I went with my son David to Chandler, North Texas to pick up a Williams Big Daddy project pin a while back. While picking up the game from the sellers lock up we saw an interesting arcade game on the floor. I vaguely knew of a Sega Gun Fight game but nothing about if the game was a ‘good’ player or its value. It was filthy as usual but the lock up was dry and most importantly the game was off the floor on a couple of wood blocks. I needed to make a quick decision based on nothing more than what I could see and offer a price to see if he would part with it. 1 (resized).JPG The seller told me that he purchased the game at an auction a few years back but as there was no plug he never was able to turn it on and he left it in his lock up. This was the moment you wonder whether your spur of a moment decision to buy was smart, I didn’t have the moment. 2 (resized).JPGThe game speaker and assembly was missing along with the bottom board locking assembly

I could see a side hole where something was missing but figured that the costs for transporting the game home were now covered I could roll the dice on this game. He was willing to part with it, so I bought it for the first price offered and squeezed it into the Jeep.

When I got it home it was time to cross my fingers, inspect it, and hope I find all the components were in place internally. Straight off we could see now the hole in the end panel was for a missing speaker assembly and I noticed one mannequin had his arm shot off and where the arm once fitted to the torso was damaged.

I googled the game and found a bunch of YouTube videos showing the game play, and it seemed to be a popular game at the time. I researched this site and contacted collector ZNET or Bruce in NJ. I had conversed with Bruce in the past and traded emails about the gunfight game that he had restored.

Bruce has many rare beautifully restored pins and arcade games, he had a few parts over from his restore so good news. Here is a link to ZNET's thread that starts at post #230 https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/show-us-your-em-bowlers-mechanical-and-old-electrical-toys-in-your-gameroom

The game is rare so to get parts you need to know arcade game collectors and they count for only a fraction of the number of people that collect pinballs. Parts are rare and much more valuable. I have been told by arcade game collectors (no pins) that parts are the currency not money and traded/ bartered between arcade game collectors commonly so beware picking up a project specialized game that has been cannibalized you may get stuck. Bruce is a different collector and is one heck of a nice guy to talk with. He asked me to make a list of what I need and he would look and see what he had.

So I needed to strip down this game pronto, find out what else was an issue and get back to Bruce ASAP. 3 (resized).JPG I raised the hinged dome and removed the game play field. 4 (resized).JPG With the game top removed the mechanism and wiring start to be seen

The guns are mounted to Bakelite wiper arms that sweep over stationary scanning discs connected at a pivoting center fulcrum point when the game is energized.

A second smaller scanning disc is mounted to the arm closer to the gun end and this allows the stylus contact to move with the player’s wrist movement so the gun control feels very realistic. 4b (resized).JPG Wiper Arm pivot

Well that is one way to ensure the pivot moves, no need for other than a light coat of grease this time. 5 (resized).JPG Stationary Scanning Disc with wear lines.

We will need to rebuild the contact wipers to sit on the contacts in a different location. I little bit of Maintenance thought by the op and this wear would have been spread out better.
6 (resized).JPG Upper scanning disc that the stylus contact crosses, wear appears to be game ending, but you simply adjust the gun contact to the left back onto the contacts and all will be fine. 7 (resized).JPGUnder the wiper arms and scanning boards there are the mechanical apparatus boards.
8 (resized).JPGBottom board in the access position
9 (resized).JPGThis board is at the bottom of the game when closed up.

It's mounted on hinges so we can access for troubleshooting. See the rodent skeleton in the center of the picture. Probably got in through the missing speaker hole to survive the winter.
10 (resized).JPG Contacts missing, both wiper Boards

Internally there was a lot of wear that was evident on the gun movement arms moving hardware, scanning assemblies etc. I also knew I needed a schematic to get this baby working.

The cabinet sides are made mostly of an orange glossy laminate and looking a little tatty now. Sega games from the period used laminate material on a lot of their games. Wood seems not to be abundant in Japan. Laminate is hard wearing but can be damaged with knocks and after nearly 50 years this game was no exception.

The legs were odd, they appear to have been shortened. The game flyer states a game height of 58” and this game was a good 8” shorter. It looks like an op had chopped the height of the game so younger players could access the game, that is not a bad modification if you think about who will play this game. 11 (resized).JPG Shortened Legs.

This game probably came to the States from the UK. Not a ‘Sherlock Holmes’ level deduction on my part, more the fact the door had a UK post decimal 10p coin plate.

I removed the 10p plate and found another UK pre decimal 1972 money symbol 5d.
12 (resized).JPG This is not a stock Sega currency plate from the time.

The game was introduced in the 1969/1970 time period 2 years before the implementation of decimalization of the UK currency. 5d is an odd currency amount as it would take 5 old penny coins to get it working and they would not have fitted in the slot. There was a very popular 6d silver coin called a sixpence in the UK at the time and that is what they could have used, however there were many ‘penny’ arcades on the UK coast so that may have been why it had a 5d coinage. I never saw this game growing up, probably playing the pins.

After the UK in 1971 decimalized their currency the price became 10p for one play.

The former currency was pounds/shilling/pence or (₤/s/d). The penny symbol changed to ‘p’ from ‘d’ after decimalization, it’s a lot easier I suppose to count in 100’s than 144’s. The old currency that I remember had the following coins from my memory; a ‘farthing’ (1/4d), halfpenny pronounced 'hay-p'ny' (1/2d), the penny (1d), threepence pronounced sometimes as a ‘trup-penny piece in NI anyway (3d), sixpence or a ‘tanner’(6d), shilling or a bob (12d), ‘florin’ or two bob (2 shillings), half-crown (2 1/2 shillings), crown (5/- shillings), guinea (21 shillings) lexicon all now disappeared.

Inflation at the change was a national scam to me at the age of 14 as my paper round pay took a big drop in value. The new 10p game cost was a 480% increase over the old money cost of 5d in one year!

A lot more to come that I have documented. About 6 months of interesting (to me) work then a 6 month complete rest from anything pinball /arcade when I went down with a baffling illness, then got better and am now finishing it up with most of my old enthusiasm. I am still finishing up the dome and should be there in a week or two.

Back to reviewing the game condition; it was about now I realized this was a 240 V game not 120 V. I was hoping that it had been converted but the UK coin plate amounts plus the discovery of the ‘dirty big elephant’ transformer with a 240 V label sitting on one end of the game was another of my ‘Sherlock Holmes moments. We will sort out how to move around this issue later. 13 (resized).JPG Extra ‘Elephant size‘ 240 V transformer

I continued to strip down the game taking many pictures as I went. There is a lot of metric screws, washers and nuts on this game and this turned out to be a good thing as Lowe's keeps a healthy metric fastener selection and replacing the screws that were worn is straightforward. 14 (resized).JPG Gunslinger Mannequins A was all shot up!

The gunslinger mannequins are a focal point of the game, they should look good. However one of the gunslingers had only one arm and the torso where it fitted was damaged. He needed a new arm and torso. These parts Bruce did not have. I have looked on ebay for ages and have only ever seen a mannequin hat for sale worldwide. 15 (resized).JPG Where are the guns? 16 (resized).JPG Gun Control Bracket

To take the pistol apart you start by unbolting it from its bracket.

The wires shown go to a switch connected to the trigger, need to make better connections than this. 17 (resized).JPG Switch activated by trigger

Internally the gun is connected to a hearty bracket
18 (resized).JPG Gun Control bracket with stylus arm

The gun assembly is moved side to side when energized on the nylon roller shown above. It is well worn so needs replacing. 19 (resized).JPG Internal gun assembly with contact Stylus.

The pistol on the outside of the game bolted to an elaborate mechanical assembly that is inside the game. It has an electrical stylus contact that zips lightly over and always touching the scanning disc contacts and every time you pull the trigger it makes a contact on the board and if the opposite player contact are aligned on the same circuit ‘bam’ it counts as a hit. If there is a cactus in the way then it gets shot and will fall when its solenoid is energized. If the opposite player pulls his trigger quicker than you then you take the hit and are wounded baby. It’s about firing quickest and keeping moving the pistol. This part with its connected solenoid takes a bashing and there is plenty of evident of wear and damage.
20 (resized).JPG Gun bracket guides/stops

The guide stops will need to be replaced with nylon material as the ops repair had used acrylic or similar clear plastic but it is too brittle to work, this game gets a heavy workout.
21 (resized).JPG Here is the contact stylus and its spring.

It needs to move freely keeping contact with the scanning disc.

I will need to remake the stylus contact as this must move freely so to keep contact on the scanning disc contacts. The contact is soft copper under the spring and was a little bent so I needed to straighten out carefully so it moved perfectly without any hesitation. Mission accomplished!

I like to know why a game stopped working, what was the final abuse that took it out of service for ever. This game was never configured for the US and without a plug was at best part of a job lot consignment probably for parts. A lot of arcade games came into the US via Canada. How it got to Texas is a mystery. Getting this game to work would be my job. However, why it stopped work may become apparent when I stripped it down further.

And straightaway the gun smoke filled the room! A gun bracket had been bashed against the metal side one too many times as there are no stops anymore and one solenoid was destroyed. This was the reason this game stopped being a money earner. This part is so replaceable but this game got hardly any maintenance. There are nylon guides and rubber stops around the gun parts that align movement and protect against excessive wear. The nylon guides were damaged but the rubber stops had totally disintegrated and disappeared. I am actually assuming they were rubber stops as that is what I replaced them with. 22 (resized).JPG This solenoid is toast!

Solenoid was destroyed as the rubber stops had perished and it was bashed against the sides of the game metal on metal. 23 (resized).JPG The 100 Volt solenoid is part of the gun assembly, this is the good one.

So after this lengthy but essential detailed review we can see what this restoration will take cost wise and time wise. Internally there is a lot of wear on hardware that was evident on the gun movement arms moving hardware, scanning assemblies etc. Not so much wear on the electro-mechanical parts such as the contacts. I also knew I needed a schematic to get this baby working. Time to contact Bruce.

I sent Bruce a list of what I needed from the discoveries above and he was able to provide me a copy of the parts book, photocopy schematic, missing speaker parts, some worn scanning assemblies and some cosmetic parts for a more than fair cost, thank you Bruce. I would be able to refashion my worn parts from these valuable parts so this was another defining moment for this game’s survival.

It seems straight forward after this game strip down I would be able to complete an excellent in-depth restoration of this game. I still need to strip down the electro-mechanical parts and make sure they all function but that is straightforward as long as you take a lot of pictures. The sound boards are another matter but no reason to believe that they won't work. I will see when I power up at start up.

The scanning assemblies were rusty and dirty and needed cleaning. A day or so in a tumbler will spruce these parts up. So from here we take many pictures as we disassemble, clean, dry and tumbled, tumble until all shines. Takes some time but while doing this I will spruce up the cabinet. I removed the dome and put it aside. I was not really clear how to clean the dome acrylic sides but plenty of time for research.

That seems to be everything reviewed and now the restoration can begin. Better start on the legs as i doubt that getting replacement legs is an option. Also we need to get this game off the floor.

It came out well as you will soon see. Do you think this is a game that would be a hit at the TPF? I could be persuaded, as I need a reason to go.

Restoration

First the legs need to be fixed so I could shut the bottom door. 24 (resized).JPG The ‘amputated’ legs were reconnected

I first removed the old paint and re-painted black. I clear coated with a gloss coat when all the repainted parts were completed.
25 (resized).JPG Looking better already.

There were original square holes so I fabricated some metal backing plates and marked the existing and drilled holes in the plates. I thought originally the legs were commercially punched or square cropped. Not so sure now I think the carriage bolts pressed the soft metal square.
26 (resized).JPG I repainted the parts that were all originally matt black with auto paint and then cleared to make it all gleam like new.

I gave the gun handles pearl handles as that brown color was not easy to mix. I did not paint all the handle, my bad.
27 (resized).JPGTrial fit and the legs are very solid.
28 (resized).JPG Faded cabinet side

This game always has a faded side. The ends were battered so needed to find some orange laminate.

I was able to get a piece of laminate that was a close matt color match. Also I was able to salvage some original non faded laminate scraps to patch some damaged areas on the front. 29 (resized).JPG Laminate replacement material and the removed game ends to be replaced

I could replace both laminate ends as there was no embedded art.

Not all surfaces were laminated so I also had some orange auto paint mixed to paint the sides on the ends adjacent to the replaced laminate and other internal surfaces. There is an aluminum extruded edging that has taking a bashing over its life and I tried to find a replacement but that was a step too far. So I cleaned the original edging and replaced after the painting. 30 (resized).JPG Preparing the inside edges for painting

I added the laminate first don’t know why. Not impossible to work around by covering but still dumb first step move by me.
Other than straight cuts it is difficult to cut the laminate. I used shears to trim, you have to be careful even when making a straight cut as it easily tears. The holes for screws are easy to drill though with Forester bits. Once the laminate was glued to the game I could trim most of the edges with a router, the rest of the edges I smoothed out with a file. 31 (resized).JPG Paint is a good color match

The auto paint and the replacement laminate are a matt finish. Once the paint is dry I use a can of 2K clear gloss to make the finish match the existing laminate glossy sides. I think it came out well. There was some other internal cream painted finish that I was able to get an excellent match from a Krylon paint can. I was pleased overall with the cabinet result.

Refinished end; re-laminated, repainted and all cleared.

The speaker trim was originally chrome and this finish needs to be improved, I reversed the speaker plates but the finish was still not to my liking. Will come back to this later. 32 (resized).JPG Refinished second end view. 33 (resized).JPG Corners are prone to chipping if the legs are removed. So were cut out and replaced with some original scraps. 34 (resized).JPG Replace chipping damage on this end too.

The external door has been refurbished minus the 25c (to be made) coin bezel.

Time to get back to this. Next thing is the door and payment mechanic's. 35 (resized).JPG Cannibalized Door Assembly
36 (resized).JPG The door restored with 25c Mech & Micro Switch.
37 (resized).JPG General bracket cosmetic Improvements

There are some electroplated internal frame parts that were now rusty. I cleaned the surface and protected with some silver paint. I also added a protective coat of 2K auto clear to make it all stand out.

Next up the Locking unit Assemblies 38 (resized).JPG Locking Unit Assembly

The assembly is stoutly made. When the game is energized a slotted bar is pulled downwards by solenoids on each end, this frees the gun arm to move over the stationary scanning disc when the game energizes.
40 (resized).JPG A rubber stop should have been evident here, but it is long gone and the slot has been getting the abuse.

The slotted bar needs to move up and down only, there are nylon guides that ensure this happens. When the pistol and lever is energized and are moved vigorously side to side they should bounce at the outside movement limit when hitting the end stops if they have not disintegrated. The school erasers that appear perfect as a stop are called ‘rubbers’ in the UK, talking about rubbers this is what I found hidden under the elephant transformer. 41 (resized).JPG What is all this!

Found this money card in the bottom of the game and the other 'rubber' package tucked under the elephant transformer. Are these yours Joshua Castleberry? Gonn’a tell your Mum ….just kidding, I won’t tell a soul!

Here is the rebuilt assembly. All parts cleaned, tumbled, polished and refurbished with new wiring, stops and guides.
42 (resized).JPG Cool Assembly.
43 (resized).JPG Now installed and ready for hook up to the game.

Regarding the new solenoid, a search on the internet brought up this one below, it is nominal a 120 V unit but should work. The game operates on 100 Volts so it’s close enough. The 50/60 HZ cycle is probably not an issue either as it’s the same game parts whether 240 V or 110 V on these small sizes so I think this will work as a replacement. Will change both guns.

Spec’s below;
44 Soleniod Replacement specs sht 1 (resized).JPG 45 soleniod spec's sheet 2 (resized).JPG 46 (resized).JPG Refurbished Gun assembly with contact stylus
47 (resized).JPG Repaired board and re positioned contact stylus and new nylon stops.

The copper contact fix was not actually needed as the contacts on this scanning disc are fed from one end only. I was interested whether they would work and they do.

So this raps up the end mechanisms. Next up is the control boards and this is more like what we work with on em pins.

The internal electro-mechanical parts have not been ignored. They were stripped, cleaned and then tumbled in groups awaiting reassembly.
48 (resized).JPG Refurbished bottom control board.

New labels and springs as needed. All parts stripped, cleaned and polished. All contacts reviewed for wear and alignment.
49 (resized).JPG Refurbished vertical backboard view
50 (resized).JPG Refurbished vertical backboard – with ‘elephant’ 240V additional transformer.
51 (resized).JPG Repaired wiper circuit board contacts.

Bruce provided me with a spare wiper board that I cannibalized replacement contacts from. My wiper boards and the one Bruce sent me all had the outside contacts broken off. The wiper contacts seemed to eventually fatigue and break off. This on review was because the rubber stops eventually perished allowing excess movement of the wiper board attached to the pivoted gunman arms. This in turn would have allowed the wiper boards to move too far and off the stationary scanning disc below and then when moved the other direction caught on the scanning disc edge and eventually twisted and tore off.

I would recommend that anyone that has this game review whether they have had this happen on their game and contact me for another contact that I am happy to send gratis so they can mend their wiper contacts.
52 (resized).JPG Reassembled pistol assembly wiper and scanning electrical boards
53 (resized).JPG Top Display

The top display had some building damage, and a deteriorated painted display board. The off white was damaged and unsightly. The green should actually be brown but the florescent UV lighting fitted to the game dome has caused discoloration. Bruce had a slightly better roof on his extra building so I can possibly improve this part by swapping the roof out.

I started the restoration of the top board by stripping all the top and bottom components and preparing the board for repainting. I masked the nonwhite areas with frisket cut around the green/brown areas exposing the white area to be painted.
54 (resized).JPG That is the easy first step. I used a good matching Krylon cream Ivory color.
55 (resized).JPG After removal of the frisket the green brown areas definitely needed repainting.
56 (resized).JPG At the game ends there are metal painted plates that leave a slot where the gunmen can be moved during the game. Not looking so good anymore.

You can see where the gunman base wore a tract in the paint, this was due to mechanical linkage wear under the table. There also seems to be a rubber curtain that would once of blocked the view below of the lower mechanic's.

Plenty still do do on this game yet before I can start up and trouble shoot.

57 (resized).JPG So what does the rubber underlay look like 45 years later? Yuck, needs replacing, yes?

This is a 2 mm rubber mat under the ends or what is left of it.

58 (resized).JPG I was able to find a piece of replacement rubber on ebay
60 (resized).JPG
The rubber underlay was trimmed to the correct size.
61 (resized).JPG Restored end plates with the rubber underlay.

I am guessing this is what the production version looked like. I carefully cut the rubber where the mannequin linkage would slide thru and it makes a nice curtain to what is happening under the surface. This came out well.

Thanks, I have just received the acrylic material for the dome. So on the last leg of the journey.

Being a 2 player dynamic quick interactive game, it will be a novelty in the middle of pin type games when people visit. Younger visitors will enjoy too.

Continuing on with repainting the playfield diorama, under the rock formation the green color had not changed from the brown original color, and I could get a good color match.

After I painted the ivory base color I left it to cure for a few days before I dared to apply frisket to cut around the green areas before repainting brown. However, I got crows feet to develop in a couple of places using this Krylon paint. Two much paint laid on two quickly I guess, only happens with this type of box store paint.

63 (resized).JPG Repainted but not as good as expected

It seems a good paint but if you don’t apply thin coats they can reactivate the previous coat and you get crow’s feet or worse. I will stop using this type of paint on restores as I can’t understand how to stop having this issue even if only sporadically as the repairs and re-coat never comes out with perfect results.

The paint is not just not stable when fresh paint is laid on top days later, the Rustoleum products are no better.

I sanded the offending areas down and carefully repainted. So a few minor touch ups and this looks like a fairly good representation of what the top board was like when new.

I am still not totally happy so a clear coat is on the cards later this summer. Message to oneself stop being so picky...so anal, need to stop....can't.
64 (resized).JPG Playfield all put back together
65 (resized).JPG Gunman A behind rocks

On this game the bottom door locking mechanism was missing so I had to fashion a replacement. 66 (resized).JPG The bottom door had a double lever lock originally.
67 (resized).JPG Aluminum flat bar with a square hole was filed to fit the lock.

The ¼” bars are connected with some hardware store plastic clips. The new lock mech works quite well and I was pleased overall with this replacement of what was originally there.

Yup.

Gunmen Mannequins

I was introduced by Bruce to another fellow NJ collector friend that has a Sega gunfight and might know if there are spare gunman mannequin parts somewhere.

He believed he might have a few parts squirreled away. Eventually they turned up inside the actual game not where he remembered putting them and never looked there for ages. As he has 100+ games or so I believe I am ever so fortunate he persevered to locate them, and he graciously donated a new arm and torso, so I could get this game faithfully restored. I sent him a spare Unobtainable part as a thank you, not sure he made such a good deal as he has no current need for it, I am very grateful to his generosity.

The gunmen mannequins were repainted and restrung with some appropriate nylon fishing line. We tried 1 mm string but the fishing line is the correct material as there is no stretching and the best solution. There is not much tolerance when restringing the gunman mannequins and it becomes a tedious trial and error exercise to find the optimum sweet point between lifting the gunman slotted connection arm when the solenoid energizes and throws upwards ½” its lever and collapses the gunman mannequin.

68 Gunman A (resized).JPG Gunman A

69 Gunman B (resized).JPG Gunman B

It also became apparent that the gunmen had a metal hat for a weight reason. I bet the Sega R&D guys had some painstaking issues getting this to all work correctly the first time. They gunmen definitely collapse better when shot with their hat on than off.

Proof of the saying that a cowboy are buried with their hat and their boots on! Or something like that or should be that!
70 (resized).JPG Refurbished table top with the cactus solenoid operators, scoring assemblies refitted.

Finally a Sega Gunfight auction item came up on Ebay and it was something I need for the game, the original paperwork parts list and schematic from a seller in the Netherlands. That was a gem of a find.

Speaker brackets.

I wanted better cosmetic speaker grill and brackets. I cleaned the tardy chrome off and re-plated with my Eastwood plating kit but this did not fit the quality bill. I have not got a chrome service in place as there is next to no chrome on EM pinball's so this is never in my mind during a restore so I decided to re coat with chrome paint. The finish is not chrome or close in my eyes, it’s a glossy silver/ stainless look. It was better than my other attempts so I cleared them to give more protection and this is satisfactory.
71 (resized).JPG
Improved Speaker Bracket and plate

Been very busy at work so unable to keep up with the progress on this game. Anyway here is the next installment on the dome restoration.

Dome Restoration

The dome parts were next for refurbishing. The acrylic has overtime become cloudy and damaged with scratches and cigarette burns on top etc. It is simple to replace the acrylic material but I don’t want to make a large overlay sticker for the ‘Sega Gunfight Logo’ just because I can.
1 71 Gun fight logo (resized).JPG Sanded and polished front dome side.

Acrylic has a surface that can be repaired, its straight forward to remove scratches by sanding them out with 400 grit paper or higher but getting the ultra clear finish back is not so easy as I found out. it is achieved by a series of sanding/polishing with ever finer grits as follows; 600, 800, 1000, 1200 and upwards grit sanding/polishing steps then using liquid polishes until you are satisfied. Also Novus 1 and 2 maybe the best polish to get the clearness back I have found.

I have the rotary sander/polisher equipment so I will try to remove the cigarette burns off the top and the other scratches and see how it all comes out.
1a 72 (resized).JPG Easy to take apart maybe not so east to put back together.
2 73 (resized).JPG Underside view of the acrylic clamp arrangement
3 74 (resized).JPG All comes apart easily

I spent half a day sanding from 400 grit thru 600, 800, 1000, 1500, 2000 and then polished with my Meguiars auto compounds that we use on play-fields. The finish was not bad but not as crystal clear as I hoped and the internet tutorials allude to. You can flame polish edges and buff out scratches but fixing a large surface is beyond the ‘do it your self-er’ I think. I would be interested to know if others have been able to master this process. The end product requires a good view at the game ends and top for the players but the front glass has the Sega Gunfight logo and I prefer not to mess with this ….yet. I can scan and remake a logo overlay close to perfect but the original piece is in good condition. So I will remake the other sides and refit into the game as not expensive. I still reworked the front acrylic piece and improved it a lot with the removal of scratches etc.
4 74 a xox (resized).JPG A few minutes to remove the walnut shell bits from the screw heads and this step is done.
5 74 b hardware os (resized).JPG All trim was cleaned, burred, polished and cleared to protect faces where the protective material was now gone.

Not trying to removing the deep scratches from the external glass aluminium trim as the finish is anodized so getting the superficial damage of and then clearing for protection seems a sensible step. Once the clear on the protected trim is rock hard we can carefully rebuild this final part and reassemble onto the game.
6 74 c template (resized).JPG Laid out the original sides as templates to draw a tight cutting line around their perimeter.
7 74d cut glass (resized).JPG I cut them with my variable speed jig saw.

Be somewhat mindful when you are cutting with a jigsaw to support the material with clamps on a table as the material is brittle. When cutting hold the waste cut piece of material with your other hand as its weight could cause the material to chip or worse snap of a corner. Lastly the final ¼” of the cut needs to be very slow so the ends don’t chip with the saw blade vibration.

My torch for flame smoothing out the edges was not anywhere to be seen after a recent shop reorganization so will skip this step as not really necessary.

The screws and small fixing hardware had been tumbled and walnut shell particles removed from the screw heads. The longer clamping hardware went into the Evaporust solution for 24 hours prior hand polishing.

The last part of the dome to be refurbished is the fluorescent light. Its actually two 18” light strips and a couple of defusers. All available at any box store.
8 74 e light (resized).JPG Fluorescent light stripped down.
8 74f light rebuilt (resized).JPG Ready for fitting back in the game.
9 Pic1 dome (resized).jpg The reassembly of the dome sides is tricky for one person as too many things to hold and clamp at once. Need the wife to hold something to get this all sorted. I left the backing paper in place while reinstalling or more scratches could happen.

Straight forward enough reassembly for two people as long as you use the correct length screws. If there is one criticism of Sega and this game is that they used too many slightly different length screws. Did they not know that restorers would take this game apart 50 years later and try to reassemble using only pictures!
10 P1c 2 Dome (resized).jpg So with patience we completed the dome and connected back on the game.

The final parts to complete were the wiring out of the top board. This consisted of the cactus solenoids and the score lights are mounted of the underside.
10a Game board lights and soleniods (resized).jpg Underside of the top board.

The game over lights are mounted on the top of the top board inside the ‘shack’. Simple enough and all just needed a good clean, sealing of the wood and new bulbs.
10b Lights in shack (resized).JPG Game over Light holder mounted in the ‘shack
11 General Game Pic (resized).jpg So all reassembled and ready to power up.

Power

First up was to put new fuses in and hook up the power transformer. It seems straight forward to remove the 240 V transformer and provide 110 V directly to the second transformer. I will keep it all intact for now as it will work both ways plus I am curious to see how a step up/down transformer works. A while ago I asked here what step up transformer to buy. Clay said this one, good enough.
12 75 Step up Down Transformer (resized).JPG Snapshot of the ebay that is suitable to power most 240 V arcade and pinball's
13 76 (resized).JPG Conspicuous yes but will leave this as is….for a while.

This is the size. If you don’t want this you can remove the 240 V transformer per schematics below.
14 Scematic 240V (resized).JPG Existing 240 Volt set up that I have
15 Schematic (resized).JPG 240 V Transformer Strip out schematic

Changing this game to 110 Volt is straight forward. I followed my tutorial and no issues disconnecting the 240V transformer.

During the testing I was able to see a few different mechanisms than we find in our pinball's.

The timer is an interesting mechanism.

The game powered up straightaway and the timer ran for about 25 seconds. The 100 V motor rotates a small rubber driving wheel that is perpendicular to a larger rubber lined timing wheel and rubs against it moving it also thru one revolution until it reaches the cam stop notch forcing the micro switch contact to fall out stopping the game. You can modify the position of the smaller wheel relative to the larger wheel so it rotates on a different perimeter circle either a longer or shorter distance therefore a slower or quicker game.

A simple and effective design. I hope we do not lose the ideas used to make these mechanisms work. documenting them and putting out on the internet we can continue to pass on to everyone how to ‘re-invent’ these ideas again and again.
16 Timer (resized).jpg Game Run Timer

So during the game run span little initially happened. The pistols seemed to work and there was a firing noise but little else. No gunmen falling or scoring as the scoring and resetting relays did move but one cactus did fall!

So something was working with the wipers and scanning discs, so that is good progress. After a bunch of starts and tweaking the gunmen linkage the gunman finally started to energize and fall.
17 gunman and wiper (resized).jpg View of Gunman B his solenoid linkage and wiper arms.

The new solenoids that drop the gunman mannequins are working which is a huge relief as the original were 100 V and these are 110 V but the movement and size is close so all works as originally designed. I have since found the other solenoids that drop and release the shooter mechs on EBay and Amazon. Drop me an email for the details.

The gunman solenoid and the falling of the gunman proved to be very delicate and stubborn to get working optimally. There is little movement in the solenoid operation or the stringing of the mannequins. Eventually I was able to get the stringing to work using a hot glue gun to tweak the nylon fishing line tension slightly. I had to then delicately snip of the excess glue to get it all to fit and would lose the adjustment and have to start again, so we need patience to get it just right.
18 Wiper 2 (resized).jpg Wiper Tracer Board rewired and cleaned.

The repaired scanning discs and wipers tracer boards worked flawlessly, along with locking unit new stops and guides. It is important that the gunman's contact (stylus) stays touching the contacts at all times and with wear etc this takes a little work to ensure that they do. Thankfully with the adjustment points built in to the parts this is all straightforward to set up. The game are now playing well and are fun for the family although Gunman A is winning most of the shoot outs.

The next issue was the scoring still would not count on both of the circuits, but would reset on one circuit when a game started. It turns out that the progressive scoring unit is quite fiddly and the tiny counting operating spring is very delicate and prone to be too weak to operate.
19 Score stepper 1 (resized).jpg Gunmen Scoring and Reset Mechanism
20 stepper spring (resized).JPG21 Score Stepper 10 (resized).jpg Tricky Mechanism that score the hits and resets at start of the game.

I had replaced the actuated arm spring on each gunman’s scoring relay arm shown above, but as delicate as they are they were still too strong, so I had to dig out the original springs and carefully reshape them and eventually was able to get the scoring units to clock as required. There are adjustments for assisting this in the units but it is a delicate piece of engineering, possibly the worst part of the games design.

The score resetting 50 V relay coil on one gunman turned out also to be bad. I do not have a spare so I took it apart and found a couple of breaks in one of the wiring spool wires. I repaired the wire and put the relay back in the game and it worked.

There is adjustment knob on the game for the speaker volume and when the speakers were covered by their wooden housing the acoustics are quite good.
22 Speaker Vol Mech (resized).jpg Speaker Boards and Volume Control

The game has a ‘Hit Control’ knob with three difficulty settings for play; liberal, medium and conservative. I put everything on the liberal setting as I like my games easy as I am a restorer more than a player.
23 Game hit control (resized).jpg Liberal in my game settings only.
24 Night Pic (resized).jpg The game now works probably as well as new and is fun to play. It’s an unusual novelty game and nice in the game room to play with guests. The game stills needs a little score stepper tweaking as it misses a score now and then but you don’t notice during a game, only if you are watching with a restorers eye.

Hope you liked this restoration journey of quite a cool game.

Pinside is an interesting site. I like reading about restorations the more detail the better. I am happy you like the restoration write up and the detail I get into. Thank you.

My mission is to put out a tutorial that others may say "hey that's an interesting game that I might be able to restore using that guy in Texas restoration write up I saw on Pinside". I get mail from others asking for help after my baseball and Pinball restorations telling me that because of the detail and parts i made they bought a clunker want to do restore on too.

I am happy to help and offer more information and help where to get parts but remember pinball/baseball games are easy to get parts for, arcade game are not so easy to get replacement parts so if you buy one to restore you need to find a complete game or close.

Good luck!

I think you are right, its about time I did a fitting closure to a fun restoration as 'proof if workmanship' .

Mean’t to make a video a while back but not something I have done before. Son home from college Saturday with a buddy maybe they will do it. Game still plays a mean shoot out contest.

Is that from the Captains Auction Warehouse recent auction, if so that looks like a fair deal.

One of the most popular games for people to play when they visit. Not for sale currently.

One sold last week in Pa auction, ouch.

May 6 2022. Sold for $9,000. I was bidding on a Chicago Coin basketball game, narrowly missed out on a more normally priced game.

The Gunfight looked good. The front Perspex had been changed so the large Sega gunfight logo was missing. Sides were faded but otherwise was looking good. No internal pic’s. The auction markup is 28% so your estimate seems right. $6500 needing restoration is high for 6/7 years ago.

The bowler you have is a good game I would have been happy if that is what I found. I did find the Williams game original version, paid a bit for it and then to get it home. It works great. Just need a basketball game with manikins (Genco or Chicago Coin) and I will be settled.

Steve.