Someone once told me that Shay often tells people when asking about a glass that it’s his last one. I know he’s told me that a couple times also. Probably helps encourage a quick purchase if there is FOMO.

Regardless getting a new silk screened glass from Shay or Webb is always a treat. And Marble Queen is a deserving title from what I understand.

You guys are too kind. I believe the only thing better than owning some fun machines is having the opportunity to share with others. I'm just Northeast of Philadelphia and routinely have guests. (no charge )

Happy Holidays,
Joel

Haha, that's kind of funny. I hadn't even thought of that.

Joel, that is awfully generous..! Hey, I'll bring you a bottle of wine next time I'm driving up the east coast?

Hoping someone here can lend a hand. I just got my first woodrail, a 1958 Williams Soccer Kick-off. It's in pretty good shape and I'm excited to dig in. There weren't any bolts included for the head, looks like it takes 3. I'm trying to figure out what size bolt/washers I need to secure the head to the body. Does anyone have any idea?

Also, has anyone had success sourcing reproduction plastics for a Williams woodrail? Mine are toast. Does anyone know somewhere that could make these?

Thanks in advance.

The bolts and washers are the same length/size as ones holding motor board to the bottom of the cabinet.

Thanks, I'm going to check that out.

Have to agree on oldcarz. What a fine gentleman. Had me downing a Philly cheesesteak an hour before dinner with an old friend. Better eats than the dinner, too!

Looking for some Genco coils.

J-121
J-221

Any and all help appreciated.

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I’m working on a Williams Saratoga and got everything mechanically sound. I am moving on to restoring the playfield and was glueing inserts when I glued one too high. It’s going to have to be broken out as it’s epoxy.

Does anyone have an insert for sale I can use to replace this number 5?

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I know it’s not helpful to hear this after the fact, but I’d always use wood glue for this on wood rails. It’s reversible and can be worked with in the future.

I strongly doubt anyone is going to have a spare matching “5” insert. Shoot me a DM if you want a hand recreating that “5” art work, in order to create a decal for a new blank insert. You will also want to think about trying to match the aged yellowing, as a new insert is going to be stark white compared to all the others. It will stand out like a sore thumb.

Here is the completed artwork. I think it emulates original pretty well. Original stuff was not a computer font but hand lettered so there is inconsistency in the letters shape, size and thickness. I did find this font in adobe illustrator and did manipulate it some to make it less uniform. If anyone wants the file PM me. I'm sure you can make this with inkjet decal paper.

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Here are some pictures of the latest project. It was a Lady Robin Hood I purchased within an hour of my house. It had a crappy backglass, so before going to see it and buy it I checked Shay's website.. it showed in stock so I bought the game. Got it home and ordered the glass, only to get a note from Shay that he had sold out.. ugh. So I ended up finding 4 pinballs for sale that included a Lady Robin Hood with a Shay Backglass, so I bought the lot and as it turns out the PF in that Lady Robin Hood is pretty nice.. as you can see in the pics. Still waiting on a Jones plug for the back box since one is broken, then it's on to getting this beauty finished. I did add some new instruction cards and cleaned as well as rerubbered the PF. It's just so nice I'm not going to do much else except I did clean the cabinet more after these pictures were taken. It cleaned up nicely.

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Nice Lady Robin Hood. In a group purchase a few months ago I picked up a Lady Robin Hood, Humpty Dumpty, Alice In Wonderland and Jack & Jill. Working on LRH now, How many balls and what size did yours come with? Any chance I could get copy of your instruction cards you created? Thanks

Those card files are available from my website http://www.inkochnito.nl
Look in the Gottlieb section.
I have files for all but Humpty Dumpty.

Peter
http://www.inkochnito.nl
If you like my work, please send me a donation via Paypal.

I'm trying to get a coin slide working on my 1948 Buccaneer. I have what's likely the original nickel slide, but it's pretty much stripped of all components. I also have a quarter slide from a parts bin which seems like it should work. There was a great post from TimMe describing how the coin slides work, but I can't figure out how the coil armature right below it is supposed to interface with the locking dog on the slide. Any tips or pictures of what I might need to make the quarter slide work?

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I was looking at ipdb for images of WMS Times Square from 1953 and noticed that the cap on the bottom center pop in the promotional photo is chipped (see photo below). I suppose that the machine in the photo had been tested for gameplay and a direct hit caused the cap to chip, but you'd think that they'd put on a new cap for the promo photo.

Promotional photo at: https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2570

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The cap in the same position on my machine also was chipped the same way so I replaced it with an intact one, but an occasional good direct hit will knock the cap off the pop (and luckily it hasn't been chipped yet).

Also, the 1949 WMS parts catalog shows a ball gate with a plastic cover (red, presumably) and photos of a few WMS machines from early 1950s show a ball gate with a red plastic cover, but the same promotional photo of Times Square shows the gate without a plastic cover (see photo below). Anyone know if WMS only use these during certain years?

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Not sure if you're looking for one, but PBR has reproduced those ball gate covers, call and ask Jimmy. And they shouldn't be coming off if the correct screws and washers are used

Thanks Walt!

It's not clear to me whether or not Williams put these covers on ball gates of Times Square (or other machines from that era). The promotional photo shown above for example suggests they did not, while the 1949 Williams catalog suggests that they were at least available. I have looked at lots of photos of early to mid-1950s Williams machines on ipdb and while I realize that the photos were taken well after the machines were originally produced (and so the gate cover could have simply gone missing over this long period of time), only a few photos show a machine with a plastic ball gate cover (and it's possible that owners added the cover instead of it being installed at the factory).

I scanned most of those Williams promotional photos for ipdb (out of the Steve Kordek Archives, and in some cases the Tom Cahill Archives), so I've seen all kinds of weirdness in them - instruction cards for different games, incorrect bumper caps, strange ball wear, retouching, etc. Keep in mind that you're a pinball nut looking at a zoomed in 600 DPI scan of an 8x10" photograph that was likely a contact print of an 8x10 negative...while the actual purpose of the photographs was to produce those fuzzy dot-screened little images on the mass-produced promo flyers of the day, and sometimes even smaller dot-screened images in ads in trade rags.

So while they can sometimes be a priceless reference for how the game was "officially" supposed to look... they also have to be taken with a grain of salt, as they were usually thrown together from whatever they had laying around in Engineering the day of the photo shoot. A game that had been internally tested, a game that had been location tested, sometimes a game that had been tossed together just for the photo shoot and then the game never went into production.

One of my favorite photos was a glimpse behind the scenes of the process:

https://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2485&picno=63125&zoom=1

<Haha, quoted my post when I meant to edit it>

Thanks for the info frobozz (and for scanning all those photos)!

To get a better idea on the use of red plastic covers on ball gates of early 1950s Williams machines I again looked at photos of machines and promotional photos/flyers on ipdb but this time I took notes!

In brief, most promotional photos/flyers of machines from 1950 showed a ball gate with a plastic cover (it was hard to tell from the images whether Dreamy and Nifty had one or not and I didn't look at details of earlier machines). On the other hand, promotional photos/flyers of only a few machines from 1951 (Control Tower and Harvey from early '51 and Arcade from late '51) and none from 1952 and 1953 (I didn't bother looking at later machines) showed a plastic cover on the ball gate.

While there were some exceptions, most photos of machines from 1950 showed a ball gate with a red, plastic cover (including Dreamy and Nifty, but one photo of a Nifty showed a white/beige cover). Only a few photos of machines from 1951 to 1953 showed a gate with a plastic cover: Control Tower, Shoo-Shoo, and Snooks from 1951 (but not Arcade nor Harvey which had them in their promotional photos/flyers), Hong Kong from 1952 (just one photo, another showed a gate without a cover), and Nine Sisters from 1953 (again, just one photo with a cover, two others showed gates without covers).

And so, all this suggests that Williams included red, plastic ball gate covers through 1950 and then this practice tailed off and eventually stopped in 1951.

In terms of ball gate styles, it looks like Williams used the typical ball gate found on other machines from the era up to sometime in 1954 as shown in the images below (top image from Williams 1949 catalog (gate with plastic cover) and bottom image from the Times Square (1953) promo photo from ipdb (gate without the cover)).

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And then sometime during 1954 they switched to a different style gate (as Gottlieb also did in late 1954--but the "new" Williams one is a different style than the "new" one used by Gottlieb). This new gate did not have a cover (like the new Gottlieb one) as shown below in the Band Wagon (1955) promo photo from ipdb. Based on images at ipdb, the switch over to the new type of ball gate occurred sometime in mid-1954.

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Here's an addendum for an additional Williams ball gate style that appears similar to those included on bingo machines and was included on three of the four machines with the Star Feature from 1954 (photo below from the Colors (1954) promo photo from ipdb). The gate opens a switch that is associated with the Star Feature circuit. It was apparently included on Colors (1954), Spitfire (1954), and Peter Pan (1954) (or at least is found on the promo photos of these); oddly, it's not shown on the promo photo of Star Pool (1954)--instead the photo shows the older gate style without a plastic cover.

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Just finished getting a 1954 Williams Colors cleaned up and running. A few minor items left to go (including better aligning the flippers and one of the caps as I can now see in my photo!), but it seems to be playing correctly.
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Colors is one of four machines with the Star Feature (also included on Spitfire, Star Pool, and Peter Pan from 1954). The Star Feature can be played with insertion of a second nickel (which seems to be somewhat similar to the 1954 Gottliebs with the Double feature). Essentially the Star Feature is a match feature for the 10,000s score for every ball played. At the end of play of a ball, a “random” number between 00 and 90 lites up on the backbox. If the number matches the 10,000s score, the player is awarded a star (lites up on backbox). Two stars award 5 replays; three stars award 15; four stars award 50 replays; and five award 100 or 200 replays depending on the machine’s settings. The machine also includes a three digit replay stepper/counter (similar to those on bingo machines—see photo below of inside of backbox). So far I have only won up to 15 replays with this feature. The machine has a knock off button on the bottom of the cabinet for removing replays. And like bingo machines (or at least what I know of them), if the machine is powered off with replays available, all replays are subtracted from the replay stepper when the machine is powered on again.
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The machine also awards replays for certain scores and by special when lit rollovers and gobble holes that are lit after accomplishing particular goals (making all number 1, 2, or 3 lites). The machine has two bagatelle fields on the bottom of the playfield—balls in gobble holes or that go through the lanes below flippers will kick a ball in one or both fields. Also includes impulse flippers. The main ball gate has a switch in it that resets the Star Feature after each ball played.

Most parts were intact. Playfield still needs some retouching and all inserts needed leveling. The only thing missing was the bell and clapper on the 10k stepper.

Thanks for going through all of that for us. What a cool machine.

Thanks to dr_nybble for his files of the apron and Star Feature instructions for Spitfire and novaguy for a scan of his Colors instructions card, I was able to adapt and print these for my machine.
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Mine came with typed up and laminated instructions which included a much more conservative score settings for winning replays, a typo ("INSTRCTIONS"), and wrong number stated for the number of replays awarded for 3 stars--should be 15 instead of 10 (i.e., the cumulative number of replays (15) awarded for two (5 replays) and then three (10 replays) stars). I thought about keeping these on the machine, but the apron and attempt at reproductions of instruction cards look nice and provide more complete details about game play.
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Short story: Apparently two different schematics were issued for Colors (Williams, 1954). One for a machine featuring the Star Feature and one without this feature.

Long story: I ordered a schematic from The Pinball Resource when I first began working on Colors. When it arrived, I was curious about the circuits associated with the Star Feature and so began to look for them on the schematic. These included circuits for coils and switches associated with the "Star Unit" stepper, the "0-9 Unit" stepper , a "Numbers" relay, a "Match" relay, a "Special" relay, a "2nd Coin" relay, and a "2nd Coin Trip" relay that were each clearly labeled as such in the machine. But to no avail, I couldn't find these items on the schematic, nor could I find circuits associated with the various lites associated with the Star Feature. But other relays that appear to be uniquely associated with Color were apparent and so it least seemed partially correct. The schematic I received indicates a date of June 17, 1954 and says, "WILLIAMS COLORS 6-17-54 ORB REVISED 8-5-54 AM[?] REVISED 3-20-54 WLP" as shown below.
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I called Steve and asked if by chance he has or is aware of different versions of the Colors schematic and if I understood correctly, he said that the schematic he has came with archive materials from Williams and that it was the only schematic for Colors that he is aware of. He also mentioned that he had distributed a couple of copies of the Colors schematic in the past and never heard any issues about the schematic not being accurate for the machine.

During this time I was also chatting with another Colors owner (@novaguy) and asked him if his original schematic for Colors had Star Feature circuits on it and whether or not it indicated the same date and info as the schematic I received from Steve. He said it didn't indicate "revised" on it and otherwise appeared complete. As seen below, this schematic is very different than the one I have which appears to be for a version of Colors that didn't include the Star Feature (which I assume was never produced). Here's the title from the Colors schematic that includes circuits for the Star Feature (with "STAR" indicated).IMG_3199 (resized).JPG

Here are images of the circuits leading to the transformer from the "non-Star version" (top) and "Star version" (bottom) schematics. The circuits are the same, but there are differences in drafting styles. [My Colors though doesn't have a service outlet as indicated on both schematics nor can I see a spot where a service outlet was installed and then later removed.]
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Below too are snippets of the circuits for lites from the non-Star version (top) and Star version (bottom) schematics. Notice how the Star version includes a circuit for the 2nd Coin lite (which lites up on apron after the first coin is dropped) while the non-Star version does not. The remainder of the Star version schematic appears to also include the rest of the associated circuits for the Star Feature (not shown).

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According to Clay's info on Williams woodrails (http://www.pinrepair.com/wmswood/), Cue-Tee (7/54) is identical to Star Pool (7/54) except for the inclusion of the Star Feature on Star Pool. Colors was the second machine with the Star Feature and so perhaps Williams originally planned for Colors to not include this feature or they were going to release two different versions of the machine.

Hello woodrail group. I’ve poked around Pinside looking for any recent discussion of value for a Williams Screamo (1954 woodrail). Not seeing anything. Anyone have a sense of current market value for it, please? Assume fully working and above average condition, please. Or if I overlooked a recent post or thread, please direct me. Thanks!

2012 Mr.Pinball Price guide states
$725
I might figure it might be worth $1000 now in in real nice condition
Though hard to tell as woodrail have lost some of their luster in the collectors market,
except for a few key collectible woodrails.
Probably get $500 easy

You might be right Tom, 2018 guide has it at $850.

pinwiztom
poppapin
Thank you both.

Not sure how I missed this. I paid $500 or $550 for a mostly working Screamo about 2 years ago. Tic tac toe part wasn't working properly, but is now. Here are pics, so you can compare...

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Having a startup issue on Sluggin' Champ. Points and 100,000 stepper are resetting to the -1 position, bank is reset, ball drop into the trough and score motor is running. The 10,000 Stepper is not advancing or finding zero. I operate is manually and it appears it can't find the zero. Any ideas are appreciated. Thank you.

If the circuit to the 10k step up coil is like others from the era (I'm looking at Twin Bill's schematic--it doesn't have a points stepper (has two 100k steppers) but I assume it should be roughly similar to Sluggin Champ), it goes through a NO MOTOR 1A switch (that should be closing as the motor turns) and the rivets associated with the -1 position on the 100k stepper. Presumably one or the other isn't completing the circuit to the 10k stepper or there's a problem with the 10k step up coil (disconnected wire at lugs, bad coil, etc.). To rule out potential problems with the 10k stepper, if you manually advance the 100k stepper so that the motor stops does the 10k stepper work as it should?

Again, if the circuits are similar to other machines from the era, when the 10k stepper goes from 90k to 00k (when you are operating it manually), it should cause the 100k stepper to step up from the -1 to 0 position. This then should open the circuit to the motor (and the motor should stop running). At least on the Twin Bill schematic, the circuit from the 10k stepper to the 100k step up coil goes through rivets associated with the -1 position on the 100k stepper. And so, given that your 10k stepper isn't stepping up on its own and manually stepping it up isn't causing the 100k stepper to step up, my guess is the the respective circuits through the -1 position associated rivets on the 100k stepper aren't closing. Check that the wiper fingers are making good contact to associated rivets and wires are attached.

Good luck!

I may have spoke too soon, on the Hawaiian Beauty (1954) schematic, the circuit to the 100k step up coil is completed (when the 10k stepper steps from 90k to 00k) through MOTOR 1A switch, a NO ON BALL RELEASE switch, and a -1 switch on the points stepper. And so perhaps your problem is with the MOTOR 1A switch.

If you have images of your schematic (for circuits associated with the ADD 10k coil and the M-relay), this could help narrow the issue down too.

Thank you for the help. I rechecked and cleaned the -1 switches on the points unit and it is now resetting. I had assumed these switches were good since the balls were dropping into the trough. Whoops.

On to the next issue. The rollovers are tripping the relays, corresponding lights going out on the playfield and on in the backbox. But they are not scoring 500,000 points like they are supposed to. Any thoughts on that issue?

I don't know Sluggin' Champ, but it sounds like there are individual relays for rollovers associated with some feature. Is there also a 500k relay? Presumably the individual relays or rollovers would complete a circuit to engage the 500k relay and then a couple of NO switches on the 500k relay would close: one completing a circuit to the motor and then another that completes a circuit to the (M) 100k relay (through a MOTOR 1A switch that should pulse five times). If there is a 500k relay, is it engaging when a rollover is hit? If so, does the motor engage when the 500k relay engages?

Good luck!

There is a 500K relay. It is on the bottom board. One switch was out of adjustment, got that straightened out and game is playing great again. Thanks for the help!

tfduda Colors is such an intriguing game. Do you ever film your machines? If you had any interest in it, I know I would love to see video of a game played out on such a rare woodrail.

I haven’t attempted to film any but do enjoy seeing clips of machines to understand their game play and so may give it a try.

She has taken her first breath in a VERY long time.

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I'll bet the backglass is perfect too. For some reason, you almost never see a bad "Derby Day" backglass.

Scored the last brand new repro.
The original is basically glass with a bot of flakey paint

Well, you had the odd one then!

Doesn't it feel good to have the thing come online for the very first time! Glad to see you put some more life into the woodrail thread, too. I'd enjoy seeing the whole machine when you're ready to share it!

I finished my Around the World pin.

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Wow, looks amazing!!!