I put a couple of coats of clear on the playfield to ensure any darkening of the wood due to the lacquer happened, I would have to have a light spot where the decal went! The playfield already looks amazing!a couple coats of clear

Following your suggestion, I cut around the ice skate, it looks pretty good just like that but I do want the end result to be as accurate as I can.trimmed ice skate

After some problems with my laser printer, I finally got my waterslide decals done for the lines around the skate and I realized I had one last thing to check before I could proceed. I know that the 2pac can be safely cleared over decals but what if the lacquer I am using reacts to it?

Fortunately I had a wrong-sized decal I printed by accident, so I stuck it onto my test piece of playfield and sprayed a thick coat over it. Fortunately it came out just fine!
decal covered by lacquer

Interestingly, I did find that the playfield graphic becomes brittle or something with the lacquer over it as my fingernail easily scrapped off the print. It will have to be a thick coat of clear to protect the graphic!
the graphic is now easily scrapped

so that is the last worry. Now to put the decal on and start putting coats of clear on it!

Update - the decal came out great. It looks awesome, now I am just waiting for a non-rainy day (lacquer will go on milky in high humidity) and I can finish the playfield!

Unfortunately, the current forcast is rain every day for the next 2 weeks...sigh

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I am still waiting for a low-humidity day. Its supposed to snow late next week so that should work.

While I am waiting I decided to start on the head. Its not in too bad of shape, but needs some attention. the head

I am pulling each piece off and cleaning/polishing. Once it is all done it should be beautiful! I won't post every pic, but here is an example, the small bell assembly.small bell assembly-beforesmall bell assembly-after

hah, be careful what you wish for...lol

Yesterdays forecast for today was rain, todays was cloudy but no rain.... I tried to find some information on what humidity was too much, but all the info I could find was for sprayers and I have no idea if cans work differently or not...so with the humidity in the low 70% and the dew point down in the 30's I figured I would give it a try.

I sprayed it thick as it went on smooth when almost puddled but was bumply textured when sprayed lightly. In all, I sprayed 2 full cans of clear on the playfield and it looks really good!

Its hard to tell if there is enough on it or not, obviously I will be sanding and polishing - thought I have to be careful, sanding through the clear would instantly destroy the mylar graphic underneath.

Looking carefully, the lacquer follows the surface exactly, down to the smallest detail - even after a dozen thick coats it does not fill into the "low spot" where the lights are and I can easily see where the decal thickness starts and stops, much less the relatively thick mylar graphic. It may be that I can sand it down smooth and put another can or two on it. My guess is that I will have to get some regular lacquer and drip into the inserts. so not finished yet, But it sure looks pretty!
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I worked on the large bell assembly today. It was quite difficult to do. The original was dirty and crusted as expected but when I went to clean the bell it refused to clean. Even after a couple of passes with cleaner (both regular and copper) it looked like there was some kind of coating on it. It was probably originally a protective coating but now it just looks bad.
original big bell assemblydirty belldirty bell


my solution was to put a screw through it and put it on the drill. Then I used sandpaper to start wearing away the surface. I was able to get the surface cleaned up and I then went through a few passes of finer and finer sandpaper to get rid of the grain. I had planned to put a lot more work into it and get it mirror-like but I noticed I was already wearing through the "brass" coating - you can see the color change inside the bell - and so I finished with a Mothers Mag polish and called it good. Not perfect but quite a bit better than before!sanding the bell smooth
finished bellfinished bell assembly

The 0-9 unit is finished - although I have a question about it.

I had been dreading it, so many wires to unsolder and get back perfectly later. i tried documenting them but it is so difficult - "is that black with a brownish redish stripe?"wires are tough to distinguish

So I went with the tape them into place method - this hopefully means all the wires are in their correct spot when it comes time to resolder everything back.old wires taped into place

Once separated from the head, it was time to dissemble. Pretty filthy!filthy

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I read in a resto thread that the experts use toothpaste on the delicate numbers of the score reels as it is a gentle degreaser and cleaner. I figured it would be the best tool to clean the contacts and it worked great!cleaning the contactsthe cleaned wheel




When all the pieces had either been manually polished or gone through the tumbler, I reassembled the unit. Everything but the coil label - my printer just died...sigh. Then I spent the better part of an hour trying to adjust it.cleaned
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By manually pulling the solenoid I was able to ratchet the wheel around and adjust the contacts so they rest just perfectly. It should work correctly when I put it all back together!contacts carefully adjusted

and now my question - I noticed before dissassembly that the striker never actually hits the bell. Its not even close, about 1 inch awat. At the time I figured I would adjust it when I reassembled it but there does not seem to be any adjustment either of the bell position or the striker arm. Is there something that I am missing?
strikerstriker not hitting bell

they actually use toothpaste. I apply it with a soft toothbrush. It seems to work great and removes the black gunk gently and easily

Cleaned the replay unit today. It was mostly functional (slow and sticky but working most of the time) but it was gooey and black. I have seen worse but it was time to make it shine!

Careful disassembly shows it was nasty all the way to the base platereplay unit disassemblyreplay unit disassemblyreplay unit disassembly

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Then it was a long tedious set of cleaning. The smaller parts went into the tumbler but the base plate wouldn't fit so it had to be done by hand. A lot of copper cleaner was used as there were some kind of streaks of something burned onto the metal - I didn't get them all (ugh, so many corners and bends) but it looks better than it did.polishing the replay unitpolishing the replay unit

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I got everything done late today, all but the labels for the coils - my laser printer is busted, a new one is on order. But it came out quite nice.finished replay unitfinished replay unitfinished replay unit

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a little adjusting and its working perfectly!

My new printer should be arriving in january, new wrappers will be on the top of the list!

The plan is to remove all the wiring and refinish the wood so I think it will be easier to do if its just wires rather than wires and a bunch of parts hanging off. I guess we will see! As long as I can successfully solder it all back together I should be ok... (famous last words)

more cleaning today....

Fortunately I have stumbled on a better solution, By using the copper cleaner on a scrubber I am much more efficiently getting the thick burned on deposits. It does scratch the copper a bit but I feel that's an acceptable alternative to hours of scrubbing with a sponge. Just to give an idea of how tarnished these are, this is the top and bottom score reel guides. One has been cleaned and one not - hmmm, I wonder which one.using a scrubber dipped in copper cleanerone score reel guide finished

I will give it a try! all the little angles make it nearly impossible by mere physical means

I haven't posted in awhile. Work continues slowly. I've gone through all 3 score reels. original tens unitcleaned up tens unit

Next up are the relays, but after reading Vid's guide on running the wiring harness through the dishwasher, including relays, switches and light sockets...I have decided to give it a try. So now, rather than unsoldering the light wiring, I am in the process of removing it carefully in order to put the whole thing into the dishwasher. Then the whole thing will be going in!removing staples

I have done the dreadful "dishwasher" experiment. Sadly I forgot to take a picture of the wiring harness in the dishwasher.

Results are pretty underwhelming. I was hoping it would come out looking like it had gone through the tumbler. Instead, although the black dust is gone and things are cleaner, it is not bright and beautiful. I still have a lot of polishing and work to do.

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Work progresses. I decided not to unsolder the ones and hundreds score reel as they have a lot more wires than the tens did. So I did the best I could, cleaning and polishing the housing while its all still connected.

I've put all the light sockets back into the backboard. Fortunately wire memory allowed everything to go back in easy, then I stapled all the sockets in place. The ones and tens score reels have been assembled and soldered back into place except for the actual score reel itself.

Unfortunately the metal score reels were wierdly scored, there is no scratch in the metaL/paint but it has a strip of what looks like scrapes all the way around. I have been working with Peter to get a new set of stickers for them, it turns out he did not have ones that matched.

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The playfield is a full-sized mylar graphic stuck to the wood, with spray shellac on top. I tried the cans of Spraymax but it reacted with the mylar and melted it.

Major progress today!

After reassembling the cleaned and polished score reels, I soldered everything back into placescore reel guts

Then it was time to reassemble the score unit. The cleaned guides and sockets were reassembled and put into place. Finally, the reels themselves were fitted in, I believe that whole assembly is complete!
score reel guidereels in placescore reels from the front

Major progress has been achieved. The head has been completed! its not as perfect as I had hoped but still, its a darn sight better than it was, and hopefully will work perfectly when I turn it on

I noticed a bit of paint touchup is required on the outside of the head, so I will do a bit of painting before putting the head back together.

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ugh! Painting this machine has been a never ending series of problems.

Now that it has warmed up a bit, I needed to touch up the head where I missed a spot of blue when painting. I touched it up, but in looking closely I can see where the painters tape and frisket has pulled up the white. Just like the problem I had in the playfield and the main cabinet....sigh.

It looks like I will have to remove the paint and put down a sealer and primer before repainting.....

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and so the eternally slow restoration grinds on. Misstep by misstep.

After being frustrated by the paint not sticking to the head, I pulled it all off (again) and repainted (again) - this time I used several cans of Rustoleum primer white as the base coat. Then switched to the red and blue for the pattern. It STILL came off but only in the red areas! I am guessing the red is bonding better to the primer than the blue and pulling it up. I am using Gerbermask Ultra which is extremely low adhesive and the "purple" painters tape which is for delicate areas. Atleast it was minor and only in the red areas so I did some spot repair by spraying tiny spots with the red and got it passable. It is not what I had hoped for but it is passable if you don't look too close.finished headfinished head

The main cabinet has the same problem, so I stripped off the old primer (again) and switched to KILZ brand primer. It has a good rep for this kind of stuff. Of course nobody local has the spray cans but the can says it can be sprayed by an airless sprayer, and I have one of those! Since its cold outside, I set up the spray booth in the garage and got down to business.
stripping the cabinet (again) new paintspray booth

Sadly, while KILZ might be sprayable via an airless sprayer, it doesn't work well with mine. So it was back to a roller. The plan is to put a couple layers of roller down while I wait for spray cans to arrive. Hopefully I can sand it smooth and get a nice clean top coat....we will see.rollering on the primer

While waiting for the next coat of primer on the cabinet, I decided to put the head back together. It looks pretty good and is ready for power (I hope)

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at last.....it seems only 6 months ago that I started working on the cabinet!

Today, the cabinet is officially done. After 3 coats of Kilz primer and 2 coats of clear to level it, I cut out the paint mask onto my Cameocutting a paint mask

Laid down the red and then the blue, then some touchup and finally several layers of satin clear. The cabinet is not perfect but done and is back in the workroom with legs on it!
painting the redfinished cabinetfinished cabinet

woohoo!

thanks! Its good to make some progress and to move out of the garage and back into my heated workroom

The Cameo has a "custom" paper option that lets you go at least 48 inches, I am assuming you could go up to 99. The documentation says they don't recommend more than 36" as it may not be perfectly aligned but so far I've never had any trouble. The biggest issue is around trying to stick it to the cabinet, its so large it tends to twist and stick in the wrong places.....

If you are interested in the actual process of using the Cameo, I documented it while I was doing my Flash a couple years ago. At the time I did not have a scanner so I used a camera and photoshop to get an accurate scaled image, then sent it to the Cameo software for cutting. You can see the videos here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/it-was-supposed-to-be-a-simple-flash-restore#post-5229279

With the cabinet done, it is time to start that most pleasurable of activities - putting it all back together. In this case I am focusing on the underside of the playfield. I am not doing anything that will affect the hardening playfield surface, just reattaching and connecting all the underside stuff.

Anxious to get my newly repolished and cleaned assemblies in place, I screwed the main wiring harness and its relay banks into place and wired them up.
main banks in place



When I screwed in the GI lights, I realized I still had to run the bare wire side of all the GI lights. I really didn't want to remove all the assemblies so I tried to solder and run wires around them. It worked down at the bottom of the playfieldsome GI wires run



But I quickly realized the whole thing was a mistake and the wiring harness and banks had to go. So it was removal timewiring assembly removed



Much better, this now allowed me to get the common (bare) wire to the top rollover switches and GI lights soldered into place.top rollovers in



Its obvious I need to carefully go in reverse order from my disassembly pictures and not skip any steps!

I love how Pinball keeps giving me new things to learn. While disassembling the big ball trough (I guess that is what it is called) - I finally discovered how the 3-5 ball system worked. There is a jones-plug that changes from 3 to 5 ball but the big question for me was how does it know? After all, this 1965 machine has a manual push of the balls and I could do all or any of them at any time.

It turns out the switches that tell it when a ball has landed in the outhole have a jumper between them so it will count correctly in 3 or 5 ball mode. Simple and reliable! jumper on ball number switches



I also discovered a new feature I had not seen before, a spring inside the coil, between the stop and the plunger. I am not sure if its there to cushion the movement somehow or they just didn't trust the external spring to work and thought having an internal one was needed as well. Kind of an interesting piece....spring inside the coilspring inside the coil