Rain on Sunday did allow me to work on Frontier's Hardtop.

Step one was preparation. I had noticed a film or residue on the bottom side of the clear insert areas. Probably most visible on the 10,000 insert in this picture.

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I tried removing it with Novus 1 but it had little effect. I found a bottle of Mr. Clean all purpose cleaner and sprayed it on a soft polishing cloth -- that did the trick without damaging the insert lettering/numbering.

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I trimmed up the shooter lane. There was a bit more hardtop material than necessary along the outer edge.

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Lastly, I blew everything down with compressed air and tacked both the playfield and hardtop surfaces.

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It was time to stick the Hardtop in place.

Because the bottom edge/outhole side was clear and without adhesive I decided to use that area as the site to secure the hardtop to the playfield with clamps. Careful alignment of the inserts was attempted -- I was able to achieve that even though a number of the other holes/openings were less than perfect.

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I drug Dad over to help me out. I had him hold the hardtop up at the upper edge while I peeled the backing down by the outhole. Slowly the backing was removed and the hardtop was laid in place. No pics of the process in action -- just a couple afterwards. Its on!

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One small step for pinball, one giant leap for Frontier.

Yes!

Let's just hope it stays stuck, right?

I enjoyed looking gazing upon the adhered hardtop for at least three minutes before moving on to installing wood rails. . . but more about that later.

Earlier on I mentioned that the rollover insert would be installed once the hardtop was in place.

Outside Edge makes the rollover openings smaller so you are able to fit to your playfield and not worry about misalignment -- but you do have to worry about making the opening larger.

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The website has a video in which Skypilot demonstrates how to enlarge the hole with a dremel and sanding drum. Believe it or not I do not have a dremel; but I do have a drill. I chucked up a grinding stone that was rolling around in the tool box and went to work. The stone did a decent job of enlarging the hole but the plastic material did start to gum it up after awhile.

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Once I had the hole close to the desired size I shelved the drill and trimmed the edges with a new razor knife. I think it turned out well.

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Rollover insert installed. I opted for a clear insert to compliment the crystalline waters of Frontier Falls.

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Frontier's wood rails are actually made of solid wood. At least on my game they were anyway.

I thought I'd avoid having to worry about drilling new holes/upper arch slots by cleaning up/painting the originals.

The thing is, when I swapped playfields I ended up having to drill holes anyway. The rails on the original playfield were mostly held in with staples, but I would be mounting the rails with screws. Drill baby drill!

I clamped a rail in place, drilled pilot holes from the underside, then secured it with screws.

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Refurbished rails in place. Following mrm_4 's advice I stood back and looked at the updated playfield for awhile. It sure is pretty!

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Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate the nice comments!

Last night I worked on making some new wire ball guides.

Several were broken on Frontier. I picked up some .09 inch stainless wire to make replacements out of. Normally I'd just bend these using the vise in the shop, but this time I thought I'd try the wire jig offered by Marco's.

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I screwed the jig to a solid piece of cribbing I had in the shop to keep the it stable while bending the wire. I'd consider attaching it right to the workbench but my table has a stainless steel worktop that I did not want to drill holes into.

First bend in, so far so good.

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Using the original piece as a guide I marked and bent the second leg.

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After trimming the leg I repeated the process three more times to replace the other guides that were broken.

A couple pictures of both new and old guides in place. Can you tell which have been replaced?

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Full playfield with all wire guides installed. With that accomplished my next step will be moving onto the backside for some T-nut and lamp socket installation.

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I hear you and can see the difference too.

I figure I missed out on the original look when I installed the hardtop.

Me either.

T-Nuts installed.

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It looks like the worker with the stapler at the factory was mad when this playfield came along -- check out that upper corner on the in-line drop target side.

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Also added on several more items to the bottom of the playfield.

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One of my great frustrations in pinball is soldering GI wire to flat stapled lamp sockets. This time I'm trying something new (for me) by bending up the outside tap of sockets that have a harness wire soldered to them. Maybe this is what everyone else does and I'm behind the times. Maybe this way will be more difficult than with flat tabs. I'll have to report back.

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There was some other work done but I've had to stop for the time being. I'm waiting to hear back from people smarter than I about what to do next. Hopefully I can better explain in one of my next posts.

Thanks!

I'll definitely make sure to tin my tabs.

My frustrations have more to do with needing an extra hand. One to hold the iron, one to apply solder, and one to keep the wire(s) in place!

You must have watched me in the past as that sounds exactly like what I do!

I need to mark my screwdriver with some bright paint though as I cannot tell you how many times I set it down between soldering wires and it just disappears when I look to grab it for the next one.

I did take some measurements of the center target.

One and a half inches wide, a bit more than one inch tall.

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I have several extra of 1 1/2" X 1" transparent red poly that I'd be happy to send you if it would help. You'll have to source a switch. I need/want to keep my original with this game though as you never know how the next guy along might want it to look.

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I could measure my Nine Ball target, but I agree they do look similar in size. I do think the Nine Ball target uses 1/8" diameter rivets vs. the 3/32" diameter used on Frontier (and I suspect Paragon -- another game with this sort of target in the center).

I had a piece of the red poly cut down into rectangles.

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The cutter got the width right, but shorted me a bit on the height.

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If anyone out there needs a translucent rectangle (slightly imperfect) for their Frontier, Paragon, or Nine Ball just send me a PM. I have plenty of extras to spare. I'll even include a set of 3/32" rivets.

I know the wire harness obscures a lot of the T-nuts in this pic, but hopefully you can see a number of them on the original playfield with the hex head fasteners. They should help to prevent your T-nut from wobbling loose from the playfield wood and spinning free on the underside.

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With a new playfield you probably don't have to worry as much.

Seeing as I was re-using an original playfield with existing T-nut tooth holes I thought it best to be as secure as possible. Plus, all the holes were already there anyway. . . might as well use them without worrying I'm going to drill thru the playfield.

Sooo I'm still waiting to hear back from Outside Edge, but I thought I'd share what I'm dealing with that is holding up progress.

It is my understanding that at one time in the manufacturing process something was left out of the chemical mixture in the hardtop adhesive. The resulting issue was the artwork could pull away from the underside of the clear polycarbonate hardtop. I think this Frontier hardtop may be a victim as the following pictures may show. I've not introduced a lot of stress/action to the hardtop surface and I'm seeing several areas pull away.

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It is looking like I will have to pull this hardtop and install another. Two steps forward. . . one step back.

Yes, I saw things unfold in Matt's thread.

I've PM'd both mrm_4 and Skypilot about it -- they seem to think the same thing.

Now I just need to hear back from Outside Edge about receiving a replacement so I can start moving forward again.

Only if you can hold a Corona (or similar beverage) in the other hand.

Thanks!

As far as I know Outside Edge has corrected the problem and no current hardtops should be plagued with it. This just happened to be one that snuck out while the issue was being identified.

Last night I installed my new rectangle standup target. Due to the thickness (1/8") it looks darker than the standups, but once illuminated more of the red shows through.

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I need to see how the targets look compared to the red fin posts. I've already given thought to using a hole saw to make new round targets in the same color. . . I'll try to hold back for now.

Kicking around some ideas in terms of pop bumper colors.

Thanks to offerings at www.pinball-mods.com (Pinsider Zitt ) I have some interesting options.

Clear.

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Color matched to playfield with red/yellow. (Sorry about the focus).

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Blue.

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I like using the translucent bodies to allow for better illumination on the playfield. At first I thought I'd go with the clear parts to accomplish that task, but the different color combinations are gaining my favor.

I have to remember that there will be a lot of red on the playfield once the finned posts and standups are in place. To even things out a bit I'm leaning towards the blue -- but I'm waiting on an order of skirts for the complete look.

As a nod towards the original design I've had my decal person cut me some bumper cap art in white that I applied over the blue translucent cap's also found in Zitt 's website.

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Still waiting to hear back from Outside Edge. I'm running out of side tasks to do!

I've had multiple people have similar opinions.

I'm looking forward to a complete mockup of both options. . . too bad one cannot offer a Pinside Poll for a single post topic. Perhaps when the time comes I'll open a new thread for just that purpose.

Jumped back onto a different project this weekend.

Regular readers will remember a long time back that the engine was pulled out of dad's 1953 Ford Pickup for a rebuild. Its been a slow process, but the engine was disassembled, bored out, reassembled, test run, and now sits back in the truck.

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I'm working on getting a new wiring harness installed. I think dad went a little overboard when he ordered the more complicated harness (I would have just made my own!). I'll not complain about pinball wiring for the near future anyway.

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Finished up most of the engine wiring this week.

Also cleaned up the carb, alternator, fitted oil and fuel lines. . . getting close to the first start in the truck.

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On more of a pinball related note, I did get to talk with Outside Edge last week and I hope to have a replacement hardtop in hand soon. . . maybe I can get back on topic by the weekend.

Thanks Cosmo!

I've admired your work in many of your restoration threads. . . it's an honor to have you stop by here!

I decided it was time to rip the band-aid off so to speak.

I backtracked and removed the wood rails and wire guides. I have some concerns about how secure the wire guides will eventually be after all of this but I've read that using some Elmer's wood glue should keep them in place.

To remove the hardtop I used the heat gun while gradually lifting, starting at the adhesive-free area under the apron. I did manage to pull up most of the adhesive with the hardtop -- having sprayed the entire playfield with clear definitely helped with this. I did not take the time to take pictures of the process -- reverse progress makes me crabby and I was not in the mood.

Bruce at Outside Edge said he liked using acetone to remove the remaining adhesive. While it will do the job the acetone also broke through my rattle can clear coat so I had to be careful to stay away from the inserts while cleaning.

Picture after removal. If it was not for the rollover insert and lamp sockets you'd think I was posting a picture from a month ago.

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The new hardtop is scheduled to arrive this week. At this time my only concern is what I should do with the rollover insert. Remove it vs. use the old hardtop as a template to cut the hole. I'll have to line things up to see if the layout is the same.