This started as a HIDEOUS $500 galaxy: bad glass, hiiiilariously badly painted cab, so-so playfield, iffy display situation (pinscore 7 digit p1, outgassed p4) that I intended to gut and convert to a Quicksilver. Seemed like a perfect candidate.

Then my friend found a neglected Galaxy in his local operator warehouse. It was supposed to be $600. Cab looked okay, not great. Glass had a bit of flaking but was better than what I had. Displays were there. Mpu and sound board were present, lamp and power missing. No playfield glass, no lock bar. No big deal. The playfield looked to have SOLID upside, under all the dust. Pickup day came and suddenly it was $600 without the backglass or $700 with. No one mentioned it but the displays and boards were removed. Nice. Much back and forth later, I was told to deal with it as is it bring it back and they'd give me a refund plus $25 (lol, what?). I decided I was better off WITH it than without it, so I kept it. My display situation still sucks but I'm hoping I can pick up a few original Stern displays for Galaxy somewhere.

The goal with Galaxy will be to keep it more or less as original as possible (although I do intend to give the 2021 code update a try, looks neat). Not sure yet if the cab will get repainted. Maybe, since it's such a simple design. Unsure on cleaning the playfield or at a minimum filling inserts.

Quicksilver will get all new everything. Alltek boards, Xpin displays, Mirco playfield and plastics, BGResto backglass, etc.

Donor cab for Quicksilver is uuuuuugly.

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The way the warehouse cab looked when I was told about it, for $600.

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The way it was given, at full price +100 (backglass in the truck) after the operator gutted it.

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Transferring my working boards over. Sadly, no boot due to a bad rec board / bad plugs (haven't tried replacing it repinning yet)

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Some minor progress thus far on the new playfield. Using Meguiar's Ultimate Polish and a 2200rpm Dremel Versa.

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Rough day for my tools. My Dremel wasn't wanting to cooperate and died fairly quickly. Still need to buff some more. I pulled off all the hardware I could in order to tumble it...and my tumbler motor froze up. I cleaned the glass up and it's a bit rougher than I thought. Sadly it's probably going to just be a wall-hanger.

Hopefully I can buff the playfield a bit more tomorrow. It's not terribly far from where I want it to be but I don't have a nice even gloss throughout and that's what I really want to get. Looks a lot better than when it was covered in dust, at least.

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Made some solid progress yesterday and today. Yesterday the goal was to get the first cab to boot with the original boards and a new rectifier board. After some serious dinking around (I screwed up the arrangement on the J1 plug -- sheesh) I finally got it to work. Swapping over to the new cab, I had to repin all three rectifier plugs as well as J3 on the SDB and then it booted too. Still having problems getting displays to work in the new cab, where they worked in the old one...probably more repinning ahead. J1 on the MPU didn't get it done.

Today I did some more buffing on the playfield, cleaned (and buffed) the apron, brushed and polished the lift trim, and tested the glass in the game. It looks better than I thought even though it's not perfect. It might do okay.

I cleaned the faceted posts and various wire guides...I think I'm nearly ready to reassemble.

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Waxed the bottom and middle portions and started reassembly. Working on cleaning and flattening plastics now.

Still need to repin display connectors.

Hopefully it'll all be back in one piece and working well this weekend.

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Not perfect, but passable for now.

Yeah, that's more or less how I approached flattening them in my oven. My big left piece still has a bit of warping to it so I might try again, but I only have two small pieces of glass and that makes it difficult to span large pieces like this. It's probably "good enough" for now. If Galaxy ends up being a keeper (I have the 2021 code setup on the way) I'll likely buy a new backglass and plastics sometime down the road.

Both of my Galaxy troughs had busted tabs so I need to fix one and then polish it up.

I got sick of my weird display issues and after repinning a BUNCH of plugs but getting nowhere I finally just gave up and swapped the backbox harness over from the other cab. Displays good to go again.

Finished waxing and polishing and started a bit more reassembly. Looking good!

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Finished up (for now). Had to pop in a couple of translucent lane guides that don't look great...they'll be swapped with Opaque red very soon.

Backglass swapped, Xpin LED boards installed. Needs a LOT of adjustments but it does play fully.

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Nevr Dull is great stuff! I actually just used a Scotch Brite pad on my trough parts this time, I assume some time down the road I'll have to do it again and maybe use Nevr Dull or something else..or clearcoat..because it'll oxidize again. All of these old stern parts do it since they didn't coat them.

Stripped more junk off the ugly cab, sending off for powder. I think I'm going to try Prismatic Super Chrome plus. I think it might look really nice set against the silver QS cab.

https://www.prismaticpowders.com/shop/powder-coating-colors/UMS-10671/super-chrome-plus

I got this ugly, BEAT lock bar with some other stuff. No idea if it can be filled/reshaped/powdercoated but I intend to try. It would be a shame to have to just junk it.

I'm picking up the 2021 code setup for Galaxy tomorrow, along with a NOS spinner and backglass. That should really make Galaxy shine!

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New glass swapped in, albeit with old incandescent bulbs still behind it. I might try swapping LEDs in selectively.

Need to get some vinyl "scores" for the windows on the old one and then frame it for the shop.

Still need to swap in the new spinner and install the new 2021 code, which I now have in hand.

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Finally got a complete set of matching Stern displays from TPF (thanks play_pinball !) and installed new code/spinner. Went ahead and used a 20W amplifier and some bookshelf speakers (because if not now, then when?!) and gave it a test run. Wow!

Still lots of adjusting to do but I'm very impressed.

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I'll make some better ones once I have it a bit more dialed in. This was really just a quick demo of the new code.

This has definitely cleaned up pretty well but it's *not quite* there. Getting close! The new code really does liven up the gameplay quite a bit.

Picked up a nice 2.1 Boston speaker set for $3 at a garage sale earlier in hopes that it would work out better than the bookshelf speakers and the small amplifier. They sound great, and the subwoofer is a really nice touch.

I'll probably mount the speakers on bottom near the front legs. I'm trying to figure out how I can secure the subwoofer inside the cab, where the speaker originally went. Then of course I need to tap into the transformer so I don't have to use the service port for power, and I can then bundle up/tab wires in place. My goal was to not have to use any sort of external power or have anything UNDER the cab of the game.

I also swapped on the lane guides from my donor playfield to get things a BIT under control with the guides I have (mine are badly broken at the end and the ball was getting STUCK between the plastic spacer and the flipper). It's definitely not perfect and I still have some hop, which is annoying, but it's far better than it was. It's a temporary solution until I can buy new lane guides, cut new (clear) guides of the proper size, or...I don't know. I'm open to pretty much anything at this point.
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Have not done any additional work on the speaker situation other than loosely sitting the subwoofer inside, over the original speaker cutout. The satellite speakers are just sitting on the floor for now.

https://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/13C-114-SS

These were back in stock so I ordered two sets. One will get installed and the other will go to my friend to trace and make templates for future reprinting if the need ever arises.

Man I love this game with the new code.

I'd say that even at ~$2000 they're probably near the bottom (in terms of price) of classic Stern SB300 games capable of being a donor. I'm lucky that the other one was so ugly (bad glass, hideous cab, "okay" playfield) or else I'd be inclined to keep it a Galaxy. It just needs too much for me to want to do anything other than turn it into a QS. That said, I still haven't bought any actual parts in order to do the conversion. I'm aiming for next year...

I am! The new code took it from zero to hero as far as I'm concerned!

I still intend to redo the cab at some point and touch up / clearcoat the playfield... but that'll be a ways down the road.

Forgot to post about the new flipper lane plastics from Marco. Finally, no more disgusting ball hopping. I still need to rebuild the top pop but other than that I'm pretty much done with Galaxy for a bit (still need to mount speakers but it's been low priority). Eventual resto (pf touch up and clear + cab repaint) will be well down the road.

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The ever-growing QS parts pile..

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Oh, and the QS cab has been stripped down so it can be cleaned up and then painted. Metal parts are ready for powder.

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Finally stripped down the rest of the cab so it can head off to become a Quicksilver. Decided I'm going to throw together a Stars so the harness will be cleaned up and put back to use for that purpose. Unfortunately that also means I need to pull the 3 bank drop and potentially both spinners out of the QS pile for that project. Oh well, back to scouring I go!

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Been a while since I posted here, not a lot of progress lately. The cabinet went off to be stripped some number of months ago. My buddy is working on filling it and making it smooth before stenciling the Quicksilver art on. The 3-bank drops I pulled from my Stars playfield are missing several metal pieces so I'll have to order those from Marco (total insanity that they even sell it, but they're FAR from cheap) so those can be built out. Obviously I need to sand down the spinners still so those can be repainted/cleared/whatever for when I'm ready.

I need to go deliver all of my metal parts to my powdercoater so he can work with them. I think I'm going to have him go for as glossy/"shiny" a silver powder as I can. I know I could polish stainless, or get them chromed, or something like that... but that's not the look I'm going for (and it's a lot more maintenance than I want to deal with after it's all done).

I'll probably wait to grab a playfield/plastics/backglass until a show where I can save on shipping, or something like that. Definitely a 'play it by ear' sort of thing there. I definitely want to get this one done sooner rather than later though, I absolutely love QS.

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Finally gave in and stripped my parts Galaxy playfield today. Now, lots and lots of cleaning with the ultrasonic cleaner.

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Bored out of my mind at the dance studio with my daughter, I reassembled my 4-bank with the new top plate I got from 20eyes -- looks great!

I didn't want to have an unused memory coil assembly just hanging out in my Quicksilver. I'll throw it in the parts bin and maybe use it somewhere else someday. Still need to decide if I'm going back- or bottom-mount for switches. I may just buy brand new ones so I don't have to clip the harness. I dunno.

I ran almost everything else through my ultrasonic after stripping the Galaxy playfield. I loosely categorized it and will be delivering parts for the build soon. Getting excited about seeing this one through!
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I don't get to take credit for any of this. People with far more skill than me are doing the real heavy lifting here.

The playfield and cab are nearing the finish line. Powder is done except for the siderails.

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I still need to get a backglass.... doh.

https://www.prismaticpowders.com/shop/powder-coating-colors/UMS-10671/super-chrome-plus

I'm not sure how they're getting near that much mirror (check the sample images) as mine definitely aren't quite that, but it's not bad. Better than dealing with delicate high-polished/actual chrome IMO.

Given the fact that my rails didn't get done in the chrome powder, I'm thinking about just buying a new set and shipping directly to him, to save myself one of my 220-mile round trips to deliver. I dunno, kind of an expensive path to take on this, but it would make sure I'm not starting with beat up/dented* rails.

*Assuming of course no shipping damage