It's the beginning of a new year, the perfect time to start a new project! Never mind the fact that I have three other Project Pins in various stages of restoration and dissasembly.

First things first. How did I find a Gottlieb 1952 Queen of Hearts?

I was given the name and number of an older couple wanting to sell an old woodrail machine here in Tucson. Mrs. Seller told me about the pin. It is called Queen of Hearts. I told her that woodrails typically go from $200 to $400.

I would like to own a woodrail but I wasn't sure if this was the one. I asked RyanClaytor and he said, in no uncertain terms, YES, buy it. Queen of Hearts is highly collectible.

Mrs. Seller and I arranged to see it. I told her that it is a desirable game for collectors. Later in the day I went over there to see it. Mr. and Mrs. Seller met me in the stall of their garage. The backglass was toast. The playfield glass had been broken by his neighbor earlier in the day. But the rest of the machine was in great shape. The playfield, pop bumper and passive bumpers are in exceptional condition for a pinball machine 65 years old.

I told Mr. Seller that he could probably sell it for more to a collector in Phoenix. He told me that "We want to sell it to you." I had sent a link of my Pecos Pinball Website to Mrs. Seller. She must have read some of it and seen my restoration work because that is why they wanted me to have the Queen of Hearts.

Not only did I get it for a very reasonable price, but Mr. Seller wanted me to take it home that day even though I didn't have the cash in hand.

This is how it looked on Day One:

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And then, one of the Pinsiders offered to sell me his nice looking backglass for a very reasonable price. This was a no brainer. I could wait years and never find another backglass that looked this nice for such a reasonable price. I told him I would take him up on the offer. It seemed to be a fairy tale how this is all came together over one weekend. I am truly blessed!

I am beginning to think that I may now be a 'collector.' Such a nice game to be adding to Pecos' Palatial Pinball Parlour! But I prefer to think of myself as a restorer rather than a collector!

And then something really extraordinary happened. RyanClaytor and ZNET colluded to purchase the backglass for me. They collected money from some of the Project Pin regulars to pay for the backglass!

I want to include your names here:

AlexF
Ballypin
bingopodcast
Captive_Ball
Cheddar
Colsond3
Crispin
cyroute
fingersport
ForceFlow
gdonovan
Matesamo
NicoVolta
@Rkhar
too-many-pins
SergioJ
SkyKing2301
songofsixpence
ZNET
nascarrey

Thank you! This thread is for you!

This backglass is incredibly nice for an original backglass that is 65 years old!

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The first job was to get the ole Queen up on her feet. I had to move two other pins to make room for her.

I began by cleaning the leg bolts. They were neatly wrapped in tape but there were only six of them! And these are no ordinary leg bolts. They are extra long to allow for the width of the wooden legs. The bolts cleaned up nicely, but those washers are a complete loss - really hacked up.

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The sides of the bolts will get the wire brush treatment, but not now. I am too anxious to get this game up and on its feet.

Next I worked on the bottom of the legs. This is my first time ever working with wood legs and I was curious how the 'feet' were attached to the legs. I was surprised to see regular 2" leg levelers used as the feet. I don't know if this is standard fare, but it sure makes my job getting the Queen of Hearts up on her feet again. I used a wire brush to clean the leg leveler receivers. Four legs and each one was different!

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One leg had a tee nut. Another had a rectangular nut. The other two had round nuts - one screwed on with screws and the other attached with nails! This was sort of freaking me out. I haven't even gotten to the mechs yet and I'm finding all sorts of hacks! I didn't have a tee nut, so the old one would have to do, for now, but it was a foreboding start.

The legs went on pretty easily. One of the bolt plates had to be hammered back into place, but up on her legs she was!

This glass had to come off and, as I mentioned, it was broken. I have the pieces, I may try to put the puzzle pieces back together again and apply a piece of Mylar on each side of the glass.

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The lockdown bar was somewhat of a mystery. No lever to push to unlock it! It is attached with two long bolts. There were no nuts on these bolts, so I just carefully pulled the lockdown bar up and off.

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Well, here she is, part of her at least, in all her regal glory!

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A place of honor!!

I have my own personal hardware guy, Kris, at Ace Hardware who goes above and beyond the call of duty to provide the parts I need. We always talk pinball. I got the wingnuts today, plus a restock of my hardware stash.

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I may do the Mylar trick for a temporary solution - as long as the game remains here at Pecos' Palatial Pinball Parlour. Mylar on both sides of the glass should be safe enough in my gameroom and the Mylar will not hide the playfield. The glass on this game is thicker and is going to cost quite a bit to replace.

Okay guys! I know when it's time to shake my head and agree with you.

I have a spare playfield glass that I got from TimeTraveler so that will be the best solution, for now.

The backbox frame was halfway off and the backglass had fallen down onto the playfield glass, breaking it. That is WHAT happened, WHY it happened is still a mystery.

That's a high bar to achieve. I hope this thread will exceed your expectations!

Hi Jody. Unfortunately, the camera shows the colors much brighter than they are in reality. It does have significant fading.

There are some loose and curled up pieces of something, Mylar?, around the pop bumpers. The caps look great! All pics are before playfield cleaning.

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Some more close-ups.

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Thanks guys. It's a keeper and I do appreciate how nice it looks now, even before any cleaning. I will be using the safest of safe chemicals to clean the playfield, Naphtha.

Thank you all for the kind words and well-wishes!

Now that you mention it, @ZNET, I recognize those Wico vinyl pop bumper playfield protectors. I'm used to seeing the walnut colored ones. My Expo had them.

This isn't my first restoration of a collectible pin. So, yes, I will be giving the Queen special treatment because it is rare and collectible.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-1970-double-up-minimalist-restoration

I started on the playfield shop-out today:

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The pop bumper playfield protectors were already off of the playfield except for in a few sections. They came off easily with no further damage to the playfield.

Are these pop bumper skirts original or the correct substitutes? The red skirts don't look right for this old game!

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Got my first look at the guts of this game. Did you know that you have to remove six screws to lift the playfield up? I didn't! Surprise, Surprise! I WAS pleasantly surprised to see no obvious hacks 'under the hood.'

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Under the playfield:

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I had to switch from Naphtha to 91% Isopropyl alcohol. There were some white 'somethings' on the playfield and Naphtha just wasn't cutting it.

WARNING! Test 91% Isopropyl alcohol in an inconspicuous spot before ever attempting to use it to clean a playfield. I used 91% Isopropyl alcohol on a Gottlieb King Pin and it turned the clear coat to rubber, which is exactly what I wanted. Be very careful when attempting to use Isopropyl alcohol and always use 91% or better Isopropyl alchohol, if you must.

I am very happy with the results. All of the bad stuff came off and all of the good stuff remains. The playfield is as good as it is going to get. It is as good as it CAN get!

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I noticed after looking at the pictures that ZNET posted that I was missing the artwork on the lower apron. He told me that is called a tray liner and are available at The Pinball Resource. I will be ordering a green one to bring the apron back to looking like it was and how it should be.

I did notice a problem when trying to replace the brown rebound rubber. Look Ma! No bolt!

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Thanks @Shapeshifter!

Cool!

I like to have my games restored as close to factory as possible, including a working coin mech. When done, I should be able to put them in a working pinball museaum. Hope I don't have to take that play meter apart!

Thanks ZNET for that! I was considering doing something silly, but you saved me from myself! Almost -->

Thanks guys. I never would have noticed. I will say it here for the first of probably many times, I am a Williams guy and not a Gottlieb guy so not familiar with the way Gottlieb built their games. But I really am liking how Gottlieb manufactured their games back in the early 50s.

The shoe on the right flipper is bent at the end causing the 'flipper angel.' I can't imagine how it could have gotten bent during normal wear and tear. It had to be put on that way?? I will be touching that area up. I would loathe having to look at it every time I play. However, it will be reversible if someone wants to see ugly! I will be using only acrylic paint and Carnauba wax.

Thanks @lyonsden! It's nice to have a fellow Tucsonan on board. You are welcome to come over and have a gander if you so wish.

I email my orders. I picked the wrong post nuts for a Gottlieb/Premier Monte Carlo and Jimmy/Steve caught it. So, yeah, those guys are good at correcting mistakes before shipping.

Good to know! Thanks @dasvis! You get Double Bonus points for spotting that and Triple Bonus points for recommending a replacement!

Decisions, Decisions! When in doubt, go with the original is my motto.

Great suggestion @ZNET. I will try to save it, but it will have to go at the bottom of a very long queue.

Thanks to all of you offering me your advice for getting me pointed in the right direction. You guys and gals are the best!

The playfield has been put back together. Each screw head was polished the old fashioned way, by hand. I learned about Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish here on Pinside. It's great stuff! I bought the round cotton pad Swisspers at Walmart. I like them better than the square pads. They don't fall apart as easily.

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The lamps sit on these nice concave metal pieces - much better than those lousy springs they used in the 70s. They just don't make 'em like they used to!

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The upper plastics were filthy, filthy enough to attempt to clean them. There was some sort of sticky substance on the bottom side. I tried blue glass cleaner and water first, but it wasn't cleaning the gunk off. I tested 91% alcohol in a corner. It worked really well, too well. It removed everything including the ink. I didn't try Naphtha, but after the alcohol test I decided to leave them alone. Dirty is better than destroyed!

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I discovered that those five pinball gobble holes are also black holes for errant parts. Parts check in but they never check out! If you look closely, you will see one missing screw in the pics below.

And now, to show off the clean and shiny playfield:

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Now, on to the pops, slings and flippers. All mechs will be taken apart, cleaned, polished and new parts added as needed and then rebuilt. I started with the pop bumpers. Hmm, these looked familiar. The only part missing from these 1952 pop bumpers and the pop bumpers I am used to from the 70s is the fiber yoke is missing in the earlier pop bumpers.

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The skirts on these pop bumpers look like a herd of beavers had chewed the edges. I didn't want to replace these with brand new lily white skirts. Ironically, the Williams Super-Flite I am currently working on had skirts that were in good shape and in a more subdued translucent white. I had already replaced them on Super-Flite with yellow skirts so they just sitting there waiting for more pop pop pop bumper duty. I obliged.

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I am always looking for ways to improve my restoration procedures. I have recently adopted Nic's @nicovolta's method of polishing the plungers, and rod and ring assemblies with Mother's Mag and Aluminum Polish. It works really well and will continue to use this method. It was particularly helpful in this case. The pop bumper rings were rough, more like sandpaper that a nice smooth ring. These would have wreaked havoc on new pinballs! I spent 15 minutes on each one to polish it to a nice shine.

I like how these look!

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Isn't Novus 1 abrasive? I don't have any Novus products in the kit, but will consider adding them if the right task comes along.

Leaving them alone is the best option at this point. It's just too risky to try to clean these fragile plastics. Thanks for the link.

I might try that on the woodrails above the flipper buttons and on the legs. I need to buy a Novus 2 bottle for experimentation if nothing else.