was flanked by an Adam's Family, and spent quite a lot of time there instead of studying. I love the fast pace of the game. If you don't hit that boat ramp, or the long cast, then you are in trouble. Bricked shots are not very often forgiven.
I also love the goofy call outs, and it has one of my favorite call outs of all times.. "Hey look Bob, water skiers!" The first time I saw the video mode, I nearly fell over with laughter.
So on to our restoration subject. This machine belonged to a friend of mine (@acitti) and was a regular part of his collection for years until I acquired it as part of a trade for my Fun House. The machine is not in that bad of shape. The playfield has the usual issues with lifted inserts (the fish bodies), and the cabinet has the typical fade that so many of these machines suffer from. However on the plus side, there are no termites to deal with, and more importantly NO CORROSION.
So here is the plan for this machine.
1. Strip, prime, and repaint the cabinet and head (single stage gloss black)
2. Apply new decals
3. replace the playfield with a CPR gold playfield
4. Upgrade the speakers
5. Install a Color DMD
6. Have the rails, lockbar, coindoor, and other miscellaneous cabinet hardware power coated blue (not green).
In the end, it is going to be a bit of a show machine for acitti when it is done, so for the first time I am kinda doing this machine as a commission.
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