Space Shuttle Restoration Log: How NOT to do yours…

Start Date: 10/15/2013
Plan: Take a perfectly working Space Shuttle pin, tear it down, repaint cabinet, swap playfield, clean the hell out of it and put it all back together again.
Stretch Goal: I should actually COMPLETE this before Zapcon 2014. (4/12/2014)
Unrealistic Goal: It should work as well as it currently does once I put it back together.
Expertise Level: I once soldered two wires together, using an oven. It kinda worked!
Free Time Available for Project: 1 hour per week.

Lame Backstory: When I was 11 I worked in an arcade at a beachfront hotel in Florida. While working that arcade I ate a lot of Pizza and Nachos, drank Gallons of Mountain Dew, stared at chicks in bikinis and went from Mikey-sized to Chunk-sized in a Florida Summer. I was a freaking MASTER of Time Pilot, Donkey Kong Jr, and Kick Man (what a great game!). I NEVER played pinball because it was too damned expensive (2 quarters!) and I was terrible. ONE of those pins happened to be Space Shuttle (I think, when you are drinking as much Mtn Dew as I did, and it was that long ago, it’s really just a best guess, maybe there was a shuttle launch one day on the news while I was hanging out in the arcade, shoving nacho-cheese-laden pizza down my face).

Fast forward 24 years. I started collecting arcade games (first mame, then on to the real deal). Then I needed a pin to round out the collection. So I bought one. Then I realized pins were amazing. I sold/dismantled my arcade games, and bought pins. One night, surfing the phx CL I found a cheapish Space Shuttle. I bought it, loved it instantly, and decided I would NEVER get rid of it... Then CPR reprod playfields, new ramps came, and I bought all that shti thinking that ONE DAY, ONE DAY I would restore Space Shuttle. So that didn’t happen… for like 2 years..… Until…. Today!!!!!!! Well, a couple of weekends ago in reality, but, hey, it’s more interesting if everyone would just believe that it all starts TODAY.

Disclaimer: For the record, I, for the most part, have NO idea what I’m doing. If you’ve seen Bryan Kelley’s or McCune’s work, that’s what I WANT to achieve. If you’ve seen their expertise and skill, that’s NOT where I am, at all, not even close. Chances are, I’m going to fck some stuff up pretty solidly. It’ll be fun, I'll drink a LOT of beer to make it better when I screw up, and I'll drink celebratory beer when I do something right. Feel free to tell me I’m dumb for doing one thing or another, publicly. It’ll likely be too late to fix me (as I will have already done done the stupid thing), but maybe others will learn from every and all mistakes I make along the way…

-Wes

Bonus/Test Picture: The Endeavor prior to its final mission (Well, it's there, just sitting behind the SRBs and External Fuel Tank)...
Endeavor Last Mission.jpg

Some pictures of the Shuttle before teardown. Backglass has some flaking towards to bottom, and some bubbling in some places. The playfield is actually GREAT, but, not CPR Repro Great. So that will get changed out. And the cabinet is solid, but there is a lot of planking and staining and some mold here and there, so that will get fixed.

Space Shuttle Original-502.jpg
Space Shuttle Zapcon.jpg
Space Shuttle Graining 2.jpg

Sorry for the terrible picture above, let's take a closer look at the playfield and backbox.

Here is the playfield. At some point a prior owner went in a put mylar over all the wear spots. At first I thought that was a pretty stupid idea, I mean, it's already worn right, What's the point!? Then I see all these OTHER blown out Space Shuttle Playfields and I realize what a great idea that was. But I have a better idea, I'll put in a CC CPR PF instead!

Space Shuttle Orig Playfield.jpg

And then check out the backbox. It looks like someone at some point pulled the bottom out, and replaced it with a piece of MDF. They did a good job, it just looks like crap. I *COULD* repair it, but, I'm going to remake the entire backbox instead. And by that I mean, pay someone to make me a new backbox!!!

Space Shuttle Backbox.jpg

Surprises inside! Check out that giant subwoofer in this thing. It could rattle the doors off of a civic, if it was powered by anything OTHER than the onboard audio amp. So whoever owned this before me thought they had a GREAT idea, hooked this thing up, realized it didn't work at all, and cut the leads, leaving only the backbox speaker to drive the sound. This thing will get tossed, or, I will put a 1500 Watt BOSS Amp in there and blow people up when they start multiball. We will see.

Space Shuttle Cab Before.jpg

Screw Nails. I hate them. They are the tiny nails that are holding your siderails to your cabinet. They suck. You cant even get a needle nose plier around them to pop them up, and if you use a screwdriver as wedge to pull them up, you will scrape the finish on the siderail.

What I did is I took a precision flathead screw driver and delicately tapped underneath to raise up the head, then I pulled it out with the needlenose pliers... i still ended up scratching the finish, but thats OK, I have to pull some dents and regrain it anyway (which I will eventually do with red scotchbrite).

Space Shuttle Side Screw Nails.jpg
Space Shuttle Screw Nails Pt 1.jpg
Space Shuttle Screw Nails Pt 2.jpg
Space Shuttle Screw Nails Pt 4.jpg

Yeah dude, that makes a LOT more sense. Here's an amazon-link for something I think would work:

http://www.amazon.com/IRWIN-2-Inch-Diagonal-Spring-2078925/dp/B000JNRQJ6/ref=pd_cp_hi_1

Cabinet Teardown underway... After removing the big piece of sheet metal, you can see the dust and rat shi7 and all the other nasty shtuff. The good news is though, I was able to salvage the Williams Sticker (both of them), and will try to clean them up and reapply once I'm done.

Space Shuttle Power Center.jpg
Space Shuttle Power 2.jpg
Space Shuttle Cabinet Shit.jpg
Space Shuttle Sticker.jpg

Good Call. Actually, when I ripped out the braces, the back ones were being held in by tac nails, not actual screws. Not sure why they did that on the back and not the front braces....

Time to grind some paint!.. I decided for my solution I was too cheap to go the McCune Festool route. So I went with the Walmart version, a RIGID RO Sander and a 5.5 HP Shop Vac. It seems to do pretty well. I started on 80 grit, and will slowly work my way up as I go...

Before Pics:
Space Shuttle Cabinet Empty.jpg
Space Shuttle Cabinet Shooter.jpg
Space Shuttle Cab Pre Sanding 1.jpg

My Cheapo Sanding Setup:
Space Shuttle Sanding Setup.jpg

How effective!
Space Shuttle Sanding Half Done.jpg
Space Shuttle Sanding Half Done 2.jpg

More to come, missing some pics gotta go find them...

And here are the rest of the pictures. I had no idea if you could sand the perforated cabinet bottom. So I took it out and sanded it to find out. If it doesn't work out, I'll just replace it with another piece of birch or maple. For now though, it looks pretty good!

Space Shuttle Bottom Cabinet Before.jpg
Space Shuttle Back Cabinet Mid.jpg
Space Shuttle Sanding Done 3.jpg
Space Shuttle Sanding Done 4.jpg
Space Shuttle Sanding Done 5.jpg

You can see my newly made backbox in the last couple pics. It is SEXY. Next up, some finer sanding and bondo and sanding and priming and sanding and painting, etc. For now, BEER time from my favorite CO Brewery, SKA Brewing Company. Their Mexican Logger is better, but that's why I don't have any of it...

Space Shuttle Sanding Done 6.jpg

Beer.jpg

For the bondo work, what works for people, a small section at a time or just go nuts and do the whole thing at once? What's the consensus, bondo folks?

-Wes

Hahah. I WISH. I have about 1 - 2 hours PER WEEK to work on this thing. It's going to be a LOOONG process...

I have thought about it. I can always decide that after I see how the paint lays down. It would look nice with chromey T-molding.

-Wes