Hearing many good things about the cult classic Swords of Fury, I finally got to play it at a local pinball event. I instantly fell in love with this game! The fast gameplay and constant movement of the ball is intense. The artwork and call outs are very much late 80's...a hybrid of themes from Gauntlet, Lord of the Rings, and He-Man comes to mind. The music is superb. This game was created by some veterans of older pinball design and they really knew how to make the game fun without employing too many complex mechanisms or toys.

When I tried to find a Swords of Fury for sale, I realized the days of these things showing up for $1000 on Craigslist was in the past. I searched for 6 months and finally two games popped up from different sellers on the same night! I went for the retail one rather than the Ebay auction (which ended early). I was told the game was a "9 out of 10" and they put more than 30 hours into it. When it arrived, I cried and sulked for days over the ACTUAL condition, then I set about fixing this game up.

A couple of notes: First, sorry but I didn't take many before pictures. After doing this for years, I just don't spend much time taking pictures of dirty worn pinball machines any more. Second, I am NOT a high end restoration guy. I worship those people and the amazing things they do! This is more of just getting the machine really clean and nice for the average person!

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Here's a list of everything I recall doing to the machine:

• new ribbon cable to score display
• upgraded all available ROMs to latest version
• Flipper Fidelity speaker upgrades
• Rotten Dog power driver board
• new coil sleeves all around
• all new flipper mechanisms and flippers (repainted original mini flipper)
• patched cabinet dings
• touched up all blue, silver, and black cabinet exteriors
• clear coated cabinet all around with Polyurethane
• removed, cleaned coin door, painted with “hammered steel” paint, added lion emblem
• painted legs and bolts with hammered steel, added new feet
• added hammered steel trim to back box
• added new double bit lock to coin door
• removed and polished lockdown mechanism, re-labeled
• removed, cleaned, relabeled service switches
• mirror polished lockdown bar, added new beer seal
• cleaned glass channels
• new playfield glass
• removed old playfield mylar with freeze spray, removed glue with flour and IPA
• striped off about 95% of playfield parts
• touched up playfield wear
• added decal overlays to all inserts
• removed and stripped mini playfield
• recreated mini playfield artwork and applied new vinyl decal overlays
• clear coated all of playfield surfaces with Rustoleum Ultimate Polyurethane
• stripped and rebuilt drop targets, added new drop target decals
• replaced both upper and lower ramps with brand new clear ramps, added decals and LEDs to ramps
• added new Cliffy ramp protectors
• all new plastics, all new rubber and Cliffy post covers
• replaced line cord plug and cleaned line cord
• cleaned and oiled back box hinges
• replaced back box latch
• added new back cabinet skids
• added leg protectors
• added BriteButtons LED flipper buttons with “flame” flicker in yellow
• added BriteSound LED speaker light in red
• pieced together two damaged translates to make one decent one
• polished chrome habitrails
• added new custom score / instruction cards
• added all LED lighting
• added sword promo plastic over shooter lane
• recreated and added new repro spinner decals
• created new stand up target decals and applied to all targets
• created “Titan” helmet topper with LED lighting
• added yellow “flickering flame” LED under translight
• added LED lit “Balrog” figure
• added Lionman figure
• a bunch of other things that I can’t remember!

For paints and coatings, this is mainly what I used:

For the cabinet exterior blue "Desert Turquoise" by Americana acrylic craft paint. This paint was extremely close to the original cab color. For silver, I had a harder time finding something perfect. I settled for "Shimmering Silver" metalic silver by DecoArt acrylic. Both from Hobby Lobby. For the black, my old standby is Rust-Oleum Ultracover latex semi-gloss. For the cabinet clear coat, I used Ultimate Polyurethane Semi Gloss and for the playfield, the same in Gloss version. People often talk about Varathane. I think that product is extremely problematic. It dries too quickly, does not flow or level well, and has a lot of repellency fish eye issues. This Rust-Oleum Ultimate Polyurethane claims to be more durable and is very easy to work with. It even smells different than Varathane or Minwax Polycrylic, so I know it's not just the same stuff in a different can.

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There were some of the usual dings that I filled with Elmers wood filler, and as with most system 11 1980's cabinets, the wood was planking (surface splitting or cracking) due to moisture and temperature effects during its life. After wiping down the whole cab with 409 cleaner, I applied the turquoise and silver with a fine brush where needed. Then I went over the black areas with the Ultra Cover brushed on. When very dry, I then added 2 coats of the Ultimate Polyurethane to seal the wood from further splitting and give all painted surfaces a homogenized semi gloss finish. I think the cabinet exterior turned out really nice.

I noted this cabinet seems to have a hybrid between stencil painted and silk screened veneer surfaces. I'm sure other people know more about this than I do. Basically the back box sides look silk screened with a veneer and the silver is extremely sensitive to damage from cleaners with alcohol. Clean the silver areas gently and then clear coat the whole thing to protect the silver from getting damaged in the future!

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The lock down bar was very dull and scratched. I purchased 3M red sanding sponges from about 160 grit up to about 300 grit. I cleaned the bar, then wet the sponges. By sanding in movements from left to right and right to left (NOT UP AND DOWN and NOT CIRCULAR) I was able to get this bar looking like new. Start with the coarse grit, sand about 50 strokes, then move up to the next smoother grit and so on. Wipe with a damp towel between grits to remove metal residue. About 3 or 4 different sanding sponges and 20 minutes of time is cheaper than buying a new System 11 lockdown bar. This works well as long as the sratches in the bar are not too horribly deep.

Since this game has a medieval theme, I deviated from my usual black coin door painting and went with Rust-Oleum hammered steel spray paint. I like how it turned out. Also did the same for the legs and leg bolts of course. Lastly, I added 3/4" auto trim to the back box, having sprayed it first with the same hammered steel paint. I found a silver lion face emblem at a cheap jewlery store and added it to the coin door. I still need to make some "Balrog" inserts for the red coin slots.

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The translite on these machines are usually faded and burned by bulbs. That was also the case with mine. These are usually very brittle as well, so just handling them can crack them. The official Williams sellers do not offer reproduction translites for this game as far as I know. I bought a digital printed one from Germany, but it looked pretty low res and I could see ink jet lines in it. It also had poor contrast.

I had burn marks all over mine. Then I saw a better one pop up on Ebay for $50 with less burns. But, it had a hole in the Lionman's face. I bought it and cut out the face of the Lionman from one, then affixed it into the other. Then I applied sheets of mylar to the back of the whole thing to keep it from cracking. Overall it turned out okay, but I sure wish PPS would offer new ones! This translite is also sort of yellowish and faded, as most. I normally don't go crazy with LED colors behind translites. But to improve the appearance of this situation, I did use a lot of colors. It looks pretty crazy but I'm okay with it.

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My largest worry was the mini playfield. It looked HORRIBLE. Dirty, cracked, faded, yellowed, planked, worn, etc. This part of the game is really cool and gets a lot of play. I needed to get this looking good again. After considering options, I decided to pull the whole thing out, strip off every part, and scan it on my home EPSON scanner. Then I cleaned up and retouched everything in Photoshop. As this pieces is sort of pan handle shaped, it did not fit completely on my scanner. So, I had to do it in two parts.

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It took a couple long days of working on this. I then sized it correctly and printed it on high quality paper to adjust colors. The trick was to get the colors to match the game..basically add a little yellow hue to make it look slightly old, but not crappy. I'm not artist and no Photoshop expert, but I'm pleased with the results.

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I then printed these on Papilio white contouring decal vinyl. It is a good thin material, durable, water proof, great adhesion, great ink jet print quality. I touched up all the non decaled areas that are black. Then VERY slowly and carefully applied the decals. I was so relieved when this was complete. After drying time, I applied 3 coats of Polyurethane.

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The small white flipper for this mini playfield is apparently unobtainium. I could only find some STERN yellow ones for sales that might fight. The original flipper was not broken, just dirty. I decided to repaint it with two coats of white gloss enamel spray paint. It turned out great!

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I found the flipper mechanism on this was pretty nasty. In fact there were issues with all the flippers. I finally decided to just buy whole new flipper assemblies from Pinball Life company. It's a great value and really makes the game play like new. If you plan on keeping the game, why not get all new flipper parts and enjoy the improved performance. I also got Williams logo new flipper bats for the other 3 flippers and added some bright blue PerfectPlay silicone rubbers from Pinball Life.

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I do not have the pictures any more, but prior to re-assembling the mini playfield, I completely took apart and cleaned the 5 bank drop target assembly. This thing takes a beating and needs service if not already done. Basically cleaning, inspection, new coil sleeves, and new orange holographic decals were applied. Not super complicated but you need to pay attention in case a spring pops off or a screw falls on the floor. Lots o little pieces! There's plenty of help on Pinside about servicing drop targets. Just be sure to spend the couple bucks and put in the correct set of new coil sleeves. Otherwise you are wasting your time.

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For the main playfield, I removed the mylar. I know a lot of people say to just polish the mylar and keep it, but I simply can't stand it. I need the whole playfield to be clean and glossy. I carefully removed the very foggy, scratched, and damaged mylar using the well documented freeze spray (upsideown canned air) method. It came off fairly well.

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The hard part is really removing the adhesive left behind. I ended up using the most common method. I applied baking flour to small areas, dampened the flour with isopropyl alcohol, let it sit for a minute then rubbed at it with my thumbs. Then on tot he next section and so on. I never timed it but it felt like a 6 hour project.

I don't have photos of the playfield restoration, but in summary:

- removed all plastics and major parts...just a few posts and misc. hardware parts were remaining
- cleaned all ball swirls and dirt with melamine foam (Magic Eraser) and alcohol.
- I cleaned and cleaned, the entire playfield several times until there was no more dirt coming up on my cotton wipes
- touched up some small areas with craft paints. Really there was minimal touch up. Most of the art was in tact thanks to the mylar.

Some of the inserts were worn. Not very damaged and thankfully not unlevel. I just needed to apply new insert decals to make these look good again. I've had good success in the past, but this experience was terrible! I purchased the licensed insert decals from the usual source(s). They looked fine on the liner sheet. When I applied them, I first noticed how badly they fit...or didn't. Some were too large, some were too small. I ended up splitting the difference in an effort to align these over the inserts.

Even worse, the black lettering on these is virtually transparent. It looks okay when the game is off. But when lit, the opacity of the black letters almost disappears. If you've seen these for sale, you may have the same issue when you get them. Just warning you in advance.

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With a clean, touched up, and decaled playfield, it was time to add clear coat. Here's where so many Pinhead people will hate me. I'm just not skilled enough / not into it enough to strip the whole playfield, put it on a rotissery, and auto clear it. Instead I brushed on Rustoleum Ultimate Polyurethane gloss. It dries slow, it levels, it does not fish eye. I frankly love this product. The material is super durable...maybe not as durable as auto clear, but a heck of a lot more durable than the original factory lacquer. Three coats were applied. The only downside is that small surface defects such as planking do not hide quite as well with this approach. The coating is not as thick as auto clear. Basically to me, the playfield looks in great condition again, but not like a glossy bar table.

http://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/wood-care/ultimate-polyurethane

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Though the original plastics on this game were okay, I wanted it to all look as fresh as possible. I purchased a complete new plastics set from the usual licensed source. I was somewhat disappointed with the new plastics, but put them on anyway. For starters, the orange colors of the originals are all RED on the new set. That means for example the orange face of the girl on the right slingshot is RED and looks terrible. There's also a lot of fine detail on the originals that are blown away on the new set with over saturated colors. As far as repro plastics, repro decals, and repro translites go on Swords of Fury, I'm totally disappointed!

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Off topic - My daughter and my cat. Sorry, just had to share this one.

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Polished and re-installed the lockdown bar mechanism. Relabeld it. I don't know why so many people don't do this. Nor do I understand why it makes me happy when I do it. It just looks so much better to have a polished lockdown mech. Also cleaned and re-installed the arch. Not a scratch on it! Added these cool custom cards as well.

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Installed new Flipper Fidelity speakers to enhance the already cool sounds of this game. Easy enough to install. Allow an hour though. They sound great, but to be honest, just hooking in a home theater sub woofer to the base speaker would sound even better. Did that on my T2 and it shakes the room. Here's where you can get the Flipper Fidelity kit for SOF.

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I like LEDs on most games. Purchased most of them from Pinball Life. Also added LED flipper button lights (BriteButtons) and LED speaker Lights (BriteSound) via www.britemods.com and purchased from Pinball Life. These special LED kits have an in-wire controller so you can set them to flicker, pulse, flash, etc. A variety of colors are available. Note: these are mods designed to plug and play in Williams 1990's games that are WPC. In order to power these in a 1980's Williams System 11, I needed to manually tap into the 12VDC of the power driver board. In other words, you need to know how to do that.

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There were NO burned IDC connectors or wires or board components on this game. That tells me it did not sit powered on all day, every day in a route situation. It did occasionally have a few wonky things happen during games, so I put in the latest new ROMS and also replaced the power supply with a new Rotten Dog replacement. The game runs great now. Not sure if I needed to do those things or not.

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One of the most common issues with Swords of Fury is a broken upper ramp. It has a lot of action and a lot of hardware. It gets brittle and cracks. Of course there have not been any new or NOS ones around. But thanks to an absolute saint and genius, you can now, for a limited time, get new ones in a choice of colors. Here's the link:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/swords-of-fury-custom-ramps

Most people get clear...that's what I did. It needed a little dressing up though, to hide some of the hardware, etc.

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I scanned some of the stonework plastics and made some decals to put on selected areas of the clear ramp. Also put a few select colored flex LEDs under it. This thing now looks fantastic. I used to complain that SOF was a very poorly lit, dark game. Not any more : )

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Let's face it, this is a cheezy game. So in view of that, I added some useless toys. Here's my LED lit Balrog and Lionman. Yes, you can actually get a toy Balrog. Just check Ebay. There's a few of these action figures around from about 20 years ago. It was some sort of Lord of the Rings toy made before the movies came out.

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Of course I could not leave well enough alone. Before I even started working on this game, I made a helmet topper of the "Titan". It is a spartan toy helmet from Amazon. I painted it hammered steel, wired in an LED socket, glued it to a doll stand from Hobby Lobby. Mounted it with velcro, wired in to one of the back box 6.3v lamps. Did I go too far?

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I also put a SOF sword keychain plastic over the shooter lane. I like it. Yes, I know, more cheese.

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The spinner decals are almost always worn out on these machines. Of course there are no official ones for sale. I had to take off my spinners and scan them, then redraw them in Photoshop. I printed them on vinyl decal paper, laminated with mylar, and applied them. They as good as the factory original.

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The white stand up targets were yellowed and dirty. Rather than replace them, I put the faces of bad guys on them. I scanned some plastics and made decals on white vinyl, laminated with mylar. I like the look. Hitting targets with the faces of bad guys is always more fun : )

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I added some LED-RGB lighting to the underside and backside of the cabinet to add some ambiance.

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Clean, colorful, great sounding, and working like new. After paying Retail and then adding all this stuff, I probably put $1000 more into this machine than it would sell for. But Swords of Fury is worth it!!!

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, need additional photos, sources, etc!

Sincerely,

calico1997

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P.S. LIONMAN!!!

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Yes, the Release the Titans decal is important and basically okay to use. It is actually one of the most usable ones and also probably the most needed one. Worst ones are the 1X, 2X, 4, 50K, 100K...any of the ones with numbers are pretty bad. It's the black ink on illuminated inserts that is transparent. But maybe you will get a better "batch" than I did.

Here's what the not-so-good insert decals do when lit...

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I have my original plastics for sale on ebay at the moment. Also I plan to sell my original set of black upper and lower ramps, and also I have a couple translites to sell. Just FYI

If you are referring to my clear flipper buttons that I installed, I initially had some difficulty, but as I recall I just "bent" the copper contacts a little further in toward the buttons until it all worked normally. It was not really an issue. If you need a photo, let me know.

Someone asked for better pictures of the Balrog and Lionman figures. Pics and source information below. I pulled the legs off both figures and mounted them on top of the game plastics using 3M poster putty. On the Balrog, I painted his hair white, drilled a hole in the back of his hollow head and inserted a red LED. Then wired it to the GI.

Balrog is a figure made by Toy Vault many years ago. It was Lord of the Rings before the movie was made. Can be found on Ebay for about $20. Lionman is from Papo action figures and is currently on Amazon for $13.

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