But all of that delicious white bread....

Interesting will have to try that with some about to be moldy bread.

theres children starving out there and we are cleaning our score reels with bread..lol /s

Tried this on a Gottlieb score reel and all I got was bread crumbs and a still dirty reel

Unfortunately it didn't work very well for me either but it was on some United bowler reels from the 50's.

Glad it did the trick for you though.

Wouldn't a barely damp sponge be about the same as a slice of white bread? Without the whole crumbling and falling apart thing?

I dunno. White bread sounds a bit racist to me. Have you even tried using pumpernickel?

(If you don't like this one that's okay. My wife is constantly telling me I'm not as funny as I think I am.)

Try this stuff. It never breaks down even if you eat it.

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"Helps build strong bodies 12 ways" Damn I'm old.

That stuff is tougher than Magic Eraser!

Don't put peanut butter on it first!

Wow, those old commercial's for Wonder Bread are to much..... eat some for breakfast, lunch, & dinner to be big & strong

That stuff is junk, I prefer whole wheat or rye, something with some body to it so maybe its best use is to clean score reels, you do have to be very careful with some of those Gottlieb reel's as the ink is very easy to remove.

Wonder Bread-

Endorsed by the same people that thought it was a good idea to stand out in the Nevada desert and let the atomic bomb blow your hair back.

I was a Roman Meal kid. I knew I was eating healthy. They told me that on TV.

Welcome back Odin! This place was sadly missing your Twisted sense of humor!

Thanks! As long as I've got that Magic Clock, I'll never forget about you, Stashyboy.

Those were the good old days before we entirely fished out craigslist and e-bay for EM deals.

Yeah, no great deals here on the east coast either. Glad you're still enjoying that game. For the record, back on topic, I've tried the bread technique and didn't work for me either. I sometimes use waterless hand cleaner but oftentimes just meticulously clean the score reels by hand avoiding any use of water.

I don't remember that brand, where I lived it was Millbrook bread.

I've had several games lately where the score reels were impervious to water and even mild soap with water. I'm not sure if there was some kind of defect with the very fragile ones, or some type of condition after manufacture which causes the ink to be so fragile, or what.

I just did 16 reels on Big Indian. I used diluted Simple Green sprayed on a rag on the numbers followed lightly with Novus 2. No issues.

On the inside sprayed the diluted Simple Green on and wiped off. No issues at all20190713_160923 (resized).jpg20190708_190702 (resized).jpg

I clean dozens if not hundreds of score reels each year and I have found some sets will self destruct just looking at them and other sets will put up with just about anything you throw at them. I am a Mean Green, Simple Green, or other similar cleaner guy followed up by Novus when necessary. If you have a set that will "put up with just about anything" this method works great (even on earlier 5" metal wheels).

On the flip side if you happen to have a set with numbers that are going to come off regardless of what you do it is hard not to mess those up. Thankfully I am cleaning up reels to sell not reels in machines so if I mess up a set the rest of the parts just become parts to repair other reels. If you are fixing up a machine and have a set that isn't going to clean up without paint loss it is a lot tougher.

I don't know exactly why some sets are so hard to work with and other sets are a breeze. I am thinking maybe the way machines were stored over the years but I have never figured out exactly why the numbers wipe off so easy on some of them. Originally I thought maybe one company was different than another, or one era of machine was better or worse. But after doing hundreds of reels I realized there is not a real pattern I can follow.

Percentage wise it seems like less than 10% are a PITA. Thankfully since I am cleaning these up for resale I really don't worry about the ones I destroy because I wouldn't want to be selling them to people anyway. One thing I can say holds true pretty much 100% of the time. All reels in a machine fall into one category so if you test one reel and have issues it is likely you will have issues with all reels on that machine.

Something else I have learned over the years is wipe off quickly if using water or chemicals. Don't spray or wipe the entire reel at one time. Do the reel in 3 or 4 sections drying each section well before moving on to the next area. What I typically do is clean the reel in 4 sections. Then after that I give the entire reel a quick final wet wipe and quick dry wipe. If I am not happy with end result I do a little follow up with some Novus.

You can also use bread to clean the dust off cardboard back drops on things EM shooting games etc.
It works pretty well because you don't want to use liquids as it can warp the cardboard.

I used white bread on the United bowler I did years ago with great success. No liquids on cardboard reels is what ya need. Yeah, it's a bit messy, so do it outside.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/score-reel-numbers-coming-off-in-water-question

Post 10 shows a before and after from mine.

I just tried this purely out of curiosity and they came out super clean and shiny. Hopefully it does the same to your insides when you eat it. Thanks Wonderbread.