Mine's on the way! I'm terrified of this undertaking as I've never done anything this complex with a machine. Only been at it since February. Here's hoping I don't screw it up! This guide will be a big help -- glad it exists.

I don't think I'll redo the cabinet art; mine's 'good enough' for me. I'm not really one for immaculate cabinets anyway.. Everything gets banged up a little going up/down my crappy stairs. Those awful black legs will likely get powder coated though, they look gross.
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Fantastic. Thanks a bunch!

I'm confident I can do this, I'm just.... Nervous.

Displays are already done up with XPIN and I'm going to get one of the red ramps from freeplay40 once I start stripping things down Other than that, I need to resolve the adjust error (NVRAM or remote battery holder should do it, I'd imagine) and I should be in pretty decent shape. We'll see.

It's certainly not perfect but none of my cabs are.. not even the World Cup Soccer I spent *loud gagging noises* $3200 on. But again I'm not THAT kind of collector so I don't really care all that much. The HS cab is still one of my nicer cabs, and for the $800 it cost me, I couldn't care less Your redone HS cab is GORGEOUS.

Really, most everything I have (not looking at you, WCS, and probably not you either, SS.. Lol) has been stupid cheap by today's pinflated prices (Af-Tor $1000, Alien Poker $700, Eight Ball Deluxe/Meteor/Black Knight 2000 $2000, High Speed (same seller) $800) and with that comes some certain level of ugliness SOMEWHERE. It is what it is. I'll just call it "character"... Lol

What excites me is that I feel like I'm pretty close to having what I feel to be a nice, well-rounded 5pin lineup (EBD--needs a hardtop!, Meteor, hardtopped Space Shuttle, World Cup Soccer, and High Speed). I've done lots of swapping around to get to this point in hopes that the five machines I have will all get solid play time by not only me, but by my kids as well. Fingers crossed.

-Jordan

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Some lucky finds for sure. Not every day does someone stumble across a BK2K/EBD/Meteor/HS ready-made lineup for the cost of BK2K (which I got bored with and eventually sold). Pure luck. Comparitively speaking I paid full on retail for WCS and SS... But I really wanted both and both were 'ready to go' needing basically nothing. That and I piggybacked the purchases off handsome profits from both Af-Tor and BK2K. Trying to build a nice lineup on a budget, in 2019, has certainly tested my skills on trading up and out lmao

-Jordan

Oh! Oh! Oh! What could this be (OTHER than horribly overgrown grass I'm too lazy to cut)?!
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Hahahahaha

It's all done! What a breeze.

Seriously though, I need to get my ass in gear. Seeing wamonkey's progress makes me super jealous lol
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Just doing the hardtop (and replacing ramp with that wonderful freeplay40 red ramp at the same time) plus flipper rebuilds will take me quite a while.

I should do some powder coating too, while it's all torn apart. Mind showing yours off a bit?

My powder guy is awesome and I've been itching to do SOME pinball.. Might as well be the one that's getting torn apart to hardtop. Just gotta decide on colors.
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Can't wait to see!

I love the texture. It looks outstanding on the Neo Geo. Mine was a real ugly turd when I bought it lmao

Oo, looks nice!

I'm kicking around some various ideas -- red, yellow, black.. I love the texture I got on my neo geo but it seems everyone who puts powder on pinball machines goes with glosssssssy sheen, no texture. Just not sure it would look as good.

I'm going to try tearing into HS this weekend I think. I want to get started.

Looking good wamonkey! Still haven't had a chance to do much with mine.. I put new legs on and removed the security bar over the weekend though!

Hoping to pull the PF and finally get to work soon. Maybe seeing you finish yours will help push me forward.

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Finally did something. Here we go.

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Slow progress. I'm not gonna lie, I'm a bit queasy about this.

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All I have to do is play my hardtopped Space shuttle to know this NEEDS to happen.. But that doesn't make me any less nervous lol

I can't really say as I've only owned it a few weeks. There was a scare when I brought it home because I didn't adequately protect the bottom of it from the sun and it lifted slightly but it appears to have settled back down. I got lucky my own stupidity didn't ruin it.

It's an amazing product and plays like a sheet of glass. I can't wait to try high speed with it.

Painfully slow progress

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She's beautiful. You did a great job!

Wish I could, but not this year I'm afraid!

I'm feeling sicker about this as I go along. I really hope I can sort it all out from my pictures when I go to reassemble.

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In theory this SHOULD be pretty straightforward but I'm definitely getting overwhelmed / horrified of the prospect of turning what was a fully functional machine into a giant brick. No idea if the pictures I've taken along the way have been sufficient or if my sorting of parts will prove effective in any way. I definitely need to get to sanding soon so I can start reassembly sooner rather than later.

Good God I hope you're right.

Getting pretty close to being able to lay down the hardtop to check alignment.. Then start sanding.

I'll will myself forward enough to sand and apply the hardtop, then worry about reassembly from there. This is definitely further into the deep end than I was probably ready for, only having done minor adjustments and drop rebuilds in the 6 or so months I've been doing things with pinball machines.. Lol

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All that's left is to hammer out the bumper threaded pins and then the mylar in that area, then I'm ready to start sanding this damn thing. But I'm pretty sure you're going to catch me soon..I move very slowly!
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It's taken me so much longer than that to get this far, lmao

I think that's the only reason I was willing to start this process. As drowned as I feel right now, I'm confident there will be ample help available once I'm in the "where the hell did THIS go?!" phase.

I can't see myself ever NEEDING to replace them (never know though, I guess--threads get stripped all the time) but I also can't see myself doing all the other crap I've done with this and NOT hammering those out. Shouldn't be too huge a deal, tbh. I just need to do it. I'm hoping I can get started sanding this weekend, so that leaves me a couple evenings to convince myself to remove the pop assemblies so I can hammer the pins out.

Not sure how much additional support those pins lend to holding the hardtop down but I certainly wouldn't want ANY waviness in the pop area for sure. Anything that helps to avoid that is probably worth doing.

Wouldn't it make sense to, at a minimum, enlarge (VERY SLIGHTLY) the holes on the hardtop for those just in case they should ever need replaced? Seems you'd run the risk of destroying the hardtop to get them out later on down the road if you didn't and they were under the hardtop..? Granted this is purely hypothetical and not something I ever anticipate having to address... But I'm a computer programmer by trade, it's been drilled in my head to future-proof anywhere possible, any time I can!

I think I'll just leave em alone. I'm antsy to start sanding so I can open up an entirely new can of worms to panic over. Also I want to get this damn thing back together because I have 5 pins and it seems like only two of the four (not including HS because, duh) play worth a crap right now. Getting HS finished should--hopefully--get that count back to three, so I have a bit of variety.

Playing Eight Ball Deluxe, with as rough as it is currently, almost seems more like punishment than enjoyment. Can't wait to hardtop that one.

Appreciate the continued interest in the process and willingness to discuss concerns, ideas, etc. It's nice when people don't just disappear into the weeds once THEIR project is complete.

Looks outstanding man!

Yeah I haven't touched mine since getting the PF stripped down. I wanted to do some work this weekend but it just hasn't materialized. It is what it is.

I've been told I'll bore quickly with high speed, "because it's so simplistic" but I'm not entirely sure that's true. Between the goofy wild SFX (and the beacon) and the fact that I tend to PREFER the simplistic 80s games to newer stuff (I find them overwhelming and thus frustrating to play), I think it'll stick around in my collection for a bit. May not be a permanent fixture but definitely "for a bit".

Not gonna lie, this feels like about the worst thing I've ever done

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Done for now. Urf.

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I can feel one ridge near the arrows approaching the highway so I need to sand a little more there, but after that I can start working on the shooter lane, minor touch up on the ball eject hole, and then polishing the inserts before clearing.

My goal was to have all the sanding done before it got stupid cold again (Monday) although I'm pretty sure my dad's wood shop is in a heated garage, so I should be able to clear it there.

And yeah, sanding it down made me just a wee bit nauseous.

I'm a bit confused on the shooter lane. It doesn't seem to be looking any better as I'm going along and I'm really nervous about doing... Too much.. do I just keep going?

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Sanded some more, not looking any better. I'm giving up for now and taking a step back. Either my approach is wrong or..I don't know.

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Hmm, magic eraser instead of sandpaper.. It's at least less destructive. I'll give that a shot and see if it cleans any of the gunk out. I just figured it'd come out quickly with sandpaper and.. It's not.

Did some more, but I'm starting to get really nervous so I think it's almost to that "as good as I'm going to get it" point. Definitely not a professional job... But I'm also not a professional.

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Those pictures were after a little bit of 50/50 alcohol was rubbed in. It's definitely less grungy than it was when I started, just sucks to not be able to get it all the way..I don't trust my hand.

Yup, I'm liking that idea more and more!

I'm a bit unclear on how shiny/clear the inserts should be prior to clearcoating the entire thing. Any advice?

Yeah, that's what I was reading. Just doesn't seem to me that 220 appears to be 'enough'. But I'm in a bit over my head so I know.. Very little.

Finally got back to this with some new supplies in hand. I gave it a light round of 240 with my 6" DA and then switched to wetsanding with a block and 500 grit. Was feeling pretty good about progress until I looked closer at a few of the inserts. Any advice? Do I need to go back to a course grit to get this out, or is some of this just... What it is?
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120->240->500 (wet)->1000 (wet)->1200 (wet)->Novus 3-2-1

Wish they all shined up like the hotdogs. We'll see how it all looks dry. I'll save wiping it all down with alcohol for right before I'm ready to clear it.
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Doh. You're right. Okay, so how about this question..

Several of my inserts have this kind of stuff going on. Will this show through once cleared? I'm assuming yes...

These are back down to 1000 grit.

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Sorry, thought I mentioned them looking better when I wiped down with alcohol (I don't have naptha, at least right now). Going to clear it (as soon as it's warm enough, I guess) and see how it looks. I went over all the inserts with the 1000 grit again last night.

Oh man... That's what I was afraid of..

Not a ton of progress... Too damn cold to go finish clearing the shooter lane... Still need to finish polishing inserts afterward, also. Not going to clear the whole thing.

Boards came out and are headed for refurbishing/bulletproofing by one of the best resources I know. He's getting my space shuttle boards to do at the same time.

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This shooter lane is going to make me pull my hair out. I can NOT get these pin-holes to fill in when I spray. What am I doing wrong?!

I keep spraying and then wetsanding back to 500, hoping they'll fill in on the next round of clear. A few have but the majority just refuse.

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Those spots are covered, yes. But there are plenty of pinholes in the actual lane itself. The hardtop does cover a lot of this though so maybe I'm worrying too much. But it looks BAD.

Also, why the hell does the point for the hardtop sit so damn high on mine?!
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No no, ignore THOSE. I know the actual holes in the playfield are supposed to be there. I'm talking about the patchy clearcoat that refuses to fill in no matter what I do.

Random question, but.. cliffy for the kickout along with the hardtop? Yes/no? On top of or below the hardtop?

Not that high speed is any closer to being up and working as far as the hardtop goes (finally decided I'm just going to sand down all the crappy clearcoat I sprayed on it and start over on the shooter lane) but the boards are back from being repaired, with NVRAM installed. It cycles through the attract mode callouts which is neat at least..

Now it's too cold to spray, again, but I'll probably work on some sanding this weekend. I NEED to get rid of those fisheyes--they're hideous.

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Thanks! I'm feeling the lineup pretty well. I'm still surprised how much fun EBD is, even in the poor state mine is in. I think that's a testament for how much fun it will be once it's hardtopped.

As for high speed, my woes continue. I took off some of the finish on the shooter lane trying to get rid of those pinholes that are making the clear look so bad (and even with sanding THAT hard, I STILL didn't get rid of all of the pinholes) so I guess now I'm looking at filling and then re-staining prior to clearing. I'm definitely in over my head on that so I'm bringing my dad into the fold (he's got a full woodshop). Really wishing I hadn't been so aggressive with the shooter lane to begin with, it's really added a lot of grief to my plate.

I really screwed up my shooter lane (not the trough itself, that's actually fine) pretty badly on HS. I think I'm at the original "worst case scenario" from when I started, where I've sanded off part of the stain trying to remove the stupid pinholes. So now I'm thinking I need to finish the job to get it all over consistent color, then lightly re stain, then clear. The hardtop and wood rails should cover any sloppiness I will no doubt have.

EBD came to me with Meteor and Black Knight 2000 (which I've since sold), all three for $2000. The high speed actually came from the same person, for $800. Can't complain one bit about not only the prices but also the titles I got from such a scenario. She also had a Pinbot but that somehow was the only one that sold quickly. The others sat on Facebook for months, in one of the most aggressive markets around here .. no idea. I'll take that blind luck though! They all did a lot of sitting and need TLC but nothing that shouldn't be expected from somewhat neglected/forgotten machines.

I'm hoping to finish dialing all these in and just play them for a bit. Funny though, I was so mad I couldn't immediately flip EBD because I didn't think it was worthy of keeping long term.. I'm an idiot. Glad I wasn't able to sell it, now!
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Really didn't want to share the picture because it's honestly a bit embarrassing but here it is...

'stained' may not be the proper term for what was done originally--I'm not sure--but there was definitely something done, intentionally, to highlight the shooter lane and I don't think it's just age/wear showing through... Maybe I'm wrong. At this point I see staining (slightly, not too terribly much) as my only real option to make this look presentable. As for whether I can sand those holes out, or fill them..I have no idea. It's fighting me the entire way.

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Probably best to ask here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/official-hardtops-thread/page/23#post-5382692

Yeah, basically my thinking here. I'm not aiming for 'perfect' -- nothing about the rest of this thing is or will be perfect, but it should be a good players example, same as all my other machines -- but I can't accept a splotchy miscolored lane, nor could I accept those awful pinholes. They were clear as day under the hardtop even with both the top and bottom film still on the hardtop. No way.

Pure, unadulterated luck. I ended up flipping the BK2K (ironic, as that was the only one from that 3pc pickup that I actually wanted) for $2700 and that offset a ton of the cost. Otherwise I'd be lucky to have anywhere near what I have. Clearing out some other stepping stone titles along the way, I think I've got around $4500 in the 5. My goal is to not go over 5000 with everything done to them. Really it means nothing, but it'll make me feel good to be able to say I pulled it off. High Speed just needs to stop fighting me so I can reassemble and then start on EBD. The shooter lane is DIRTY on it but it appears to have good coloring still, so I'll be much less aggressive with it, to try avoiding what I'm dealing with now. That said, the shooter lane on HS looked like crap to begin with.

OH, also... Looking back at my pictures from the day I sanded the art off... It's clear as day I had ALREADY butchered the shooter lane. Yuck.

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Good points. I didn't sand under the apron at all. I still could, I guess. My line of thinking was that the primary audience for a hardtopped game is significantly different than the audience of a super nice original. Thus, something unseen (for the most part) like under the apron really didn't matter all that much. Having things look good where they're in plain view (shooter lane, inserts, anywhere that might show the PF under the hardtop) and the game playing well (with bulletproofed boards, LED displays, etc) are far more important to the kind of person who would potentially be interested in buying it if I were to sell it later. I nixed originality all over the place on this thing the second I bought it--why not, I was just going to hardtop it anyway.

Still no idea if it's a 'forever' kind of game for me. Mine played like crap and I couldn't hardly make the ramp, so all my scores were dreadful. But the overall goofiness is likely perfect for my kids to enjoy long term, so I'm anticipating that it will be popular here once I'm done with it and I'm not looking at it as some sort of profitable flip endeavor.

My pf wasn't completely trashed when I started, imo, but the kind of damage it had wouldn't have been terribly easily fixed and I certainly wouldn't have had the skill to do it. Something tells me I'd have paid significantly more to hire that out than the hardtop cost me.

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Doing my best to make this look some level of acceptable so I can move forward. The main thing I needed to do was to get some paint on the sides because the clear didn't want to fill and left hideous dimples. This is definitely sub-par work, but it is what it is.
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Think I'm ready to clear. I've officially hit "whatever, good enough".

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I'm really not happy with it much at all, to be honest, but I'm really tired of messing with it. I liked the natural tones with clear over it but the clear refused to fill all the way in and that's why I'm here. I've got some pretty crappy looking lanes on some of my games, and this one looked BAD before I started sanding it, so whatever. But yeah, not fully in love with it myself unfortunately.

You know, I really considered that. I realized at one point I was in too deep because when I sanded the original art at the beginning, I went too far and got in to the only part that's clear on The hardtop. That's what really sent me down this road. The lane on mine was BAD but I might have been a bit less aggressive with the sandpaper if I hadn't sanded too far in to begin with. Oh well, it is what it is.

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Meh. I hate it even more today. Too cold to clear anyway, so I'm mixing some gray to match. Screw it.
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Eh, I stripped it all off. If the gray looks bad I'll take another stab at getting a good brown tone maybe.

Trying to color match currently (not quite there yet), kinda wanna see if this looks heinous or not.
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You're not wrong. Of all of my machines, only Space Shuttle -- and only because it was hardtopped -- has a nice, clean / clearcoated shooter lane. The others are all various states of suck. But before I started looking at them specifically, I never really noticed, or cared.

I probably should have just cleared this ugly paint and called it a day. I slapped on a coat of gray (color is still not right, so just overlook that for now) just to see if I even liked how it was going to look... Not sure I'm digging it. So now I'm back to trying to mix a better shade of brown so I can paint like I had it previously, I suppose... This is definitely taking years off my life.

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Stripped off all of the paint and got it back as close as I could to where I had it prior to paint (stripping paint off of course added some ugliness), bought some 2X gloss clear to try, and finally gave in and bought naptha to make sure everything was really clean between coats. Finally getting some good shine and less fisheyes (by far) than before. Hoping to move back to unmasking and polishing so I can apply this hardtop soon. Good weather helps.

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Ended up with some fisheyes I don't think I can fix; going to ignore them and move on. Good enough. I've got some inserts to polish again, then I need to go over them all again just to be really sure I'm happy with them, and then it's time to get this big sticker down..

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Welp. No more waffling now...

Did a quick fix on the saucer, painted, and cleared, then buffed the inserts a couple more times, then stuck down the big sticker. Alignment wasn't perfect and I had to sharpie around a couple of inserts. Hopefully I don't find out I really screwed the pooch while I reassemble..

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I have absolutely no idea how the shooter lane came out so good lmao

Chalk that one up to pure luck. After all the hell I went through with that, I'm really surprised it looks like it does. It's still not perfect if you're right on top of it and you're especially critiquing it (really, I'm not hung up over this, I don't care) but from playing distance, it looks juuuuust fine. I really wish I had polished metal parts while it was all disassembled. Some of them are.... Not great.

Also not really liking a lot of the pictures I took thus far.. Hopefully I can muddle my way through

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I'm very surprised by it, for sure lol

I wish I had just not been stubborn about tripping across town for naptha before I EVER got the idea of painting. It would have been even nicer. Oh well.

Leaving it here for the weekend. I'm beat, but I wanted to see how I felt about the warm white GI before I started stacking a bunch of crap on top.

Still need to do the following:

-wire in all flashers I had to snip
-build flippers
-fix trough solenoid (guessing my solder job sucked and that's why it won't kick the ball over)
-install pops
-star rollovers (need to place my Marco order)
-install ramps/plastics (duh)
-LEDs underneath the PF

Then I get to do all the misc tweaking and adjusting that's necessary.

Are these two switches for flippers? I can't figure out what the hell I marked them aside for and my pictures are lame.

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Bleh. The majority of my solenoids aren't working and several bulbs apparently have bad diodes which is making the LEDs not work properly on a few spots. Frustrating.
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I sent all my boards off for full service in December, it seems weird that he'd have missed SCRs but I guess I need to ask him if that's something he checked. I need to finish LEDs also, I only replaced one set of red/green/yellow lights and left 1-6 incandescent because they weren't working right in attract (they all lit but not all would ever go off again). When I start a game I'm getting all three green lights (flashing) but also one red (incandescent).

What a headache.

This one was working fully aside from a bum battery holder (adjust failure on boot) before I tore the PF apart and sent boards off.. Definitely feels like I'm going backwards right now. Bleh

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I will completely verify connections--both on boards as well as at playfield-level tonight. No sense extrapolating anywhere else until I'm REALLY sure that's 100% correct. But post 508 is good info for sure.

Plays like a sheet of glass. Well worth doing.

I can't seem to get two of my pops set up right, they just fight me the whole damn way. At one point a skirt got stuck and the pop locked on.. And my fuse was wrong so my board went poof. Round trip for repairs (second time my guy worked on my boards) and I'm working again, but with pretty crappy pop(s) except for the bottom one.

Hope you have better luck there than me..I simply can't get them. But the hardtop is amazing.

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