(Topic ID: 295935)

Seawitch # 276

By rcbrown316

2 years ago


Topic Heartbeat

Topic Stats

  • 23 posts
  • 7 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 10 months ago by rcbrown316
  • Topic is favorited by 9 Pinsiders

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#1 2 years ago

Bought this on our first trip to Pinfest (may of 2015) along with a Taxi and Indy 500. Those are both long gone. I fixed it, dolled it up a tiny bit and put it in the game room. It quickly became one of our favorites. This was my second classic Stern (meteor was first) and the game that turned me into a classic Stern-head. Once I found out Greatwich was making playfields I knew I was going to restore it one day so into my storage room it went to make room in the rotation, about 65 games ago. Got one of the irregulars from John a few months ago and started getting pressure from my Gal to get my ass in gear, clean up the disaster area that is my shop and get to work on her favorite game. I figured I would start a thread on the restoration. This wont be on par with some of the other guys who post such amazing work but I wanted to establish a start date so I can keep motivated and keep track of how long it takes. I have a bunch of games in the queue after this so it will be interesting to me to see what type of time savings each experience brings. My plan on this one is to do as much as I can on the old playfield so I can confirm proper operation after each step is complete. This will not be very efficient but it should keep my confidence high during the process.

Start Date: 6/17/21-Initial damage assessment
Intermittent boot up
Half the GI is out
Half feature lights stuck on, other half not working
PF hardware all oxidized
Plenty of rust on the plungers
Pop ring/rod broken
All pop bases are destroyed. I'm surprised they worked at all.
Coin door nasty but workable
Lock bar receiver not receiving and locking properly
Light coating of mold spots everywhere due to humidity in my storage room. That is fixed now.
Nice assortment of parts in the cabinet

Again, this thread will not be as well documented and the final results will not be as amazing as the superstar-restorer guys but I will put in a solid effort in hopes that it may help encourage some of the guys/gals with less experience to take the plunge.

I have already done a bunch of work and forgotten to take pics along the way. That being said I did manage to get a few and will try to remember to get images of the important stuff from now on. Let's start with these that were taken in the initial phases of assessment and disassembly.
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#2 2 years ago

Cool, good start, following. Love Seawitch.

#3 2 years ago

Good luck with the project. I have plenty of photos from my working Seawitch, should you ever need one for reference.

#4 2 years ago

Pop Bumpers completed.
A couple of notes:
-Had to replace 1 ring rod assembly. The other two are stock, tumbled and polished along with all the other metal and HW on the assemblies. Forgot the
before pics on these.
-Lamp socket wires are left disconnected for ease of PF swap later
-Skirts are the "blurple" blowouts from Pinball Life. Don't match old playfield but a decent match for the irregular PF from Greatwich. The also wont match the
caps but the separation and alignment with the blue PF plastics and standups should work. We will have to wait and see. Bodies are also blowouts from PBL.
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#5 2 years ago
Quoted from Evets:

Good luck with the project. I have plenty of photos from my working Seawitch, should you ever need one for reference.

Yeah perfect. Thanks for that offer. I will definitely keep it in mind for when I inevitably f sh_t up

#6 2 years ago

looking good. Doing a cabinet repaint also? That is next on my list.

#7 2 years ago
Quoted from Mad_Dog_Coin_Op:

looking good. Doing a cabinet repaint also? That is next on my list.

Yep. It will be my fist stencil job. Not sure I am looking forward to it.

#8 2 years ago

A lot of folks are using water based paints these days. Personally I only do oil based stuff. It is harder to work with but much more durable and sandable. It does need to be thinned and sprayed. If I beat you to the repaint of my cabinet and you like the color I can share my paint codes with you.

#9 2 years ago
Quoted from Mad_Dog_Coin_Op:

A lot of folks are using water based paints these days. Personally I only do oil based stuff. It is harder to work with but much more durable and sandable. It does need to be thinned and sprayed. If I beat you to the repaint of my cabinet and you like the color I can share my paint codes with you.

Sounds good. you will probably beat me to it. I don't expect to get to that for a few weeks and still have to order the stencils. I stole the SW codes from Tractor Docs thread. That is acrylic latex. Definitely curious to see your results before coming to a final conclusion...so hurry up lol

#10 2 years ago

I currently have two of the three set up if you need a reference picture. Have to tell you as much as I love the title the spinner shot is a bitch to make and complete the loop.

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#11 2 years ago
Quoted from ibuypinballs:

I currently have two of the three set up if you need a reference picture. Have to tell you as much as I love the title the spinner shot is a bitch to make and complete the loop.
[quoted image]

Thank you for the offer and yeah I agree that's a clunky, frustrating shot. I have seen several attempts to remedy it with various mods. I am going to try something a bit different and less complicated when i get to that point.

#12 2 years ago
Quoted from rcbrown316:

Sounds good. you will probably beat me to it. I don't expect to get to that for a few weeks and still have to order the stencils. I stole the SW codes from Tractor Docs thread. That is acrylic latex. Definitely curious to see your results before coming to a final conclusion...so hurry up lol

I went with Tractor Docs light blue code but converted it to oil. For the dark blue I went a tad darker. My cab was just recently painted badly by the previous owner. I found a patch of the original color under the coin door. This is what I'm going to use.

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#13 2 years ago

Some coin door and lockbar receiver action with a few notes.

-Obviously not done yet but progress being made
-Step 1 was a noisy affair involving mallets, various pieces on 1"x3", gravity, feet and knees. It's clear that someone was trying to ape the thing open for the $6.75 jackpot contained within.
-Step 2. I normally strip these with goof off. Frame pieces were a breeze. Door itself wasn't having it. Weird. Angle die grinder time.
-Still some slight dents that will be filled with bondo
-going to take a non-stock appearance approach on the coin door. not too easy with the way they configured the door and the quality of metal that was used compared to the Bally's I have done.
-Fixed mech issue on the lockbar receiver with a vise, clamps, razor blade and hammer. used the evaporust overnight but the was still too must rust scarring so I hit it with the grinder. final finish is still TBD
-beehive, coin chute plastics, cabinet wiring retainers and service switches "de-yellowed" in the ultrasonic.
-Lots of stuff in the tumblers going on day 3. Will be emptied and reloaded this evening.

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#14 2 years ago
Quoted from Mad_Dog_Coin_Op:

I went with Tractor Docs light blue code but converted it to oil. For the dark blue I went a tad darker. My cab was just recently painted badly by the previous owner. I found a patch of the original color under the coin door. This is what I'm going to use.
[quoted image]

Yup I have the same well-preserved colors where the door frame came off. I just didn't feel like spending the extra time figuring it out when I could easily cheat off the Doc...but now i can cheat off you too haha.

RB

2 weeks later
#15 2 years ago

Took a few days break to do some maintenance on other games in the game room. Now back at it. To mix things up a bit I am working on the PF geometry related to the orbit shots. This involved moving some ball guides & changing a few posts to open those shots up while I'm still working with the old expendable PF. I also added some tensile strength to the launch/orbit flap to reduce and nearly eliminate the trampoline effect that causes the ball to bounce out of reach of the upper right flipper as it returns from the left orbit shot and chumble around on the spinner shot, not making the orbit then clanking back into the spinner. The pictures should tell the story but feel free to ask. The posts are all just temporary solutions and will be replaced with new steel posts. Luckily I have a new set of plastics which enables me to make use of the old right sling plastic to cover up the trampo-flap modification. I think cottonm4 discovered the spinner angle is off. I confirm that here and and will get that addressed in the coming days. I also rebuilt all the flippers and replaced the coils with the proper values. Rebuilt the slings too. I am seeing some dramatic improvements in the game play from these last few sessions. There is still more tweaking to do on the orbits. I am going to order some white lightning flippers as MOF suggested. Only 1/8" shorter than normal but as others have discovered/posted, every millimeter counts on these shots.

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1 week later
#16 2 years ago
Quoted from rcbrown316:

her favorite game

Rad, looking forward to it...
-mof

#17 2 years ago
Quoted from mof:

Rad, looking forward to it...
-mof

Been out of the restoration loop for a few years so I needed to rebuild my confidence. First place I went before getting started was YOUR guide. It was like absorbing a few tinctures of high-powered cbd...."I got this"

#18 2 years ago
Quoted from rcbrown316:

Been out of the restoration loop for a few years

Me too, I'm hoping your Seawitch guide gives me the strength and courage to start my Seawitch playfield swap!!!
-mof

#19 2 years ago

I need to refocus even now. Maintenance in the gameroom takes priority and as of late it's been excessive. Last night alone we had issues develop on fg, split second and embyron. BRUTAL. All set now but took another night away from sw. Should get some good hours in tomorrow. One more drop then all the mechanical are done being restored. Then it's time to pull the pf and start on the cabinet.

1 week later
#20 2 years ago

I'm taking copious notes sir as I wish to join you in the Seawitch club.

1 year later
#21 10 months ago

About to restart this project. Stay tuned...

#22 10 months ago
Quoted from rcbrown316:

About to restart this project. Stay tuned...

I ended up building a Seawitch from scratch!

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#23 10 months ago
Quoted from gdonovan:

I ended up building a Seawitch from scratch!
[quoted image]

c'mon man it was only two years delayed! you're not very patient haha.

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