Started tearing apart a routed T2. Game was actually flipping fine. No major wear besides lifted inserts. No mechanical or electrical issues besides the standard burnt GI connectors on the driver board. That was repaired and I already refreshed the speaker panel and replaced all the speakers.

Hoping to do a full restore.

My timing is to get everything off the playfield, cleaned, inserts removed and glued back in*, and all ready for New England spring time to throw some clear and do touch up once it gets warmer. Also in that time frame clean all metal parts and rebuild all mech. Attempt to save all plastics. If that’s not possible I’ll buy a set from Peter in butham.

Tonight I plan to remove switch matrix wiring harness and all mechanicals left on underside. Too is completely stripped. Wire forms basically just slipped out with little resistance.

*the images and more or less great on the inserts but I believe they have to be removed and reglued and releveled. I haven’t seen anyone just remove them without scraping off the art. Hopefully I can do that here.
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I get that but they need glue to prevent it from happening again. I don’t hear a lot of people going that route on here. Maybe a thin CA glue from the back.

Ok got everything off playfield. Keeping rails on for rigidity until I decide on what to do with the inserts. In the meantime I’ll clean the top with ME and 99% IPA to see what real dams ge dirt/ repaints are in store.

I’m going to leave underside t-nuts installed. They are really hard to take out and chip wood upon removal. I’ll carefully and lightly sand the underside of the playfield, glue and hammer down the thread “mushrooms” and apply a water poly underneath.

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I agree. I bought the operators party zone too and it cleaned up very nice too. I think they might have been at a vfw or similar. But oddly zero cigarette smell if that were the case.

Not a huge update. Playfield is off rotisserie and onto a table for cleanup. I am working from the back to front to get a feel for cleaning aggressiveness etc. This ball trail absolutely sucks. Its so minor i would hate to repaint the whole section just for it but its not coming out. There was very bad ball cracks before the hole. I used 320 grit sandpaper very slowly to see if i can get it out before i hit paint. The dirt must be in the paint layer which sucks. I will continue going slowly on the ball trail to see if i can work out the last bit of dirt otherwise i'll need to re do the whole section. there is the planking/ cracks but overall great shape playfield. I will also throw a small amount of wood glue on a toothpick and wipe the inside of all the raised screw holes, then I will use a ballpeen hammer to knock the wood back down.
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Completely nerding out on this one. I really wanted to see what the dirt was and how it’s lodged into the paint/clear.
Ball cracks suck because it splits the paint layer. Small specs and stuff you can actually get a gauge for how deep they are embedded into the clear then I can scrape them out with a scalpel. Not saying I’m doing this for the whole playfield but if I can get just the major areas like light blue in front of the flippers I think it beats the time that would take to repaint it all.

Also I the ball cracks. Since it’s cracked through the paint layer, I feel the paint, smear, wipe excess might work well before any sort of clear coat. I’ll try this one the playfield is 100% clean and ready.

Happy Friday night!!
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It’s just a microscope head that has an adjusted Boom arm. I took the picture through one of the eye pieces using my iPhone. Wish it came out better.

What do you do in New England in January when it’s 66 degrees out. Clean your lamp boards and have a Bloody Mary.

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Yeah but then I can’t bring my dishwasher outside and drink a Bloody Mary!

Small update. Preparing for a vacation.

Cleaned lamp boards now reflowing common pins and lamp pads to remove divot. Doing minor repairs. 1 pin came out when I removed the IDC connector. 1 lamp pad lifted. High temp epoxied then pad down and will wire stitch to the traces when it dries tomorrow.

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Lamp pad epoxied back down. Cleaned. Stitched back to both sides of the traces with 3 strands of wire and fresh solder all over.
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Hand cleaning this board and noticed the cap was super wiggly. Turns out the positive lead is disconnected. Wonder it’s purposed as game worked flawlessly before I took it apart.

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Have been traveling/ sick for the past couple days. New plastic set arrived so hopefully the restore turns out nice enough to accept these brand new plastics.

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It was a mentally straining day so I decided to do work using the least amount of brain power. Sorting beautifully polished hardware. All the top and bottom hardware is done, sorted and stored away. What you see in the tumbler is the first set of coil assembly parts.
Flippers
Ball drain kicker
Skull popper
Skull drop target assembly
All coils were ultrasonically cleaned and I will print new coil wrappers.

Next on the playfield is to level the inserts. I have been looking on the usual guides here but wish there was a more in depth tutorial on heating up inserts. Like temperature, how close should it be, etc etc. they are not lifted a lot so hoping to push them back level and glue with epoxy on the underside.

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Yes that's my goto. Under the microscope these dirt particles go all the way down to the paint layer almost.

Yup, every day!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/hep-this-week-9-17-18/page/120#post-5422827
was already tagged as a key post in his thread.

I have to do the skull popper and flipper brackets again. I overcrowded the bowl and those may have interlocked. So they didn’t get clean and now there is metal to metal marks etc. I circled an area that it happened to. Everything is nice and polished.
Two mechs rebuilt.

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4 more down. If anyone is curious I’m using Astro brite heavy paper for the coil wrappers. I use clear packing tape to make it more resilient and double side tape at the wrapper joint. It’s not 100% original but looks close enough.

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Does it come in the needed colors? Or do you print the color?

I’d really appreciate that. I’ll pm you.

Ok so I was waiting on some Marco parts to finish the mechs. Ran out of the flanged coil sleeves. Didn’t have the special thin washers on some ball popper assemblies. New drop target the replacement Sticker for the target sucks so I scanned mine in and will try to make a new one. But all coil assemblies are complete.

Moved onto ramp. Structurally almost perfect besides the top middle mount. Removed underside sticker and with flour and IPa, removed adhesive. Looks like new. Will get double side clear tape to put it back on. Cleaned ramp with novus 2. Then dawn dish soap and hot water. Flame polished it. It was my first time doing it with a kitchen torch. Came out nice. There is faint marks still but don’t want to risk bubbling the plastic.

Last I’ll flatten out the top middle mount which has sunken down and cracked. I’ll use my heat gun for that.

Want to finish this is because I’m getting a project pin this weekend.

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Will have some more time on this due to current events. Cleaned all inserts with sprayway (said it’s safe on plastic) and pointed qtips. Sanded the back with 150 and will coat in satin poly tomorrow.

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So all inserts were heated then pressed down with a clamp. Then epoxied along the edges. Playfield was cleaned enough to make scans if anyone needs them. I am going to try and remove the ground in dirt around the pop bumper rings. It’s so ground in I think it will be very close to the paint layer. But I figure I’d need to repaint due to the dirt and I would need to repaint due to removing paint also so it’s a loose loose if I don’t try.

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So for an update. Cleaned the playfield. Sanded with red scotch brite (~300 grit) and touched up all the keylines around the inserts. A few minor touch ups and cleared the playfield today. I’m uncertain if I need more touch ups or will use this as the final coat after sanding/ flatting/ buffing. We’ll see how it goes. The areas I would repaint would be hidden under posts etc so I’m wondering if it’s worth it.

I’m working on Batman forever too so maybe when that’s ready to clear, if this has settled or something I might hit it again. FYI I used about 6oz of clear if anyone is interested. Perfect day 75 and low humidity. My pop up tent/ booth actually blew over and got destroyed. It knocked the playfield into the grass but luckily it was cured enough to not cause any damage. I’m not going to lie I almost cried when I saw it from across the yard.

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Just finished with hopefully final clear application.

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Sanded flat up to 3,000 grit then hit with medium cut, swirl remover, and polishing compound. Besides cleaning the slots, the playfield is done.

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Started re-assembly. All the hardware was polished and tumbled before hand. All mechs were rebuilt ready to go. Glad I did so I can start right away. Ultrasonically cleaned the switch harness. Rebuilding all microswitches. Figured I would tumble the actuators since you will see them from topside. I bought all new GI sockets. Need to wait until those get in.

I still however need to refrain all ball guides and metal ramp. All stand ups need new target faces. Pinball life didn’t sell any so I need to do a Marco order as well.

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No. I made a set out of oak. But yeah essentially the same thing.

Taking my time on switch harness. All switches rebuilt with new diodes and cleaned up. Any bad looking ones will be replaced. All standup targets get disassembled and new target faces. They will also be cleaned and re-riveted together.

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Finishing up GI sockets. All new and used color correct wire. Mcmaster did not have color-striped white. So I used the string color and just white 18ga. Tried to be neat about it.

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I was aware of this but completely forgot until after I ordered the wire from Mcmaster-carr.

FYI 50' of 18 gauge wire is ~$9 at mcmaster-carr and color correct wire from planetary is ~$2.25/ 10'. So its a decent price with not much markup for getting perfect re-wire jobs.

Ok so switch harness and GI is 100% complete. Next will be placing lamp boards ad LED’s. Then cleaning and placing lamp harness.

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Current status. Topside build is on pause. Waiting for cliffy set and Mylar set. Bottom side is almost done. Few more coils to wire. Waiting to place target mech due to cliffy set.

I regrained all guides besides two long ones. Also need to polish wireforms which I have been dreading. Also building up plastics. FYI color comparison from @buthamburg’s set. Looks great!!

Also built lighted back panel thanks to Averell providing the decal. Waiting on quote back to get it printed.

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It lives! Hooked playfield up to the back box. All lights/ GI/ flashers/ coils work as expected. Very happy about that.

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Made a new ramp flap for the left metal ramp. Came out pretty good.

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Good point. I’ll make a CAD drawing of mine to provide.

I’d go with .007” ss spring stock too. Instead of the blue tempered stuff.

Good morning, I have not forgotten about this project. I was waiting for some cliffy's last October and then decided I finally wanted to finish my unfished basement. Half of it is a game room and the other half a theater room. I've always wanted this since I was a kid. Now that the basement is complete I can focus on finishing this up. Just minor assembly things that are left and a final vacuum and cleaning. I do have rock hard duct tape residue on my skull that I need to figure out how to remove and refresh the original skull. That and there is slight fitment issues with the skull and new plastic set/ existing mounting holes. Its not anything terrible, but just some very tight fits/ deflection going on that I need to sort out.

I also had to ditch the lighted backpanel. I tried using the double sided tape that is used to adhere graphics to the underside of ramps but any unevenness or bubbles showed very badly as dark spots when lit. I then cleaned off all that adhesive and tried optically clear adhesive that is UV activated. that would have worked GREAT, however, I used too little in some areas and again, showed up as streaky, dark spots. On my attempt to remove the translite material, I ripped it. I can work on that in the background (i want to try buying the image on backlit sticker material) but I want to get this completed in the next 2 weeks for some friends are coming over.
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Before/ after of the skull. There was dried duct tape adhesive on the skull that I had to remove and it took some paint off so I decided to refresh it.

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Rustoleum metallic silver spray paint. Black was hand painted in

I’ll have better pictures soon but it’s done. It’s been so long I have not bothered to restore the cabinet so the playfield is 100% done. Threw it in and all worked fine, no issues.

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Because this took so long I threw it back into the un-restored cabinet. I'll probably restore that thing next summer. Need to finish up with finish work in the basement and make more progress on my batman forever restore. Here is some pictures. I realized I am not good at taking playfield pictures. Ill take some pointers if you have them.
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