Almost finished working on this Grand Champion. It resets and plays a full game. Everything's working.

Video of the 2nd ball being played.

I want one of these.

Thanks, I have been using gloss craft paints. Same multiple try mixing to hit the right colors. But results pretty good. Sometimes in heavy use areas near kick outs and other heavy play areas will cover with Mylar. But not sure even with good wax coats how the craft paints will hold up long term.

Found and fixed an interesting problem on my shuffle alley this weekend.

I think I may be in too deep on my Miss-O....

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Why did you do that?

lol, I have dreams of a beautiful full restore, with polished switches and contacts, shiny coils, clean wires and smooth playfield... I am a little (ok a lot) worried about the put-back-together phase of the restore though.

Sorry for the snarky remark.

When I strip a playfield I remove the staples and ground braid and leave all the solder joints in place. Even if I was planning to put new ground and light sockets in place I'd leave the original intact and then transfer them over one at a time.

Don't sweat it too much. I'm sure you numbered/mapped every single solder point and it will go back together without a hitch.

Just finishing a Nip It for a customer. Fun game.....it's now on my list. I tried to buy this but it's been in the family for 30 years and the grand kids decided they want to play it.

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I don’t want to hijack the thread, but I would love to hear of how you map/number the gi circuit....I am worried about that as it could lead to shorts if done wrong..

First off, hope you took lots of photos of that side of the pf before you started taking it apart.

What I do to map it is serialize each position on the playfield/solder point with a number in sequence. ie 1, 2, 3, etc. Then I would make a small flag of tape wrapping it around each desoldered wire making a flag and marking the number on each flag to match the serialized numbers on the pf. If you don't actually write on the playfield you can take a picture of it and write on that or even make your own representative diagram and mark it. There are lots of ways. The key is to make sure you have a clear record of what goes where.

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LOL, I'd say so.

I'm often accused of being overly anal in taking games apart to clean them up and make them look nice and shiny but even I've never gone that far with a game.

You can make them really nice without going that far. Here's an example from a Big Indian I just finished up recently.

First game I ever did that with was a Drop A Card. Took everything off the motor board, took the motor apart, shined everything, new labels, the works. It's a ton of work. I wish you luck getting that back together and functioning.

Here's the before and after of that motor.

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Wow, that is some shiny....I bet it works perfectly now!

My Swing Along is getting closer to completion.

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Well, I certainly hope it still is, I sold the game awhile back.

I've got a picture somewhere of the motor board back in the game. I'll try and find it.

It's a ton of work, and you do risk messing stuff up. So far, only one game I've done I couldn't get going after a restoration like this. Fortunately a great tech got me the last few percentages back to full operation. I was close but not quite there.

Looks great

Couple minor adjustments tonight. Playing great!

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It's been a long and slow process but finally got this Little Chief from a water damaged cabinet to playing.

Lots of thanks to many pinsiders on this board.

Alberto

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looks great. What do you spray with? I have two Woodrails I’m working on and am struggling with deciding what method to protect the touch ups.

Hello.
Work on a Jungle queen Gottlieb, today is a new painting .

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nice work! How did you make the stencil?

Just picked up for free Williams 69’ Gridiron pitch and bat.

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Same one, but now it is getting sprayed.

I think I mentioned earlier I use Minwax Polycrylic semi gloss because it seems very close in finish, durability, and resistant to cleaners like alcohol to the original Plastikote Williams started to use in the early 60s. Very clean and tough stuff.

Three thin coats seems to be enough. I would have normally removed the side rails and arch, but didn't feel the need on this one.

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That Rocket with all the relays and other hardware mounted underneath, is definitely one of the heaviest EM playfields I have removed and put back in it's cabinet. There is quite a bit of hardware in the backbox and cabinet as well.

Game is super fast and fun with unique rules that don't award specials during the game, but awards replays after the game depending on how many of the seven rockets on the backglass you light up in a row from three to all seven along with the normal score based replays during the game. I have only lit all seven once, and that was several years ago. Nobody else has in the over five years I have owned it.

Beautiful job on that Rocket pf, o-din. Played one as a kid in the late 70s - early 80s at the Manitou Penny Arcade in Colorado. They had a bunch of woodrails which seemed to my 10-year-old brain to each be holding some sort of different and mysterious inner secret. Rocket stood out as the one that was so tough and if I lit 5 rockets it was a great day. And at 5 cents a play, even then it was like stepping back into a different time.

I thought Minwax polycrylic would get messed up with alcohol. I recently finished clearcoating a playfield with the gloss, brush-on version and I was going to avoid using alcohol to clean it. If it can handle alcohol, that would be great! Have you used alcohol on polycrylic without problems?

After the Polycrylic dries thoroughly in a few days, I will fine sand it, polish it with Novus 2, and then yes clean it with alcohol before I wax it.

Done the same thing with several playfields and alcohol doesn't faze it just like original Plastikoted playfields. Really like the stuff because it will supposedly never yellow either. If I want to add a touchup later, paint sticks to it and I can spray a little more over that spot too.

Thanks, that’s great news. I also did additional touchup after some of the initial coats, the paint stuck fine. It was my first clearcoat, and I really like the stuff. I leveled rough spots and sunken inserts, and it’s very forgiving. With the brush-on version out of the can, I could always put on another coat or some more on smaller sunken spots and sand it to level.

I took all the inserts out and leveled them first. Fortunately, like most Williams I have done, they remained pretty flat on top.

Elmer's wood glue is very forgiving and easy to use, and a heat gun or blow dryer can remove them again if you make a mistake or they didn't turn out quite perfect. Once I read people use crazy glue, but that is crazy. I tried it once and never again.

Change displays by score reel units on my Centigrade 37.

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On the Snow Derby playfield I was working on, I did remove and replace the 10 cupped white inserts on the race track, but I didn’t find replacements for the sunken numbered yellow bonus inserts, so I didn’t want to risk damaging them if something went wrong in trying to remove and level them. I’m pleased how the polycrylic worked in filling in the gap. I could just dab/drip a bunch on each spot until it was actually higher, then sand it down. If any were still too low, just repeat that process. The playfield itself was really chewed up in spots also. So after touchup, I used the same process to level those spots as well.

Wow, someone actually went to the extent of putting a display on a C37?

Can you show a shot from the front with electronic digitized score displays?

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Working on a really nice Four Million B.C. courtesy of one of the owners of the now-defunct Courtesy Coin in Phoenix. Thanks for the sweet deal!

I haven't played a Bally multi-ball EM in 45 years so I am looking forward to getting this back up and running again.

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Abra Ca Dabra its done, well I wish it was that quick.

I sprayed a 2k primer, prepped & then painted automotive water based color coats played around with the webbing alot before I got what I was happy with and then sprayed 2k auto clear with a flatter added in to make it look to the gloss of what lacquer would have looked in the day, I sprayed all BASF products.

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I like that from a distance the splatter/webbing is not very noticable, but up close it is apparent enough.
The job of the splatter/webbing is to take ones eye away from possible defects in the paint job or dings in the cabinet woodwork,
not to draw attention to itself; which unfortunately far too many repaint jobs
with amateur application of splatter/webbing tend to do.

Agreed Spatter/splatter is a meant as a details distraction vs attraction. The above job is not bad, I give it high grades for density (not going too heavy, biggest rookie mistake) but the consistency could be a bit better. I have redone a dozen machines and have been 100% happy with the webbing on maybe 2.I was only happy with one of these.
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Started this beast today.
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Duly inspired, I decided today was the day I get the kickout hole lights and rollover lights on my Surf Champ working. Hadn't touched anything on it since acquiring it and getting the extra ball functioning properly. There were a couple of lamps out then, but I was too anxious to play and had other projects going so I just ignored the lights. That was over two years ago. In the last month or so, a couple other lamps have failed, so...today's the day. The lights turned out to be just some burned out bulbs...but of course, no good deed goes unpunished. Now, with good bulbs in, when you hit the center rollover, the A relay activates and blows the playfield light fuse. I took the bulb out of the kickout hole lamp that corresponds with the center rollover, and the fuse doesn't blow. Hmmm....there are relays associated with each rollover button, the center rollover is 3B, and I'm looking for a brown and brown-white wire leading to a make/break switch. Brown-white wire coming off the lamp looks OK. Checked the brown-white wire to that relay, and sure enough, a green wire that runs the length of this relay bank is resting against a switch tab of the brown/brown-white wire, and has a tiny little spot where the insulation appears to have worn away. Most likely from years of vibrating against a little solder/edger of a wire 'tooth' that was sticking out. Temp fix is a piece or electrical tape over the worn spot. I'm typing this as the soldering iron heats up so I can correct the 'solder tooth' and replace a short section of the green wire. It is a rare day indeed that I interpret a schematic correctly, have enough of the right fuses in the house, AND get the fix right on the first try.

Cheers!
Bob

started tearing down and cleaning this one yesterday.

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Had an issue with GTB Vulcan player 4 and 10,000 unit would not advance during reset turns out my 1,000 unit was poorly adjusted on the edge of being closed on the rightmost switch....not sure what the correct terminology is but that was my fix for the evening.

Wasn't high on the list since player 4 hardly gets used but it's nice to have this game working 100% now.

I have a Jungle Queen. I'm pretty sure I put the coin unit disc on incorrectly. I can only start a 2 player game. Can someone take picture of where the disc needs to be when the unit is reset to the home position?
D.

Here you go, Pedleboy...JQ is next on my list. I have a mechanically binding pop bumper that needs attention.

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Thanks for the photo. Can you take a pic of the other side of the coin unit? I need to see where the "pins" on the disc are when in the home position. Thanks!
D.

Doh!

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THANK YOU!
D.

After 23 months, I have finally completed what I would consider my first restoration, Snow Derby. From dumpster-worthy to gameroom-worthy, IMO, she was officially added to the lineup tonight. What a fun spinner-ripping pin! Thankyou NicoVolta for your recent thread and video highlighting Snow Derby:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/let-s-play-snow-derby-1970-gottlieb-at-roanoke-pinball-museum

I have learned a lot in this process. Some before and after photos:
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Put the Egg Head refurb project on pause as picked up a Paddock in need of a make over, and wanted to get it done first. Have it working, and most of the way through the play field and cabinet touch ups. First time having to wood fill and paint multiple holes from too long screws driven through from someones previous work under the play field. Won't be perfect by any means, but a nice players game. Before and current pics.
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Helping a fellow pinsider un-do the ridiculous hack on his WMS Gulfstream... some goofball wired in a second transformer in the rear of the mech panel... detective work beginning tonight, should be interesting.