As you can see, the playfield has found its way onto the workbench.

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I've started disassembly and have bagged/tagged all the pieces as I've moved along. Posts all look to be the same height at 1 1/8" finned. A lot of wire ball guides, but not a lot of other complicated parts.

My hopes of getting the playfield restored may be fading a bit though as there are areas on the underside where mechs are loose, wrong screws are used to secure said mechs, etc. No point in having a nice looking playfield if the structural integrity on the bottom is in question. I'll keep investigating.

If you've read thru some of the past refurbishings you know I like to add my own personal touches to the game's playfield. Frontier will be no different.

I have the drop target units pulled and parts are running thru the tumbler. I'm dabbling with several different options to get the targets more to my liking. The original blue (bear/bobcat/wolf?) heads are nice and all, but I thought I'd mix it up a bit with some new target decals. I know the purists will disapprove, but it wouldn't be Pinside if everyone agreed on everything.

Thinking of using Zitt 's translucent drop targets again, but will not be against going back to the standard white depending on what looks best.

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I have several more "adjustments" on the way. Maybe even a new product that Zitt will be offering in terms of aftermarket parts. I cannot disclose what. . . I've probably said too much already!

Happy to share. For starters I can provide you with a picture of the base blue (because it was the same color that I used on Fathom).

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I'll get a couple pictures of the yellow/orange and post them for you soon -- maybe even a better picture of the blue can.

Apologies for the delay.
New hours at the job keep me busier than usual.

I believe the code on the yellow is "LVB-156475"

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The yellow actually had good coverage over the blue, I probably used 1/3 of the can. The orange on the other hand did not cover/hide well and I used the entire can.

You would not know it from the frequency of my postings, but things are slowly rolling forward with Frontier.

Lately the tumbler polisher has been working thru the night cleaning all the hardware bit by bit.

I recently sold my Swords of Fury -- a bittersweet event because I really enjoyed having the game in the game room. Its vacancy was quickly filled by Frontier though and now our project officially has legs to stand on.

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Once all the shuffling was complete I moved Frontier's cousin Fathom in place. There is enough difference in the other colors and artwork between the two that I don't even notice the base blue is the same between them.

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One of my next priorities will be getting the lower cabinet wire harness cleaned up so I can drop it in and then bolt in the upper cabinet (after the power cord is in the proper position).

Trying something a little different to clean the wiring harnesses this time -- at least the cabinet harness first.

Instead of trying to sneak a couple harnesses into the dishwasher I used the little ultrasonic scaler at work, one small section of harness at a time.

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Id did a fantastic job, much better than the dishwasher I think. Just look at all that filth! Dirty harness at the top, clean harness at the bottom.

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Now I have to go back and read thru the Ultrasonic Scaler thread here on Pinside to see if there is a go to bigger unit to upgrade to. I don't need to go all in on a full medical grade unit, but I see a number of 30L units on E-bay for what seem to be reasonable prices.

Thank You Muchly!

I will let you know. I'm leaning towards the 30L size. I'm willing to gamble the asking price on one even though I know some of the cheaper units may have quality control issues. I always have stuff at work that can benefit from such a device.

This weekend I added a fresh set of stainless cabinet rails courtesy of Mantis Amusements (I did have to pay for them, of course).

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I also secured the two cabinets back together. I'm just about finished with the cabinet wiring harness (new line cord, reassembled tilt panel, etc.) but tragically I'm short on ground braid so I'll have to wait until my next parts order before I can install it. Hopefully I can snag a free shipping offer or something for Black Friday.

Translucent Orange flipper buttons from www.pinball-mods.com / http://pinball-mods.com/oscom/replacement-parts-c-28.html

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I took over the kitchen island once again this weekend long enough to swap rectifier boards connected to Frontier's transformer.

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Mounted back on the bracket and secured in place.

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While the iron was hot I reattached the switch and new line cord to the cabinet harness. Money was also spent on several parts orders. . . I should have the needed ground braid soon and I'll be able to secure that harness in its place in the cabinet.

A new tool arrived this week.

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I went with the 30L ultrasonic cleaner that is commonly offered on E-bay. Of course it is packed in a box that is labeled "Made in China" and the metal it is stamped out of is near the thickness of the aluminum foil my mom used to wrap my lunch sandwiches with. . . but considering the price it is about what I expected.

I gave it a trial run with the upper cabinet/display harness today. Before pic with harness, cleaner, and hot water:

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Picture after two 10 minute cycles (flipping harness between each) at 50 degrees C.

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It was loud while in operation, but the new ultrasonic did clean the harness well. I wiped the harness down with a paper towel as I pulled it from the cleaner and did not see a lot of dirt left behind. I was thinking the water should have looked dirtier but this harness probably does not see the filth that the playfield/cabinet harness does. The playfield harness will be the real test.

I am glad I went with the 30L size; the reservoir is not as big as you'd think it would be when the time comes to put parts in.

Finally pulled the playfield harness this weekend.

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I made sure to write the color of each wire next to the corresponding lamp socket on the playfield before removal.

While I was feeling destructive I started taking apart the coin door too.

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Cabinet Progress.

Arrival of the ground braid (along with a bunch of other stuff ) and its subsequent installation allowed other pieces to find their place back in the cabinet.

Tilt/Service Panel:

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View of the lower cabinet's interior. I'm still getting used to the bare bottom look as most of my other games have the transformer down here.

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Sound Board and Solenoid Driver have been recapped. A new Weebly MPU and Lamp Board (Thanks barakandl !) are also installed.

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Looking Good!

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Just need to refurbish the coin door and display panel to call the cabinet done.

A couple reference display panel pictures.

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The backside has some kind of vinylish coating over the wood. Parts around the corners were peeling away and overall it was generaly filthy. I decided to pull it off but it was rather adhered towards the center.

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The heat gun made quick work of removing it though. Work smarter, not harder.

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The wood underneath is almost nice enough to leave/use as is.

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There were enough scrapes and scratches though that I gave it a good sanding down followed by a couple coats of polyurethane. I like the look of the wood. Very Frontier-esque if you ask me.

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Once the poly is dry the front side will get a fresh coat of white.

Meanwhile, back in the game room. . . progress continues on the coin door.

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Display panel has been refurbished and the lamp sockets/harness reinstalled.

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Next step was to re-affix the hinge and display harness.

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It fits! (As it should because this is the original )

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I purchased some Pinitech LED displays to install. . . only I have to assemble them first before they can be mounted.

I was brave enough to plug the game in and test out my replacement rectifier board.

No smoke, burnt smell, or fire. I like the Pinhead rectifier boards offered at Pinball Resource -- the lit LEDs at the top are a nice touch. My High Voltage lamp is not lit because I pulled the fuse. I will not have a need to run higher voltage with the LED displays.

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I plugged in a few more connectors and all the boards seem happy with one another. Proper amount of MPU flashes, GI is lit in the display panel, and my speaker even let out a boot up Whoooop.

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I'm waiting for a replacement coin door flap to arrive from Cliffy to put the door back together. . . once that is done and my displays are built I'll officially be done with the cabinet. Then we can get down to business with the playfield!

And who do you think enlightened Matt? (I highly doubt it was me! )

Hopefully Frontier will turn out to be near as nice as your Xenon. You guys over to the East do some nice work.

On Frontier I chose to use Pinitech LED displays.

As mentioned earlier the LED displays do not use the high voltage. This may put less stress on some parts of the machine but it may also put less stress on me should I somehow come in contact with parts of the electrics I'm not supposed to.

I chose to go with Pinitech's Uno design -- a one piece display unit. Link to the website:

https://www.pinitech.com/products/ballystern_display_uno.php

The parts arrived promptly in a do-it-yourself kit.

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Now I'd like to think I can solder a diode with the best of them, but I'd typically buy these sorts of things preassembled. My eyes need more powerful glasses to see these little parts anymore and anytime something needs assembled the potential exists for incorrect installation. No preassembled units were available on the website, so DIY it is.

Carefully trying to follow the directions via the web.

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First unit assembled. Or so I thought. I was not until later that I realized I missed installing a diode at the lower left corner. At least I had all my capacitor polarities correct.

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I assembled the six digit display Friday while on my work lunch break.

Back home I finished assembling the seven digit displays and secured them to the display panel.

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I powered up so you could see my color choice. . . white. I used a jumper wire at the coin door connector to add credits to watch the numbers work.

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I set the backglass in place to check positioning. Everything seems to line up!

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Now I just need that Cliffy coin door flap to arrive.

Finally time to give some attention to Frontier's playfield(s).

Some time back I picked up an extra playfield. The original playfield had mylar over the center section and was nice enough that I did not want to sand it down to apply a hard top, even though it had wear down to the wood in a couple areas.

The second playfield has a lot of wear and worn inserts -- but of course has little to no wear in the areas that the original does. Whatever.

My original is the one with the wood rails still installed.

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A close up of wear and worn inserts on the hardtop candidate.

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On my last parts order I talked myself into buying these.

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If I had a bare playfield and was going to install a hardtop I might as well replace some inserts, right? I chose this route for two reasons. One, I can swap out the green inserts for another color as they really don't fit with the rest of Frontier's color palate. Two, the white inserts have yellowed over time to a cream color -- unless that was the color that was installed back in the day.

A new vs. old comparison:

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I'll tap out the old and install the new, but not before addressing one or two other preparation steps first. More on that in the next post.

The first of my preparations was to sand the backside of the playfield. There were a lot of bumpy areas after staple/fastener removal and personally I'm not a fan of the gray.

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Next step was to flip over and remove mylar. Usually the freeze spray does the trick for me but this time I had to use the heat gun to accomplish the task.

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Time to remove the inserts. The heat gun helped with the smaller inserts but most of the larger ones were easy to remove with one tap of the hammer/punch.

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Mylar adhesive removal was next. I did not get every last speck of it off, I'll leave that to the sander. I did want to remove most of it though so as not to gum up my sandpaper.

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Instead of painting the backside of the playfield I gave it a coat of Golden Pecan stain followed by a good coating of Polyurethane. The gloss in this picture will soften to a nice satin look.

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Letting the stain/poly dry. It will be nice to have the second playfield as reference when adding parts back on.

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I like the wood grain look. Very Frontiersy if you ask me.

Next up should be adding inserts back in.

Perhaps some scorch marks will be added in when I solder the playfield harness back on.

A slow day at work allowed for the beginnings of insert installation.

A two-part epoxy was applied to the wood opening as well as the rim of the insert prior to tapping each one in place.

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I did decide to deviate from the original color choices in some areas. The 2X is still yellow, 3X is now blue (vs. green), and 4X is now red (vs. white). All specials are now amber/orange. All colors are now translucent where as before there was a mix of opaque and translucent. The large one inch inserts are still opaque white as that is what looks best behind the illuminated predators.

A close up of some colors.

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Red, Yellow, and Blue compliment the rest of the playfield nicely. Especially when compared to the green -- which I don't think is utilized anywhere in the artwork. I also replaced the A-B-C rollover inserts at the top (originally green) with translucent yellow.

I did not replace the yellow arrow inserts because I could not find suitable replacements from all the usual sources. All out of stock.

As is usually the case with me, I missed one insert on my order. I'm sure you can see which one. Sadly that means no sanding or hardtop installation over the holiday weekend. . . but that is ok because there is still plenty more to do.

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Speaking of plenty more to do, I stopped over my brother's house after work to look over his Flash Gordon. He is blowing a fuse on his power supply board and I think he has a compromised bridge rectifier. Discussions quickly escalated from replacing the board to an overall refurbish of his game. I told him I'd have to think about it.

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I was not aware that picture was being taken.

Merry Christmas Pinside!!!

An addendum to yesterday's post. Look close and you will see that two inserts are missing on the "new" playfield.

I intentionally left the star rollover insert out so I can install it level/flush once the hardtop is installed. Its the red "Special" insert at the right side of the Frontier arc that was missed.

Everyone can now have a wonderful Christmas with that all cleared up!

Happy New Year Pinside!

Started off 2022 right by getting some pinball work in. That and I changed a leaking transmission line on the winter pin hauler, but I doubt anyone wants to hear much about that.

The missing playfield insert was ordered, arrived, and was installed so it was onto the next step -- sanding.

If I'm being honest, this was a bit sad for me. More often than not I am a preservationist and would prefer to keep the original art. Frontier just has too much detail for me to have a chance at saving this playfield though so off I went starting with some 80 grit.

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The art was gone with the blink of an eye in most spots. I also noticed that the "cream" color in the areas under the plastics was probably white all those years ago. The feathered edges definitely look white in the section towards the left of this picture.

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After 80 grit I jumped to 220, then I went over the entire playfield with 400. The next step was to target the colored translucent inserts with some 600 grit, 1000, then 2000 for a finishing touch.

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I also focused some attention on the shooter lane. It was scoured with 80, 220, then 400 just like the rest of the playfield, only this time it was done by hand. I used a small cylinder (7/16" deep well socket I think) to thoroughly sand the bevel.

Before calling it a day I gave the entire playfield several coats of clear to seal the wood. Nothing fancy this time, just some rattle can Rustoleum.

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An attempt to backlight the inserts with an LED shop light. Not the best color saturation, but you get the idea.

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A non-cropped view so you can see some of the other chaos in the shop.

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I'll let the clear gas out for a couple days before moving onto the hardtop install. I'll also put a light behind each insert to make sure there is nothing that needs touched up on the surface before its permanently sealed off.

(Mostly) Reassembled Flipper Mechanisms.

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I know that some Pinsiders are not fond of the linear flipper mechanism/design. It has been suggested that the earlier design was superior and that linear mechs could be switched out for them.

I don't currently have any extra early flipper mechs to substitute in and I had the rebuild kit available for the linears so that is what I used.

Most importantly, the coil wrappers were updated to a flashy Frontier Orange!

I hope they hold up too!

For what its worth the linears on my Fathom have held up well. Is it getting hundreds of plays a week? No. Would I be saying the same thing after taking it to a show? Maybe not.

I can always swap out mechanisms to the older style later should I come across a set. I hated not to use the rebuild kit that I found in my parts stash.

Last night I worked on swapping out the battered, opaque standup targets with some translucent replacements.

Sourced from www.pinball-mods.com.

I soldered in new diodes and capacitors for good measure.

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Zitt does not offer a replacement for the large standup in his store (yet! ), but I have a plan for a replacement.

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I'll try making my own! I cut a replacement from a piece of acrylic.

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Sadly I soon realized the rivets I ordered were too large at 1/8" diameter. I sourced up some 3/32" of the proper length but had to order 100 of them. If anyone reading this finds themselves in need of a couple I'd be happy to help.

That will likely happen whether I planned it or not. . . the day job has been rather demanding lately. I can sneak a few minutes in here or there in the evening for pinball work but I want to be able to focus when it comes time to drop the hardtop down.

Its already been five days -- what is a few more, right?

Feel free to offer up any debate here. I'm open minded to any inquires, advice, and maybe even a small bit of criticism.

For the record, this is my first hardtop install.

Spraying the clear was probably more of an effort to seal the wood of the playfield rather than enhance the shine of the inserts. Same as how the backsides are usually painted gray before anything is installed. Clear just looks better over inserts than gray.

Truth be told, polishing the inserts up with a super fine grit of sandpaper probably does not give them a lot of tooth for the clear to adhere to. I was not the most thorough when using the finer grits over the inserts -- I just went over them enough to take away some of the haze.

It would be rather difficult to mask off all the inserts before applying the clear (and might cause more problems anyway), so I just cleared over everything.
I went with a couple light coats, so hopefully nothing will fog over or chip away. At least on Frontier most of the major inserts are opaque white and some fogginess might not be so obvious.

Looking forward to sticking the hardtop on the playfield this weekend. . . should be a fun moment to post about as I have still not decided how I am going to go about it. (But I have a few ideas. )

I appreciate the advice. If time allows I might try dropping the hardtop on this afternoon.

The Cliffy coin return flap arrived this week.

That allowed assembly and installation of the coin door.

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Now I just need to source up a nice looking button head nail to tap into the cabinet to keep the coin return button from hitting the wood when/if the door swings open. There was just a flat head nail in that spot on this cabinet originally but I'd like to give it an upgrade.

No Pinball time on Saturday. It was a bit chilly but at least the ground was frozen and that allowed us to get out and gather up some more firewood.

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The excavator was used to clear up a log jam near the creek.

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