The threaded holes are plugged before powder is applied, so no worries. Worse case scenario you re-tap the holes, which is a pain in the butt - so you'll only make that mistake once

Likewise, heat tape is wrapped around the coil stops, so the sleeves fit nicely and the plungers aren't hitting a powered surface. Also, you'll need to use heat tape at grounding locations as power is an insulator.

FYI - it cost me less than $100 to have all of the these parts powder coated (over 90 pieces). This price is comparable to re-zinc plating, but I don't have to ship the parts off and I can customize the game the way I want.

I just might do this.... It's only money right

The majority of the metal parts in a pinball machine are fabricated out of steel, which is a metal alloy composed primarily of iron. In simple terms, oxidation (or corrosion) occurs when oxygen combines with metal at an atomic level. For example, rust (iron oxide) is formed by the redox reaction of iron and oxygen in the presence of water or air moisture.

Chemistry lesson over

To prevent oxidation a protective barrier must be applied to the surface of metal alloys containing iron. This is why the steel parts in pinball machines where originally zinc plated. In areas where the plating is compromised you’ll often see oxidation occurring, usually small white spots. Overtime, if left untreated, these white spots can turn into red rust spots. When you add water (spilt beer or soda pop), the oxidation process is accelerated. This is why coin doors and lockbar receivers on machines from this era are almost always covered in rust.

You can tumble your metal parts using a polishing media; the most popular approach seems to be walnut shell with Flitz. Tumbling will clean and removed mild levels of corrosion (the white spots). The Flitz polish will actually leave a thin film/residue on the surface of your metal parts. However, once this film wears off (which often can occur while handling the parts during reassembly – the oils in your skin will wreak havoc on exposed metal surfaces as well), your metal parts will again be exposed to oxygen and the process of oxidation will occur.

The only way to really eliminate oxidation is to prevent oxygen from interacting with the metal. You have several options: (1) plating, (2) painting, (3) powder coating, or (4) applying a wax/polish to the surface of your parts. Option #4 is the easiest in terms of labor and cost, but it’s also the least effective approach.

I’ve tried carnauba wax, Mothers Mag, Flitz, etc. and I find Mothers to be the most effective polishing treatment for minimizing oxidation. I’ve also buffed and clear coated parts, which looks very nice. I’ve also re-plated parts, which is probably the preferred “purist” approach. It’s all a matter of what you’re trying to accomplish. For this machine I chose to powder the parts because I wanted to customize the look of my machine. The cost to powder vs. plating is comparable, so it’s a matter of preference.

Hope this answers your question.

PMD is an acronym, which stands for "PinballMikeD LLC"

Mike D. - hey that's me - is the founder and owner of "PMD", but my company is composed of more than just me.

With respect to "restorations", for lack of a better word, we specialize in custom "one off" pinball machines. Our approach is more grandiose as we typically re-manufacture machines as opposed to simply "restoring" them. This is our approach as we feel it yields the best finished product. Hope this clarifies what "PMD" means

Probably the worst part of any restoration project, at least for me anyway, is actually purchasing all of the new parts. I guess I suffer from buyers remorse

For starters, It's always impossible to find one vendor that has everything you'll need. Plus, it's easy to find yourself doing multiple orders throughout the project if you don't do your homework upfront. For this reason I always try to spend several hours, once I have a machine completely torn apart, going through everything to determine what I want to replace. It sucks spending $1000+ on one order, but you'll save a ton of money on shipping fees in the long run.

I work with Excel on a daily bases for my real job, so it just seemed natural to create spreadsheets for tracking pinball parts. I do this for every PMD restoration; it allows me to sort my parts by vendors and keep track of what I've ordered and what I have yet to order. Here's an example:

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As I order parts I highlight those items yellow. Although, it never hurts to stock up on parts

I think size is really your only limitation. Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing several larger items at the same time (for example, multiple flipper brackets) as they will bang into each other, leaving unsightly scratches on the surface of each bracket. Play around with your tumbler and you'll get a feel for what you like in terms of results. I'd recommend starting out this walnut shell media and Flitz. I think Bryan's IJ thread has some good tumbling info in it.

Good luck and enjoy.

Oh, I forgot to mention that tumbling yellow (zinc cadmium) plated parts isn't a good idea I tumbled a bunch of the WPC95 lamp socket screws once and they came out silver, just an FYI.

Time to reproduce the wood playfield rails and prepare the metal ball guides for buffing.

For starts, we'll need to remove the metal ball guides from the original wood rails; this is done with a putty knife as shown below (take your time):

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Next, I remove the L-brackets (playfield mounting brackets) from the metal rails using a hand drill.

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Then I'll run a 1/8" drill bit through the holes in the L-brackets and metal guide rails. I do this because I use standard 1/8" rivets when reassembling the ball guides (the original rivets used on 80s Bally machines have a smaller diameter).

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Finally, for deburring I use a counter sink drill bit.

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The wood rails are cut and routed to original specifications. Now it's time to determine the mounting hole locations. I like to clamp the new rails to the originals and use a square edge to perfectly line the hole locations up.

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Now it's time to use the old drill press; I like to drill my pilot holes about 1/2" deep.

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Here's a look at the finished rails:

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These guys will get sanded, painted, and cleared later

That's it for today.

I use a modified arbor press for riveting. I think this is pretty much what everybody is using these days:

http://www.pinrestore.com/Riveting.html

If you are handy and have access to a drill press you can buy an arbor press from your locate HF store and make your own rivet press. This would certainly save you a few bucks. I’ll post more on this topic once I start reassembling the guide rails. Hope this helps.

Gotta love rusty lockbar receivers

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Here's a close up:

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Sometime even sandblasting isn't enough. When rust is left untreated, pitting occurs.

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Luckily the pitting isn't too bad on the face of the receiver bracket (the portion visible when the lockbar is removed). However, the pitting is deep enough that it would be noticeable even if the receiver was re-plated.

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Time to breakout the die grinder. For more aggressive grinding I use sanding pads.

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This probably goes without saying, but make sure you wear the proper PPE:

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Once the pitting is removed I use a sanding wheel to clean things up.

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Not bad for an hours worth of work

I try to avoid work if possible, but sometimes it's unavoidable

My wife and I used to travel quite a bit before our daughter was born. Several years ago in Salzburg Austria we found a cool little Italian restaurant that severed all sorts of local beers. The waiter recommended I try the Franziskaner. It's been my beer of choice ever since.

Back on topic

Here's a "before" look at all the parts that will be shipped out for nickle plating work. All of these parts where sand blasted as previously documented.

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Not all spray paints are created as equals. Well, at least some products cost more than others anyway

I really like Rustoleum products, so figured I give this stuff a try. It's advertised as "industrial spray paint." I guess that's why it's $30+ (edit - that's the per case price)

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Humm..... What to paint, how about all those nasty corroded black anodized machine screws used on the coin door and coil assemblies? For starters, I cleaned all the screws with my ultrasonic cleaner using a 50/50 H2O degreaser solution. As you can see that didn't do much (notice the rust on some of the screws - no point in painting dirty parts):

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I like to organize my smaller parts (like screws) based on what they are associated with, just makes it easier to put everything back together later. So, I cut pieces of cardboard up - one for each coil assembly and label the cardboard with the primary part's name, like this:

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As stated above, there is no point is painting something if the surface isn't clean, the paint will not properly adhere. So, to save some time I thought I'd experiment with lightly sand blasting the screws. Be careful if you try this, it's easy to blow holes right through the cardboard

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You don't have to remove all of the original plating; you just need to get the surface cleaned, removing rust/corrosion. The sand blasting process should scuff up the metal surface for paint to properly adhere. Here's a look at the finished product:

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It's funny how noticeable a nice shiny gloss black screw can be. It really makes a big difference, at least to me anyway

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My bad. I meant $30+ per case, not can

I usually use the Rustolem "Painters Touch 2X", which is about half the price. Figured I give this stuff a try and see if I liked it more.

Thanks for the tip. I'll have to check it out.

Ok, it's time to remove all of the switches and light bulb sockets.

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This gives me a chance to try out a new toy

Hakko 808 desoldering gun

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Man this thing is a life saver. With these older machines this really is a must have tool.

Now it's time to remove all the light sockets and switches; using a drill makes this a breeze.....

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Here are all the 555 sockets. I've decided to take Freeplay40's advice and upgrade to 44 style sockets throughout the machine. This will save me a ton of time cleaning all the 555 sockets. Plus, the 44s are just more reliable. So, these will get stashed away.

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This playfield is officially stripped

I'll leave the ground braid on it and use the original pf for reference when installing the new ground braid on the CPR playfield.

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Here's a "before" look at all the parts being shipped out for chrome plating work. I'll also be getting new chromed side rails as well. Bling Bling......

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No, the Monster Bash ramps aren't going on the Fathom

I don't typically clean or sandblast the parts I send to Chestnut. I only prep pieces that are extremely rusted/pitted, like the lock bar receiver.

Mike will make sure the parts are properly prepared for plating, so I wouldn't worry about that.

Time to clean up the Squawk and Talk board.

As previously documented, I like to clean PCBs with Krud Kutter (see page 2 of this thread for more details). So, now that the board is clean it's time to replace all of the electrolytic capacitors. This requires a good temperature controlled soldering/de-soldering station, (don't try to work on circuit boards with a 7 dollar Radio Shack soldering iron), like this one:

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I like to work with a temperature setting of 660.

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For starters, we'll need to remove all of the old caps. This is accomplished by using a de-soldering gun, just suck the old solder off the pads and the caps come right off.

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Did you ever wonder how circuit board manufactures in the 80s got the PCB component leads to line up so nicely with the through holes?

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Now, we insert the new capacitors and carefully solder them in place. Remember, the polarity matters

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If you don't have one already you might want to pick up a nice magnifying glass. This makes it easy to inspect your soldering work.

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Everything looks good, so time to cut the leads off.

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All of the caps have now been replaced.

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I'll also re-flow the solder at all of the header pins for good measure.

Luckily I'm not looking to sell this pin anytime soon, so I'm not too worried about the restoration cost