EBD LE Owner threw me little curveball last week. We were originally going to do Maroon "panels" to replace the original Black areas on EBD LE, but he decided to simplify the look of the game & just go with the lettering & flourishes & no 3rd color.

I took these pics early in day on Saturday & too much sunlight coming through window, (normally I take pics at night) the Gold in person is a darker more elegant gold. My cell phone makes it look washed out yellowish/greenish gold. I used same shade as I used on Flash Gordon, & it showed up ok on camera on FG at night, so I'm blaming it on the lighting. You can see how much light there was in the room in the background of the pics.

It looks good in person. Might shoot the left side tonight.

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Starting on some basic cabinet populating on Stars while I make a new Maple bottom for it.

& Yes the shooter rod plate is crooked.... it was that way from factory, anyone who thinks these games were not mass produced sloppy junk (especially Sterns) is fooling themselves. I may straighten it when I do the ground braid, or I might leave it as a character mark.

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Stars is about ready for it's new bottom.

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EK in clear. New bottom has been cut & is awaiting 2nd coat of clear urethane.

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EBD LE Gold left side. I'll give it a day or 2, & then hit the front & it's ready for clear. Phone camera still is'nt liking picking up that shade of Gold.

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New Maple bottom for Stars. Looks a little barren in there right now, but once I get the braid in, the chime box, the wiring & hold added for the on/off switch etc, it will fill in nicely.

These pics are another good example of camera distorting colors on same piece. Same camera, same lighting & different colors. Actual color lies somewhere in between.

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New leg bolts/cabinet protectors, & legs for Stars. Legs still need painted.... finding Rustoleum Hammered Silver paint is'nt as easy as it used to be pre covid.

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EK Got new legs/bolts/protectors/Maple bottom/Maple tilt board/flipper switches, shooter bushing, buttons & housings, power cord, ground braid, wiring harness ultrasonic cleaned & re-zip tied. Chime units fully restored, new coil wrappers etc.

Close up of some of the woodgrain that Maple is famous for. Shame not too many people will ever see inside the machine.

Also as a side note.... big shout out to Pinball Life. I ordered 3 sets of legs, 3 sets of siderails & bunch of other misc parts for these 3 machines last week. Shipping was pretty high, but it is what it is, I ship UPS Worldship at work every day, so I know how the rates go. (up every day it seems) This was a lot of weight in 2 different boxes, so I understood the shipping involved. Out of the blue a few days after this stuff shipped I got a refund notice in my email.... The actual shipping was less than calculated at checkout & they refunded me $50. I was ok paying the rate charged, but that is some great customer service, refunding the overage. Not too many businesses would do that anymore. I order parts for my restorations from all 3 of the "big" suppliers & by far that is a great move & will definitely push me toward using PBL even more than I already do in the future.

I had a not so great experience on my last PBR order that I won't go into, so this was a very welcomed change.

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Side rails on Stars

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Side rails & some trim on EK

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No one makes rails for Rapid fire style cabinet..... so you have to modify, good thing I'm handy with a cutoff wheel..

These are just laying on the cab so owner can see what it would look like with stainless rails.

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Stars Backbox now Blue......

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EBD LE Got front paint finished & Backbox bodywork is fully done & ready for primer.

Will be clearing the EBD Cab this week prior to re-assembly.

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EK going to be finished in week or so......

Backbox Front trim is ready for paint & clear.

Apron painted & new decals.

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Backbox mounted on EK, new rectifier etc.

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EK Inside cab just about finished up.

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I'll take a pic tonight of how I prep the cabinet for a new bottom. I was sure I would find a decent pic on my phone, but could'nt find one.

It's really all a bout cab prep. Once the cab is setup correctly, the rest is just cutting a piece of Maple 1/4" plywood on the table saw, I put 2 coats of clear gloss spar urethane on the maple (after a light sand with 220) Then the bottom gets screwed up into the main cab using 5/8" long #6 screws around the perimeter & along the side to side middle supports. & then to clean it up a bit I install 1/4" screen molding around the outer edges to hide the screws around the perimeter & just give it a slightly cleaner appearance. The screen mold gets nailed down with small flat head brad nails.

But with the way I cut out the cab in the beginning, the cut is deep enough that the depth of the bottom & screen molding is shallower than the cab edges, so it's all hidden from the sides & font etc.

Usually I leave the factory side to side wood supports, but in like the case of the Stars, they were in bad shape, so those are new in that machine. The EK, those are original side to side middle supports.

I'm never going to claim the bottoms of my machines are greatest looking thing in world. No one should ever really see the bottom, so I don't spend much, if any time really worrying about how it looks down there. I concentrate on stuff people see when game is setup.

This is my Meteor/Star Gazer conversion project, but it gives an idea of how I cut out the factory bottom & get it prepped for a new maple piece.

The factory machined a slot in each side, the rear & front for the bottom to fit into & then the sides & end pieces are all put together with the bottom in place, basically tongue & groove.

But I just remove the bottom & then remove all the remaining wood that would have been under the "groove" slot to hold the original bottom in place. It leaves a very nice, aprox 5/8" deep "shelf" for the bottom to sit on & give me material to screw up into sides & rear/front of the cabinet. & then like I said I just put wooden screen molding around the edges to hide the screws.

I hand cut this wood out & make sure everything is flat & straight with a special dremel bit. takes about 45 minutes to an hour remove factory bottom & trim the cab up in preparation for the new bottom. I typically fill in any imperfections & prime as well.

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Stars backbox getting color.

New Maple tilt board, new power cord etc. Not finished obviously, but can see the general layout of how things will look.

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New BG came in for EK.

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Stars BB continuing on toward clear.

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Ground braid almost done on Stars. Will need couple more finishing touches when I actually install the side rail & front trim ground wires this weekend, but overall looking pretty decent. I did end up straightening the factory crooked shooter bracket, I guess I'm too anal in the end to let that slide.

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Pulled the display board out of Cheetah to finish installing the wiring harness on it.

Coin door for EK in million pieces.

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Cleaned up & painted the board holders on Cheetah, new standoffs installed.

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Stars..... apron stripped to bare metal & painted. Stars Board holders cleaned & painted along with some EK coin door parts.

Stars Chime box unit in process.

Stars Backbox, EBD Cab & EK Backbox Trim all sitting in the paint booth awaiting clear, which will probably be tomorrow night.

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EK Display board all wired up, new Molex housings, re-pinned all wiring, ultrasonic cleaned wiring etc.

BIG thanks to Wayne from Pinitech, I assembled these displays a while ago & had an issue with one if them with missing bottom segments on the #'s. Turns out it was just a bad solder trace, but it "looked" good. Without his help diagnosing it, I would have never found it.

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Stars backbox cleared... (I know not too exciting)

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Stars had to get a new tilt bob, as original was junk. Rebuilt chimes, just waiting on 2 more grommets to install the 4th bar. Stern used different grommets than Bally. I had Bally grommets, but did'nt have any that would fit Stern.

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I realized the other day that I never posted pics of the finished ground wires etc in Stars. So here they are.....

This cab other than the coin door & the one chime bar is pretty much done.

I HATE restoring coin doors, but this one & EBD LE are next up on the block to be done.

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EBD cleared & begun re-populating.

Legs will be painted black with gold bolts, but for now they are just new Raw Bally legs to align the leg brackets etc.

Waiting on a new shooter rod bushing as well, that's the old factory unit in there just to give it roper spacing for re-assembly.

This game is a little bit more of a "budget" restoration, hence why no new bottom in this one. That's the original tilt board that I sanded down with 220 to give it some new life.

Just ordered a new speaker for this this morning as well. Need to restore the transformer....

Also need to get the wiring through the Ultrasonic cleaner maybe tonight. I always just have to see what I'm in the mood to work on in a given evening. Will either be that or doing new flashing in the Stars backbox.

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Actually..... what I will probably start on tonight is this lovely Coin door from EBD LE. It's amazing how destroyed this stuff can get over course of 40 years or so.

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But if you are willing to give up ten hours of your life you can then have a Bally coin door that looks something like the one I did for EK over the weekend. Not quite done yet, the new coin mechs just arrived today from PBL. Still need the microswitches installed etc. I did a black inner door skin on this one just to see how I liked it. It looks ok, but I think I will go back to a more normal silverish color in the future.

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EK Backbox surround for the hinged backbox got cleared & installed. Not a huge fan of these hinged boxes. Luckily not too many Bally Solid States used them. This is the 3rd EK I have restored all had the hinged box, I know some were made with more traditional box. Don't have any plans to restore any Night Riders (Another game typically found with hinged box), so hopefully my hinged box days are behind me.

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EK is'nt quite ready to fire up yet, just some small stuff left to do. Switch adjustments, flipper adjustments, install the EK dead pop bumper decals, etc. Should be ready to bring to life sometime this week.

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So many machines to work on, so little time.

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Stars flashing in process. Not done, but closer than when I started.

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Got the chime unit finished on Stars as well as the backbox mounted.

Working on restoring the transformer parts now.

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Stars new rectifier all wired up & Transformer & cage freshened up.

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Slowly making progress on the EBD LE Coin door. Does'nt look like much, but this is the basis everything else on a Bally Coin door is built around.

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EBD LE knocker rebuilt, as well as went through the transformer & rectifier parts. New speaker, but not installed yet, maybe tonight. The Wiring harness is all cleaned & ready to install, so that will probably be the next step on this one.

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Stars legs got painted

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Few minor things left to do in EBD cab, ball tilt mech & couple PF supports etc, but overall pretty close to being done.

New power cord, new speaker, new flipper switches, Ultrasonic cleaned the wiring etc.

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