Started a shop job on Judge Dredd last night after the fights. A couple of hours and several pounds of plastic and stainless later the playfield is almost completely disassembled. Ill get around to removing the rest of the posts and targets later today. There is some mylar in the upper right around the sniper tower area that I'm going to pull up as well.

NakedDredd.jpg

Jim, thanks for the pics. You certainly do good work, that playfield and cabinet look beautiful.

Decided to pull up the mylar that was around the snipers tower and level a few inserts that had started to raise a bit.

I used the hair dryer method to pull up the mylar.

mylar-removal-1.jpg

Almost done

mylar-removal-2.jpg

To level the inserts I used the same hair dryer a sanded piece of plywood and a rubber mallet. A little heat and brute force trama later the inserts are nice and flush.

leveling-inserts-1.jpg

leveling-inserts-2.jpg

Not much glue was left behind and what little was left, I cleaned up with some goo gone.

I have a set of the JUDGE decals on the way. I didn't go with the entire set from pinballdecals.com though... I should have they look great, but damn their expensive! I spent the extra money on 3 radioactive black pearl pinballs for the captive balls.

Thanks, GAP!

Spent a couple hours this afternoon removing all the posts, switches and slingshot assemblies. All of the playfield hardware is in the tumbler and I wont take them out until Thursday. Ill spend another few hours tonight fixing a few more inserts and doing some repair with Kwickwood around the drop target cutout. Tomorrow Ill start re finishing the stainless... yeah, my favorite.

Here is a pic of the Progress so far:

NakedDredd2.jpg

Patched the damage behind the drop target assembly with Kwickwood. I'll sand it later and touch up paint if needed in a day or two.

Before with damage

damage.jpg

Filled before sanding

filled.jpg

Oh yeah... And here's what 8 pounds of stainless looks like. I'll be spending some quality time with the combi wheel the next few evenings

8pounds.jpg

Here is a pic of the pinballs I decided to use as the 3 captive balls in the cooling towers section of the playfield. A little overkill I know, but I couldn't resist. They are available from Back Alley Creations: http://www.backalleycreations.com/bac%20black%20pearl%20pinballs.html

radioactive_ball.jpg

I sanded the patched area around the Drop target and subway entrance area. The left side corner where most of the damage was turned out pretty good, but I doubt if it will survive a good ball hit. I sent an email to Cliffy to see if he can make a protector for that area. At least it will cover up the damage if the patch doesn't hold.

aftersanding.jpg

@BR Ya, I see a similarity between Shane and myself when it comes to shop jobs. I like to tear the whole thing down and clean, repair or replace trying to get it as close to "new" as my skills allow.

Regarding the damage, i'm leaving that for now and we will see what Fed Ex says. I contacted a local operator here in town and talked with one of their service men about this. They would have no problem giving me an estimate and off the top of his head his estimate was a little less than double of what I quoted the adjuster. Being that their rates are twice what I quoted makes me feel good that I estimated things pretty close.

Got back to business today and re-grained all of the stainless using a combi wheel. Worked on and off for a few hours this afternoon and got it all looking spiffy. Here are a few before and after pics.

before1.jpg after1.jpg before2.jpg after2.jpg before3.jpg after3.jpg

I use several different methods to re grain the stainless. 3m combi wheels are the best and can be used on a die grinder at high rpm's but they are expensive. it's basically a sanding flap wheel with alternating layers of scotch brite pads in-between the sand paper. alternatively you can get these sanding wheels at your local ace hardware for about 8 bucks and use them in an electric drill. they work well but you will only get about 1 or 2 machines out of a set.

Start with a medium grit

http://www.amazon.com/3M-Scotch-Brite-9415NA-Medium-Finishing/dp/B00004Z4DJ/ref=pd_5

and then on to a fine grit

http://www.amazon.com/3M-Scotch-Brite-9416NA-Finishing-Sander/dp/B00004Z4DK/ref=pd_6

for hard to get in spaces l use a dremel with a flap wheel to get most of the gunk off. then I use scotch brite wheels to get the grain right

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FBF3OM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1

for mirror or "poor mans chrome" finish I have a polishing wheel that makes quick work out of the stainless ball guides and lock down bars.

Here is a link to the actual 3M combi pads product page. They are expensive but if you have an air compressor that's capable of running a die grinder for an extended period these are the quickest way to get the job done... @ 9000 rpms its easy as pealing potatoes.

http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/3M/en_US/Manufacturing/Industry/Product-Catalog/Online-Catalog/?PC_7_RJH9U5230GE3E02LECFTDQGLE0000000_nid=7W6B9ZMF23be060CVBK1Q8gl

Just finished making all new coil wrappers for JD. What do you guys think?

JD-Wrapper-set.jpg

errr, thanks... I think

here's where obsessiveness really kicks in. I'm not planning on letting this pin go, so I'm just doing it for myself. I just like everything look as close to new as I can get it... even the stuff most people will never see.

Thanks! I made these for my own enjoyment but you can download similar ones from this site: http://www.pinballrebel.com/pinball/cards/coil_wrappers.htm I think they look pretty good.

The type of paper and printing method is based on your resources. For mine I used a color laser printer on matte sticker stock. I wrap these around the stock paper that comes with the replacement coils. Another way to do it is to print them out on colored card stock and glue them... which would probably be a better option if you were wrapping over a bare coil.

http://www.littleshopofgames.com/

Just got done rebuilding a few of the flipper assemblies and thought I would share some comparisons of what they start out like and what they finish like.

New coils getting wrappers:

NewCoilNewWrapper.jpg

Before cleaning and rebuild they look like this:

Before.jpg

Final Product:

After.jpg

Are you talking about the threaded inserts?

Damn, that must have been really stuck in there. I have never had one of those break. Generally I take the coil out, toss the pawl and EoS switch then soak the assembly in the parts washer for a couple of days before complete dis-assembly and cleaning. The stanasol has probably spared me that problem.

I guess I never paid that close of attention, but are those really welded in there or just pressed?

I didn't get much done on this project over the weekend. We had a winter storm roll through the area and if having to dig out from that wasn't enough, we lost power in our data center at work. Spent most of the afternoon/evening trying to get the systems back up and running.

I did manage to finish the cleaning and rebuilding of all the coil assemblies... new wrappers and coils sleeves for each. Hopefully my GI lamps that were back ordered get here early this week so I can start re-assembly. I'm itching to play!

Here they are, all shiny and new looking:

coil_assembies.jpg

I should have got this done monday but I finally got around to yanking the Playfield tonight. I'm still working out of the gameroom and my basement until the shop gets finished so I do the bulk of the dis-assembly while its in the cabinet. Not an ideal way of doing it but it makes carrying it downstairs to the rotisserie easier.

Everything will be removed, wiring cleaned and the bottom of the playfield sanded clean. Once all that is done its on to re-assembly.

PlayfieldOut.jpg LowerPF.jpg

just cleaning/replacing what was there in the first place.

I did, and thank you!