Millwaxx on this playfield; starting to shine a bit.

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Williams Smart Set, total restore..., pf (before and after), cab, bg, plastics. Brian Davis did the pf restore.

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That's beautiful, love the cabinet!

Very nice Ken,
What do you use to protect your touch-ups?

I have a local buddy who does the pf work, Brian Davis. auto clear is his choice

I wasn't interested in buying, and he wasn't interested in selling, at any price, so it's a win-win.

Just like a older classic car or anything build in the good ol'days you have to appreciate & admire the metalwork & hardware that we no longer see.

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Wowwie zowwie, what a sparkle. Of course you coudda clean up the leg tee

And occasionally we carry it too far, back door cleaned up.

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Heh!!
I’m crying foul.

That has got to be recoated with what.... I don’t know?

Ken, how was this back door made to reflect like this, spill the beans?

I took it to my plater and they added a layer of brass, polished it then cleared it. I did give enough instruction, they just went wild

I’m drawing the line, you’re now setting a quality standard I could never hope to attain!

Damn , I like a clean game and will hammertone back doors with copper color when originally brass color and silver for galvanized but that’s just sick. Great job!

Is this common, or is it Spanish thing (playmatic)?

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I'm cleaning up this project 65 Bank A Ball I picked up Thanksgiving day.

After a week at $275, I decided to go look at it, made sure everything was there including all the balls then gave them the $275 they were asking for and wished them a happy Thanksgiving.

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so just a question hope you don't mind and by the way absolutely outstanding work. When you fix up a game like that if you ever go to sell it do you get what you put into it or do you end up taking a loss ?

Over here people would say nice work but that's an old game and it doesn't interest me. Given the choice of spending thousands for an older classic game that is pristine, they would probably spend way to much on a beat up Adams Family

Picked this up today, now to set it up and go through it.

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Really nice looking! Do you think it originally was pure white or did it start at a cream type color?

my grail game. can not find a nice one to save my life. yours looks nice from what i can see

Hey Dono;
I'm wondering how often you see those play meters that have the black back ground with the white numbers, all my machines have the white back ground with the black letters. I do have some extra's and checked, one is like the one shown in the Atlantis.

It's in good shape overall considering the age, some dents and dings on the cab and head, and some planking near the flippers.

i sold a mint one yrs ago and thought it could be replaced.... i was so wrong.

I’ll keep an eye out for one for you.

Hey there,
I understand what your saying & yes when its time to move it on will be sold for a loss no doubt. Its a tough market down here with very little for sale so I've over paid (willing) for this example + parts all adds $$ up.
had similar experience's with SS & DMD games also, enjoy passing the time working on them i guess

thanks! not an easy title find with a great pf and BG

guess its the bug we all have. The challenge is figuring out whats wrong and fixing it, then fixing it up so it looks good, then playing it till you get bored with it ....some machines faster then others and then starting the whole process over again. Never had a machine that looked as good as yours ,nice work ...

Starting to debug this Sky Kings. First Bally machine I’ve worked on. The fuse block has some hacks that will need to be undone. One fuse is air wired, the other two are soldered in.

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I order nice fuse holders from Mouser electronics. Steve at PBR sells a similar fuse holder.

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Steve

Thanks! I will do this. Is the photo from a Sky Kings? I see that you have one in your collection. It will help me unravel the hack. The fuse label on mine is pretty much faded. Looking at yours, does it say 15A-10A-10A-8A? My guess is the 8A one is a slo-blow?

Regards,

Alberto

Getting close to wrapping up an Abra Ca Dabra

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This one is from my Fireball. Bally games are about the same. Usually an 8 Amp fuse on the incoming line, then fuses for the coils and lights. I dont have the Sky Kings schematic at my fingers, but I think 8A, 10A, 10A and a 15A.

My first game, and will always be in my collection. Wish my back glass was anywhere near as good as yours.

OXO playfield cleaned up, touched up, and finally ready for clearcoating.

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Finally finished going through every relay and stepper on my Wizard.

I decided to give a hardtop a try on this game as the playfield was pretty planked. So today I started the prep for that installation. I wanted to get rid of the ball track up top, and get the playfield as flat as possible. Some if the inserts are dead level now. Others are slightly cupped still but with the hardtop doesn't matter. Still some more work to do but getting there.

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Great machine! What's your clearcoat product?

Thanks. I use brush-on polycrylic with a foam brush. This stuff is great for covering over cupped and sunken inserts.

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wolverinetuner

Those are awesome results from the Minwax. I have only used it with a dropper to fill cupped inserts but never thought of using to clear a whole PF. Is it just a regular foam brush that you are using? If you don't mind, would you share the prep you do to your playfields and steps used to use Minwax as a clear coat?

Alberto

How long do you let it cure before reassembling the playfield and playing the pin? Do you use more than one coat? Cure time between coats, etc?

I have had an issue using polycrylic brushed on over acrylic touchups. It causes the touchups to run. Have you had this issue? I now spray only if I clear a playfield. I don't have the facilities to do auto clear so this is the best I can do.

Just my experience, I used this when I built my kids dresser. It's been 3 years and the clear has started to yellow. Your mileage may vary.

i sprayed polycrylic from minwax with the purple gun from
HF on a flash pin i refurbished last april.. six coats. ended up doing clearcoat this way because i had
been dripping polycrylic in all the sunken inserts. lots of sanding
but the finished product turned out great. im refurbing a meteor now
and i will do same.

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Beware, this is a long post, but with all the responses I wanted to give a good answer.

I’ve only clearcoated one playfield, my Snow Derby, and that was this past spring. After touchups I simply wiped off the playfield with a cloth, put foam pieces in the lamp sockets (I removed some of the foam pieces during the clearcoating and instead tried to brush around them, which seemed to work better), and masked off the kickout holes (I hadn’t removed everything from those holes like I have on this OXO). I then brushed on a coat of the polycrylic with a black foam brush I got at Lowes. After letting it dry at least 2 hours (as stated on the can), often overnight, I VERY LIGHTLY dry sanded the clear with 1500 grit sandpaper, no sanding block, just a piece I folded in thirds and folded the top “flap” of that up for a handle to hold onto. (The first time I actually started to use 220 grit as stated on the can, and I used a sanding block, but DON’T, it went right through. I lost some paint and had to do some correctional re-painting.) My purpose of this sanding at this point was just to rough up the coat slightly to help the adherence of the next coat.

I repeated that process at least 3 times before LIGHTLY dry sanding the most recent coat with 220 grit (I always used a smilarly folded piece, never with a sanding block).

I probably went through this 3-coat process at least 4-5 times, with at least 12-15 coats applied. However, I made the mistake of leaving in raised inserts, which required a lot of clear to end up at that level of thickness. (This time I removed the raised inserts and their glue and re-glued them level with the playfield, so I anticipate fewer coats of clear.)

After maybe 6-9 coats of the clear, I started dripping larger amounts over cupped inserts with each coat (I just let it drip off the foam brush), and by then I felt comfortable using 220 grit to smoothe down any “humps” created by the extra clear. It was surprising how many times I had to repeat that process until the cupped inserts were all at one level (it took maybe 3-4 times).

After I was satisfied with the overall leveling of the playfield, I dry sanded in several iterations, starting with 220 grit and eventually working to 1500. I could have continued going finer, but I was satisfied with the result at that point. It had gone from lunar surface to smooth. I don’t like the idea of wet sanding a playfield, but I probably needed to do that and go to finer grit to get a new-looking shiny playfield. I don’t have that, but I ended up with a nice-looking (IMO) and smooth-playing playfield.

I imagine this was much more work than using the spray-can version of the polycrylic, but some of that I brought upon myself, as I mentioned. I also like that I can use this process inside during Michigan winters (I don’t want to spray polycrylic or paint in my basement). I don’t claim to be an expert, and hopefully things will go more smoothly (pun intended) for me this time. I like the brush-on polycrylic enough to use it again. It really did level things out.

Also, I don’t remember experiencing running of my acrylic paint touch-ups.

Back of Gay 90's almost done. Thankfully the pictures I took 5 years ago were enough to go by. I used 7/16" screws to make sure I didn't blow through the playfield. Waiting on a few parts to finish the bumpers. Being in Canada, this can take a long time.

In the mean time, making stencils to touch up the hot pink lettering on the apron and repainting the play field rails.
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Getting this ol' gal going again. Not a restoration, just needed repairs, adjustments, clean up and shop out. Made some good progress today as far as startup, reset, and everything pretty much working now. It's a fairly complex EM, with a lot of components jammed into the head.

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You should see the sample game, shorter head, now that was a tight lady

I just looked up the game on ipdb, and saw the sample version. There are some differences, like the shorter head and backglass which you mentioned. This game had a lot of firsts, especially for Gottlieb. The switch configuration on the score reels threw me at first. They changed the position of the ninth position switch on subsequent games. On this game, it's the middle switch of the three.

Yea my buddy Howard has a sample game, if any serious collector has an interest.

I think it was an off white matching the bright white areas where the posts sit when looking at the slingshot areas. Not really sure if it's even possible to get it whiter. I'm not really a magic eraser guy as i think its too abrasive and really like using 1400 grit or something.

Getting there.. Played this one at numerous locations, and never quite understood the greatness. Now that I have had it at home, and had to go through what makes it tick, I find I'm really enjoying it.

I have to guess most places were running it at a steep angle, which perhaps makes it too easy in for this layout. This one seems to be dialed in to be a bit more challenging that others I have played, which really makes it about shooting for the 5k and cycling the lit targets and rollovers.

Anyway, love the art on this one.. hopefully the LEDs didn't destroy it for you folks, I thought it came out ok.

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Just starting Top Score refurb. Overall in pretty good shape except for coin door.

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