Hi everyone, my name is Justin from wellington, new zealand.
I am new to the pinball hobby, coming up to one year of table ownership. My first pin was J.p. and that just really needed a good clean up and basic shop. I sold the J. P. after I gave it a top of p.f teardown and clean, so a little experience gained there. I also have a bit of experience panel and painting cars and general custom car work (I have a custom 67 fury that I think is quite cool)
I picked up this fish tales a few weeks ago, from a friend of a friend for quite a good price, but it needs quite a bit of t.l.c. so I am going to start a thread documenting my rebuild, mainly because I know I will stuff something up and need to ask for help at some point.
I am not planning a high end resto, more of a get it nice and get it done.
So here she is, built Oct 92. Most of the inserts have either sunken or risen a very small amount. There are a couple of chips to artwork around a couple of sunken inserts. My plan is to strip the p.f. and cabinet. Heat gun off old graphics on cab, prime with 2k h.s. primer, satin black the black bits and put decals on. I plan on re-leveling the inserts, toch up paint chips and clearcoating the p.f. with 2k auto clear.
So far I've stripped down and removed the p.f. and labeled the loom. Next I'll try removing the factory mylar with freeze spray.....wish me luck

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Thanks LTG
Just used freeze spray to pull up the mylar. ..worked great and alot easier then I thought it was going to be. Didn't pull up any art or inserts and mylar is in good enough shape to trace my new mylar off of it.
Happy with that

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I had a quick go at leveling some inserts on the boat play field last night. 1 arrow was sunken, 3 were slightly raised. All the middle ones were fine.
The sunken one was heated then pushed out, plastic primer on the edge, mastic glue cleaned out, glued back in with epoxy and held with a g clamp and block of wood. I heated it a little too much and some faint white lines have appeared on the insert decal, doesn't bother me, but a lesson to be more gentle heating it up. It also needs a slight touch up to the black around insert.
The other 3 I heated and clamped down with a little epoxy on the underside, worked out good. lesson learned.... be a little more careful and precise with epoxy, as it was a little more messy then I would like.
Play field cleaned with simple green mix, glue from my lay cleaned off with a citrus based "goo remover" it's coming up quite good, but needs more agressive cleaning in some areas
Shiney new decals arrived....nice!

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Just a little fade on the cabinet

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Cleaned up the loom and checked all the switches and connectors. Didn't do the dishwasher deal, just layed out on a table and cleaned with a rag, brush and simple green mix, dried with air compressor, cleaned the boards, but I just used a soft brush and air compressor

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Just started stripping the cab, much easier then I thought! Only spent 20mins to do a side. I have a good heat gun and used a carbide scraper. Just don't let the glue cool, heat gun in one hand, scraper in the other, 10 seconds heat, scrape, repeat. Easy

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I've been leveling the inserts I can get to with the clamps I have, waiting on a 12in throat clamp from fleabay to get to about half the inserts I want to level.
It's going well, happy with the results so far.
I heat up insert with my heat gun on very low, they don't need much heat. Piece of wood wrapped in grease paper for the artwork side. Various sockets to push the inserts level, remove clamp, prime insert with plastic adhesion promoter, use tooth pick to put a little 5mins epoxy in there and let set.
It's probably not the textbook way, but its working so far

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Well....I was on such a roll with the inserts, I thought "stuff work, I'm gonna keep on this"
I found as I heated the inserts, I didn't need the clamps, I could just move them with my fingers
Did every insert on the game with epoxy. Removed the worst ones that had paint chips on edges. It's not perfect, but its much better then it was...and good enough for me, and good enough for my plans for this game.
Gave it another polish.
Next step is a good friend who is a very good artist is going to colour match and touch up the chips around some inserts.

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Some more pics from leveling the playfield inserts. My big clamp showed up today.....too bad I didn't need it in the end, but I'm sure if I didn't order it, I would have needed it. Artwork touch ups today, and hopefully build a ghetto booth tomorrow to shoot the clear. Time for another quick look at vids guide...

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Art touch ups done, many thanks to my good friend Anton.
Flakey edges chipped away.
Primed with quick dry all poupose enamel primer
Then brush touched up. All color matching and art work done by Anton
First 2 pics after leveling
Pic's 3&4 are primed
Pic's 5 , 6 &7 after art touch up

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Thank you very much. I'm trying my best.
but being new, I don't know if I'm going far enough with what I'm doing, I keep thinking " is it level enough? Maybe I should re-do those better" but I'm sure it's better then it was, and good enough to keep for me.
Havnt had much time to work on this, had a steady stream of visitors to play my new Met
Hopefully this evening I will drip a little clear into the touch ups to make them more level before I clear coat this weekend

Ended up brush touching the clear coat chips. I tried with and eye dropper and toothpick to begin with, but that wasn't working the best, so switched to a small brush. Worked ok, any proud bits I can knock down with 1000gr before spraying clear I hope?? The general idea was to bring the chipped areas up to close to the areas around, so that the clear has a better chance of leveling out.
Dupont challenger 2 with about 5% normal reducer, it's left overs from when I painted my plymouth.
Also fired up my new tumbler with a bunch of posts etc
First 4 pics are after art tochups but before clear brush touch. Clearcoating this weeknd.
It's probably not the best way to do it, but I don't really know what I'm up to, so this is how I think it could be done.
So long and thanks for all the fish

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Did my clearcoating this weeknd.
Sanded out the chewed up shooter lane, 100 grt, 180 grt, 4hundy
Blocked the lot down down with 8hundy. Touch ups blocked down all good
1 dust coat, 2 medium coats...... too many fish eyes (pun intended ) man I cleaned this thing so many times
Left overnight and blocked down again
Today, 1 dust coat, followed immediately by a medium coat, 10 mins then another med coat.
Looks alot better, altho a little dry in a few places and a little orange peel to leave it off the gun, so I'll let it cure, flat it down with 15 hundy and buff er up.
Pretty happy with the product so far, not perfect, but you have to look close for the touch ups, so I'll call that mission accomplished on the playfield
All good bro
So long and thanks for all the fish

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Gave the p.f. a wet 1500 sand to knock the top off the orange peel then buffed with mirka medium compound. Didn't take too long, the orange peel wasn't too bad really. I can still see a few fish eyes around, but I'm not going to redo it, as I think it's well good enough for my expectations of this game.
1st pic, flattened down with 15hundy
2nd and third pic "Dude, you been working out?..... lookin buff"
"BEEFCAKEEEEE!!!!!"

This weeknd I will hopefully prep, prime, and black the cabinet, maybe even get a decal on if I'm lucky...

So long and thanks for all the fish

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Prepped up the cab today.
I'm a house painter/decorator during the day, so I grabbed my big sander "Charles Rippington 3rd" and smashed it with 40 grit, then a bit of bondo here n there.... 120 grit on Mr Rippington to finish.
I was going to spray 2k h.s. primer on cab, but thought it a waste to be honest, so I grabbed some coverstain oil based out of the van (I use boxes of this stuff, it's my main primer, it does nearly everything and its not expensive) an old 8mm nap roller and painted that cab up with 2 thick coats. That paint builds real nice, and tomorrow it will sand up nice and smooth with 150grt. Will do the black bits tomorrow
So long and thanks for all the fish

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40k and its yours, supreme d.b. edition.
A photo of the confirmation of buying a photo of a supreme machine

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Awww...thanks.
I read up your rebuild before I started this job. Your f.t. came out amazing and was an inspiration

Thanks cosmo Kramer, your f.t. build was another I read and admired before I started mine.
The high end stuff you and soulrider911 do would make me so nervous if I was trying it. But I do like reading about it

Sanded down the primer, had a dig through the paint leftovers, found a gloss 2k black, so used that. Wold rather have used a satin or semi gloss, but I really don't want to spend much, so using materials I already have on hand...
Tomorrow is a public holiday here, so hopefully put the decals on
So long, and thanks for all the fish

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Hi Bryan Kelly, not sure what part you are referring to that I need to go a bit further with, but the reason is most likely ignorance or lazy ness on my part.
If you mean, why have I not painted all the inside of cab, Its because I didn't really see the need to paint the bottom and underside? Should I be?

On with the decals. All went well. Used the wet method by myself. Wasn't too much stress and quite achievable on your own.
I was happy to find a use for the big clamp I bought for the inserts, used it to hold decal in place after I lined it all up.
Like most things I've done......it's not perfect, but I'm more then happy with it.
Well, I guess that the last of the cool interesting stuff for now. Just a whole lot of cleaning and polishing.....then re assembly.
So long and thanks for all the fish

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Thanks man, I'll put some of those protectors into my next marco order. So I remove the decal from under the protector and that stops wrinkling?
I also put those big leg brackets on the inside of the front legs. Did b/w change to those brackets in 93? My dredd has the big brackets, but fish tales had little brackets.

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Thanks heaps SteveNZ for transporting the board and changing those chips over, it was a great help, also thanks to rotordave for the minty fresh homepin board, and yes, hopefully get to boot it up in a few weeks, if life lets me get some free time soon that is!

Almost ready to fire it up for the first time after work today....... good luck

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Sadly last week, one of the contributes to project fish tales, Charles Rippington 3rd, passed away. His power was fading, and then the main bolt sheared off with the pad. I may repair you later, but till then
So long, and thanks for all the fish good buddy
You have been replaced by
Smashious Clay, a very worthy
replacement!

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Game was mostly going, booted up with a few problems, but was basically running. Turned on today for more troubleshooting and d19 blanking light on mpu board locked on and won't boot. Disconected all plugs and ribon cables from mpu, d19 still locked on.
It's a brand new home pin mpu. Not sure what to check next? 5v is getting 4.95v is that close enough?
The last thing I was doing was replacing fuses on main power board

Awww.....shit! Looks like while putting back together I've mixed up and put plug j209 (switch row input) onto j206 (column drive output). Maybe it blew a fuse, and when I've replaced fuse it's blown the mpu???????

Decided to support the local pin repair man, and dropped off the 2 broken mpu boards I have, he thinks both are very fixable and will have a look.
Take my money and make them work.....thank you

Still waiting for the board repair guy (you can't rush him, it's done when it's done, end of story) so finished up a few thing, cleaned and stuck armour on.
Did the legs and shooter, legs were bad, so wire wheel, then treated with de-oxidine ( its a phospheric acid product) shooter just a 600gr sand.
Painted both with 4 coats of durapox, it's a n.z. and Australian product only, a epoxy urethane based marine primer by resene paints, sticks like shit to a sheet, tough as nails and flows out real nice. It's not a top coat, but I've used it as one a few times, cause it looks so good. I had my plymouth painted in it for about 10 years (semi gloss black cars look tough!!) I've got some guards from by buddy's cuda as garden art here, about 10 years ago aswell, showing age now.

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Got to have a flip on this last night for the first time.
The board problem turned out to be poor solder flow on the brand new homepin mpu. My tech reflowed around 8 or 9 conections (2 in the asic chip holder were the main problem) but also said all the connections didn't really have enough solder in his opinion. So me plugging in the plugs wrong didn't cause the problem. He also fixed my old mpu (burned traces when a previous owner socketed u20)

Mostly runs, has a few switch matrix problems, maybe bad diodes, still getting my head around matrix trouble shooting, so I'll probably test all the diodes. Sound only goes for 2 mins, then it cuts out, heatsink way hot, off to board repair guy.
I think I've wires my pops g.I. wrong, as the upper p.f. g.I. fuse blows straight away. If anyone has a reference pick of pops g.I. wiring, could you please post it.
That's about it,
So long and thanks for all the fish

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Thanks man!
I would have preferred a nickel or chrome, but I'm too much of a cheapskate, so black will do

Hey Dave,
It ran for the first few times for me aswell. Jon thinks I've flexed the board a little while plugging in. He recommended I bring it up with homepin, as they probably would like to know, but Im not worried about it.
At the end of the day, it's running fine, didnt cost much to fix, and even with the repairs still worked out cheaper then me buying brand new rottendog ex USA so all good In my book.
Jons old school, so it's also probably a lot him lamenting the loss of yesteryear
Bally/williams build quality
Yes, I sealed up cab with oil based pigmented sealer, but zinsser brand

Thanks for the reply and explanation.
I like the board, and it is the board I am going to keep in the machine (i will keep the repaired williams board as a spare) and I think you have a good product, I like how all the chips are socketed.
At the end of the day it didn't cost much to fix, and it runs fine, so all good

Had problems with the sound board next.the cabinet speaker started smoking and Amplifier chip blew. Chip all sorted, and chucked a 30w 4ohm kenwood car spreaker in, goes great and fits the hole with no mods.
Rest of game all dialled in and running just fine. Made it by my goal of 40th bday party with one day to spare. 180 plays at the party with no probs..

So long and thanks for all the fish