Restoration Project: 1974 Nishijin Sophia
Well, with a week of vacation and not much to do, I decided to start the restoration of my 1974 Nishijin Sophia machine. The theme on this one is "No More War" and it has an airplane in the center jackpot; the propeller spins when a ball lands in the hole (pretty cool!!).
I bought this machine locally off Craigslist for $50, and the seller said that it worked, but his family no longer used it. It seemed to be in pretty good condition, but it needed a good cleaning as most do. It came with about 70 balls and an original user manual, which made it worth more than the $50 I paid for it!!
I started with disassembling the back of the machine. To my dismay, I found that the internal passages were coated with what looks like motor oil. There was also a fair amount of dog or cat hair through out the machine (see photos), and the jackpot payout mechanism was full of oil and hair.I'm surprised the machine worked at all!
Anyway, I cleaned out all of the oil and pet hair, then polished all of the plastic pieces with Gel Gloss, and polished up all of the metal pieces with steel wool and Blue Magic polish. I just completed reassembly of the back this evening, replacing all of the original screws and staples with new screws (see photos). I still need to rework the lights and hook them up to a 9 volt battery.
Tomorrow I will begin working on the front, starting with complete disassembly and cleaning. I will also need to touch up most of the paint on the win pockets and tulips, as most of the original color is missing. Although the original wood frame is intact and sturdy, it looks really ugly so I plan to build a replacement frame and table stand out of oak.
More pictures to come as the restoration progresses.
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幸運わんわん Luckydog or Yukiwanwan in Japanese 
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