Ok...I know I know...a Jubilee?

Well this one has a good story. It was completely trashed when I got it (for a song). Our church has an auction every year for the local food bank around Christmas, so the wife suggested I restore a machine and donate it to the auction. The way I look at it, this will keep a machine alive, and my guess is the luck new owner will probably be someone who does not have a machine and may get hooked...maybe even a kid who will grow up loving pinball!

So... some pics...

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So the cab had a beautiful custom pain(t) job...that had to go. PF needed major work. Had no idea if it even worked. The rats that called it home for awhile had chewed some wiring so did not even try to plug it in...

So disassembly begins...

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The cleaning starts...

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On to the lower cab...

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More cab pics...

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A nice before and after of the coin unit and the ball count unit...DSCN1874.JPG

Then on to some touchup and clearing the PF...

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Now to see what happened to that custom paintwork...

Lo and behold - the original art is under there! That's good...as no one has a stencil kit for Jubilee (wonder why)...and I will have to make something.

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Making a stencil...
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New bottom panel in place and working on the cab body repairs...
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And finally some primer going on during the rebuild process...
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Stenciling the head...
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Playfield reassembly begins...
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And it is staring to take shape. A little too much overspray on the cab, but its all good...
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Rebuilt chime unit.
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More playfield reassembly...

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Powered it up...woohoo! Had to do some readjusting of stepper units that I disassembled to clean, but I was VERY surprised at how little I had to do to get everything working!

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Still have a little more to do. Apron has been stripped and primed in white - and will need to make decals for it. Final adjustments to do and a new set of legs and levelers, and it will be ready to go. Will take some pics outside when it is nice and complete.

I am hoping so...maybe we can get someone else hooked!!

By the way...that was actually custom painted if you can believe it (not wallpaper)!!

Hello all -

I will post a few completed pics. Machine is actually at the church now as the auction is next weekend. Hope it will bring a good deal of $$ for the food bank. It has been really great to see all of the kids playing it. I hope that's a great sign for the future of pinball. Thanks for all of the compliments!

Ryan - I actually cut the old bottom board out of the machine and totally replaced it. I made a straight cut with a skill saw right down the middle (longways) and then I could get enough grip to pull each half up and out. It is held in with staples and glue on the cross braces and diagonal blocks. I cut a new piece out of fiberboard from Lowes (about what was in there - although plywood would have been more durable) and slid it in to the original tracks on each side. The bottom of the the back panel being broken out helped me be able to slide it. Then I used bondo and recreated the bottom of the back panel.

I have seen some folks who have removed the front or back entirely to slide a new bottom panel in, but I am not a woodworker and those funky joints the cabinet was made with scare me. I have also seen where some folks use a router to cut off the very bottom edge of the lip that holds the bottom panel in and lift it out that way, then use a piece of molding trimmed down to replace it. I hope that makes sense.

Be glad to share more - I don't think I stopped to take any photos mid-stream on the bottom removal, but I will go back and check. By the way, this project has taken several months on and off (and dodging around other projects) - I just suck at keeping up with things like this and tend to post the entire project's worth of pics all at once!

-scott

Oh - and that paint job? I don't know the story of how it got that way. A fella about two hours from me had this and a Big Shot on CL. A friend and I went up to look and he got the Big Shot and I got Jubilee. They were both in about the same shape. They had been in the owner's father's basement for some time and he knew nothing about them other than he wanted to get rid of them.

I have always joked that that paint work might have been original - perhaps an early 'LE' model? It was all over everything (credit buttons, flipper buttons, etc. Ended up replacing all of that rather than trying to clean the paint off. The cabinet paint let go after soaking for about 5 min or so in Citristrip. I just needed to get enough off to get a good stencil made.

I made the stencil with Contact Paper and actually tried to paint with it (just flipping it over for the opposite side). It just proved to be too flimsy. I traced the contact paper stencil onto posterboard and cut that out and used it to paint. Still a little more over spray than I would have liked, but that's ok - its a learning process.

I did make a separate poster 'panel' for each character on the side, however - since they were not connected. Made it much easier to line them up and adjust the distance between them when painting - and to adjust for the color overlaps at each figure.

-scott

Some pics....image.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpegimage.jpeg

Hey Ryan!

I have done a couple of stencil repaints before with much better results (but with a good quality stencil) and better results...but almost too perfect. I do like the overspray look of the originals versus a crisp paint line.

I think the edges definitely need to be weighted. Even the cardboard lifts a little - especially on the thin "points" of the design. Another option may be to use a heavier material for the stencil...maybe a corrugated plastic like campaign signs are made from. Making them out of wood (or metal like the factory used) might be a little overkill.

I knew in tracing the original art I would not be perfect so I didn't worry about the overspray as much. It is definitely a learning curve to get it right.

UPDATE -

I mentioned in the OP that this was being donated to my church's annual Christmas auction to raise money for our local food bank - well, the auction was last night and...

good old Jubilee brought in $1200 for The Carpenter's Table in Duncan, SC!! Needless to say - I was thrilled. Maybe we'll do another next year.

Thanks to all who followed this thread and please donate to your local ministries to help others - especially this time of year!

-scott