Queen of Hearts
Gottlieb, 1952You're currently viewing posts by Pinsider znet.
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Most examples exhibit considerable wear at the pop bumpers, poker grid inserts and gobble holes. Your playfield looks exceptionally well preserved. Also, your game has a nice original coin door. It's going to be a gem when you're done.
Your game has vinyl aftermarket protectors around the pop bumpers. It was common for operators to add them to games on location. If you're lucky, they were installed before much wear occurred. Typically, they were a hideous faux woodgrain in design which were applied with self-stick adhesive.
I have had success removing them with 3M adhesive remover spray and blow-dryer heat. Your game appears to have loose protectors, which should separate easily from the playfield. Hopefully, the paint beneath them will have been well preserved.
Quoted from Shapeshifter:Agree - slowly take off the pop bumper mylar - they always look horrible.
Personally I wouldn't use magic eraser on a 50's p/f as the paint will come off as well.
Be very very careful cleaning and remember the enemy of good is better!
Going back to glass - normal tempered is totally fine. I had a sheet of original 50's glass in a game and was going to keep it but I realized if one of our cats jumped on the game and it broke, well, you know the rest.
Pop caps are lovely originals so have the marbalized appearance - impossible to replicate.
And most Queen of Hearts don't have the original coin door.
It was one of Wayne Neyens favorite games. It's a classic.
Oh, this is a personal thing but I would advise resisting playfield touch up's - it's only original once and nothing worse than bad touch up's which are anything the eye can notice!
I agree with all of Shapeshifter's advice, including the suggestion to refrain from touching up that playfield.
Also, get a repro tray liner from PBR and I will try to locate an email compatible version of the score card to send to you.
Neyens has noted that of all of his designs, Queen of Hearts is his #1 favorite.
Preliminarily, to answer your question, the red passive bumper skirts on your game are correct. Below are photos of my game, for reference.
At one point, I swapped my game's original bumper caps for repro caps to match the new white pop bumper skirts (as depicted in photo #5). Later, I returned the yellowed originals to the game, which I prefer. My plan is to dye the repro white skirts with Rit tan fabric dye (soaking the skirts in the dye) so that they mimic a vintage appearance and match the original caps and the original flippers. (See photos #1 - #4).
I shall email to you the two score cards below. Check out the promotional ad for the game (below).
Queen of Hearts has one of my favorite features. . .rollunder gates. In my opinion, rollunders are (dare I say) "under" appreciated.
Quoted from Pecos: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!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!
Looking good. Those rebound rubbers are removed by gripping firmly on one end and twisting outward and over the stalk head to release from its center stalk. Gottlieb utilized this boltless style hardware on most of its games.
When you order that tray liner from PBR, don't forget to order the correct flippers (white with raised blue lettering).
Edit: I meant "recessed" but typed "raised." The blue ink can be added to original flippers fairly easily, with a magnifier, if you find unwarped originals in need of a facelift.
Quoted from pintoys:Lettering is not raised it is incused on the flippers. Raised was used on mostly Bally flippers.
The correct flipper style is indeed recessed, as shown on my QoH example depicted. Disregard my erroneous reference to raised lettering.
Steve Young would never permit Pecos to order the wrong style. Always call in your order to PBR.
Quoted from Shapeshifter:But the repro's aren't marbled and just don't look as nice.
Cracked, marbled original gets my vote!
That shooter gauge appears to have the common fractures at the screw points. I would glue a piece of plastic to repair the top hole area and place a red bulb sleeve over it to camouflage the repair. This sleeve repair may sound hokey; but, it blends in pretty well. At least, this method has worked for me in the past.
The original marbelized ones do look better and the repros cost about $50.
In this photo, you can see the repair to the shooter gauge's upper screw area on Grand Slam.
I glued a plastic or metal washer, reshaped to correct size with a dremel, to recreate the missing piece and then covered it with a red bulb sleeve. This original gauge had great marbleizing. It would have been a shame to have discarded it.
Quoted from Pecos: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.
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.
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!
Good job with the pop bumpers skirts. As mentioned earlier, I plan to dye my lily white repro skirts with Rit tan dye to artificially dye them.
Quoted from dasvis:Yeah Novus 1 is pretty abrasive. I would use Novus 2 on plastics, followed by a polish up with Plexus... amazon.com link »
I think that the abrasive quotient increases numerically, Novus 1 being nonabrasive and Novus 3 containing the highest grit. Novus 2 is sometimes utilized to remove tough grime/debris on various woodrail components.
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